“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears”- Nelson Mandela

“Come dressed as something starting with ‘B’!” It’s my big bro’s 30th party, the day after the scan, and we’ve decided to keep our news quiet until tomorrow. You wouldn’t believe it, but the whole world doesn’t actually revolve around me. Something starting with ‘B’…hmmm… Maybe I can go as bloated? Or bossy? Or maybe I could just go as a pair of sore boobs? Or a bucket of bile? I seem to already be all these things! Save cost? Considering all things, we eventually end up going as ‘bogans’, which surprisingly (or not) didn’t require too much altering to our natural appearances… stick on tattoos, rolling stones singlets, a chopper mo. Voilà! Do you think the sealed beer I’m holding is fooling anyone? 

The anticipated day has arrived. It’s the next day and we’re finally going to share the news. Does that make it more real now? At one of the regular family summer gatherings, we nervously reveal our ‘secret’.

My mum stared at the ultrasound in disbelief, as if she’d been blind-sighted. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” Even all the comments of suspicion she’d received from others over the last few weeks hadn’t aroused any scent of our secret. Surprise, mum! My brothers and sisters, however, confessed that they’d already come to the conclusion that I was either pregnant or just getting fat. Gosh, I mustn’t have hid it very well at all! Our news is welcomed with gladness as  expected, even with my stern warning to not tell anyone. With this revelation, I feel a little bit of weight has lift.

But the jinx continues…

I am in no way superstitious, but I feel that every decision, every move and every thought is shadowed with this idea of ‘jinx’. Jinx is dictating me. Don’t get excited, you’ll jinx yourself. Don’t get too comfortable… or jinx! Don’t do anything too thoughtful… that’s a definite jinx! Don’t put your heart on the line. Dont’ feel. Don’t celebrate. Don’t harbour joy. Don’t shelter expectation or you’ll jinx it all. I feel it… and I’m starting to believe it.

Jinx has plagued me for a while.

I’ve managed my predisposition and anxious inclinations since I was quite young. No, I’m not insane (or maybe I am?) and I’m aware when my thoughts and feelings are irrational. Don’t confuse me with being ‘fussy’. I am, but I’m not. Imagine having  uncontrollable intrusive thoughts and feelings of anxiety. Imagine feeling that your day-to-day actions somehow have a direct dire consequence on loved ones or on the world around you. Imagine if you felt that your repetitive rituals were the only way to relieve your anxieties and to appease those thoughts or feelings. Imagine the spin if you had feelings that all things were ‘ensouled’, or felt the drag that your little, habitual ways just may be keeping the world ‘in balance’.

 Luckily, in my teens, I became aware of these thoughts, anxieties and attachment to ‘things’. Since then, I’ve made a conscious effort to eliminate all rituals and regularly throw, or give away items to avoid accumulating ‘stuff’. I’ve learnt to simply let things go. All things; untidy things, crooked things, sentimental thing, unnecessary things. I could make serious dollars working for one of those ‘declutter-your-life-hoarder-type’ shows! Need someone to throw something out for you? Need some paperwork organised? Call me! It’s amazing how much power you can  enforce on your own mind when you grab it by the horns and compel it to yeild… but of late, I feel my grip is slipping. This idea that any gesture or thought will jinx this baby needs to stop… and it needs to stop now. 

We’ve decided to share the news with a handful of friends. I feel this may be an opportunity to try and celebrate the news without thinking that I’m setting myself up for more hurt. So to redeem myself – to take back control – I think of a more creative manner to share the news in a way that will draw the attention away from the fragility of the situation, and focus on the goodness in my gestation reveal.

Something simple… something thoughtful…  Cupcakes? What an idea! Instead of my dear friends staring at me with eyes of “this is wonderful news after the crappy news you gave us last time”, at least now they have something sweet to stare at instead… and even better, I don’t have to say a word. Perfect! I’m making progress at least. A little parcel of cupcake goodness will be my bearer of good news.

And with this progress, I decide it’s time to finally take a belly photo. You wouldn’t understand how hard this decision was and to convince myself that the camera won’t jinx me! I made the decision in such haste that I forgot my pants, but let’s be honest, no pants are the best kind of pants anyway. Photo one: 13 weeks and already 5kg heavier.

No more cupcakes for you dear…

“Reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’  the loss; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.” -Kubler-Ross & Kessler