Fashion Trauma (and other highlights of pregnancy)

The Fourth Month (Weeks 16 To 19)

Scott and I buy a baby-name book with lots of exotic, Afro-Indian names. Having no better moniker than "It" to call the baby at this point, we’ve jokingly started referring to her/him as Rajni (an Indian girl’s name) or Okechuku (an African boy’s name). Now my sister’s afraid the names might stick.

To help solve this delicate problem, a friend finds a great website with all-French first names that would sound great with Scott’s French-Canadian last name. Should we name a boy Gaspard, Clement or Julien? How about Colombe, Julie or Danielle for a girl? Then we see the film Amélie and fall in love with both the movie and its charming heroine. One problem solved.

Though neither of us is overtly psychic, Scott and I both have dreams about a baby girl. I dream about a newborn brought to me wrapped in pink blankets, whom I rock to sleep. Scott, on the other hand, can’t remember any details other than that his dream baby has "kinky" black hair.

Suffering from a major case of babies on the brain, I start cutting out pictures of infants from magazines and pasting them in my scrapbook. The downside of being lost in baby world is that I’m getting frightfully absentminded. One time I leave the house in slippers, forgetting to put on proper shoes. Another time I do my errands wearing just one earring like a deranged Backstreet Boy. So I don’t feel slighted in the least when my sister gives me Pregnancy for Dummies on videotape.

Pros: Gained 3 lbs. this month – good, according to pregnancy books, but just okay, according to my doctor. My uterus, which she rated "small" at last month’s checkup, is now growing at satisfactory rate.

Cons: Feet are still swelling, so I’m advised to go on a low-salt diet. Still have nighttime nausea, though it doesn’t seem to have affected my blossoming appetite. Have to take vitamins and supplements as large as horse pills – so big they’re filling.

The Fifth Month (Weeks 20 To 24)

Real fashion trauma sets in. Since even my garterized pants don’t fit anymore, I can’t avoid maternity. I’m finally breaking down and shopping at stores like Buntis, where the clothes are pretty but don’t have much give. Strangely enough, there are no stretch fabrics like spandex in sight for expanding bellies. Since I obviously need room to grow, my family gifts me with an assortment of maternity wear from the US with labels like In Due Time, Zero 2 Nine, Belly Basics, Baby’s Nest and Motherhood.

For the first time in my life, I’ve given in to small ruffles and Laura Ashley-ish flower prints. I soon discover that the only maternity silhouette that exists is A-line, otherwise known as The Tent. My new capri pants and denims have stretch panels in front like kangaroo pouches. Incredibly, people find me cute in this getup and protest when I dress anti-maternity. "You don’t look pregnant!" they complain. Yeah, I want to tell them, looking like an outhouse from Little House on the Prairie draped in calico print is the fashion statement I’ve always wanted to make.

We’ve bought the beginnings of a child’s library from Powerbooks – a whole shelf-ful of Penguin Classics that are a steal at P69 each. Anything with the words "secret," "wonderful" or "garden" in the titles we snap up, from A Child’s Garden of Verses to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

We can’t very well let the baby spend nine months staring at the uterine walls, so we start reading and playing music to my belly. What music to play is an issue: you’re supposed to go for pro-life sounds and keep away from anti-life noise. Without too much difficulty, I decide on Bach, Mozart and Brahms over Korn, Limp Bizkit and Marilyn Manson.

We’ve also started Baby Plus, a series of recorded percussive patterns supposed to make your baby smarter and more creative, and are rewarded with feeling the baby move. Before, the flutters were so faint they were hard to distinguish from gas.

At the second sonogram at 24 weeks, the doctor asks us if we’d like to know the sex, then announces it’s a girl. We are elated and everything is perfect except that the baby’s a bit large for her age. Considering how excited she gets in vitro at mealtimes, we’re not too surprised.

Pros: Am over nausea and appetite is back with a vengeance, so have to eat four or five times a day. At least now I’m allowed to gain one pound a week.

Cons: Ballooning belly necessitates sleeping on my side bolstered by lots of pillows, which leads to a pillow war with husband. Also have to strenuously avoid brother’s snack cabinet with his stash of Cow Label, instant yaki soba and Japanese rice crackers with MSG. Buy dried fruit, unsalted nuts, yogurt and milk drinks instead. Feel a halo growing around my head.

Cravings: Huge accessories like chunky necklaces to offset the vast landscape of belly hidden under a tent of plain cloth.

The Sixth Month (Weeks 25 To 28)

We go layette shopping at a popular department store with my sister-in-law, a real pro who’s shopped for many nieces and nephews. After many head-spinning decisions (like whether to buy a traditional crib or a modern bassinet that converts into a playpen), my advice is not to follow those layette lists they hand you at SM or Rustan’s. You don’t need 72 cloth diapers when Dr. Spock says two dozen is fine.

Lucky me, I decide to be a mom the same year that high-concept designers Philippe Starck and Stephen Sprouse put out baby lines for Target. Starck realized the value of democratic design once he had a baby of his own and presumably couldn’t find any cool baby items that didn’t feature cartoon characters. "Beautiful things don’t have to be so expensive," he says about his line, which costs US$4 and up. In a fervent amen to that, my Stateside sister Jasmin goes wild at Target, sweeping whole shelves of his merchandise into her cart. Now we have a sleek pewter-gray diaper bag, a plastic sippy cup that looks like crystal, and hammered-steel baby monitors that hang around the neck like jeweled pendants. We are truly well-Starcked.

At a party, Raimund Marasigan of the Eraserheads suggests that Scott and I attend Lamaze class, which apparently helped him and the rest of the Eheads get more involved in their wives’ pregnancies. We promptly enrol with Rome Kanapi, one of the local pioneers in childbirth classes. We sense it’ll be good when in the first few sessions Rome forgoes discussions of mitosis and meiosis in favor of film showings and first-hand instruction on breathing, massage and Kegel exercises. Unfortunately, we have to keep a food diary as well, and show it in class. I don’t feel so bad about my occasional slipups when I see my classmate’s diet consists of Subway sandwiches, bacon burgers, hotdogs and Yellow Cab pizza.

"You eat so healthy," she tells me rather wistfully.

"You’re a big Subway fan , eh?" I summon up in response.

This late in the game, it finally dawns on me that eating for two is the Number One pregnancy scam. What they don’t tell you is that you need only 300 extra calories a day, and by the time you’ve chugged your daily four glasses of milk, you’re already over the limit. Since the baby is large for its age, I have to take a glucose-tolerance test. I come out normal but borderline, which leads my doctor to recommend a low-sugar, low-carbohydrate diet. Let’s see... low-salt, low-fat, low-carbs and low-sugar. That leaves me little else to eat other than vitamins and protein bars. Thank God my pills are so huge I practically have to eat them with a knife and fork.

Pros: Now people know I’m pregnant and not just fat. Never has fetal movement been so pronounced, though it sometimes feels like the baby’s playing air guitar or doing trampoline jumps on my bladder. (Bathrooms with toilet paper have become my best friends.) Am looking forward to meeting the baby.

Cons: Hearty appetite doesn’t go well with my "low-everything" diet. Varicose veins threaten, have leg cramps at night and numb hands in the morning. Another bizarre symptom is PUPPP, or pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy, which simply means I itch all over like a dog with fleas. While this might be due to stretching skin, can I put in for a new set of more pleasant symptoms?

Cravings: Anything not low-fat, low-salt, low-sugar and low-carbs. (To be continued)