And the battle begins

Days came to a week one. I felt stronger. So did my two other companion slashed competitors.  I had not made any attempt to communicate with my neighbors.  We all seemed to be quiet and kept things to ourselves.  I guessed each of us still need sometimes for adjustment with our new habitat….my mother’s womb that is.  Once in a while we secretly stared from the corner of our eyes, figuring out each others state of developments. It was a little bit intimidating to comprehend that each of us would probably need to perform our best to live, grow and survive in the first few weeks ahead of us. Each of us somehow sensed that there were elements of danger around that would implicate in our early stages of survival. 

Through my mother’s eyes, I discreetly peeped at the book she read, Need to Know-Pregnancy – by Harriet Sharkey.  Her face expression was serious but I could feel her body relaxed. She put her feet up straight in bed supported with a pillow, and I wondered why she needed to do that. My dad was not anywhere in the room.  He had gone down to the hotel’s restaurant downstairs for breakfast while my mother insisted to have ‘breakfast in bed’’, and by that it would apply to ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner’ as well.  She was still determined to obey the “bed-rest” totally.  My mother flipped and glanced at the pages of the book in her hand leisurely and then stopped at page 63.

Your partner ejaculates as many as 300 million sperms as you make love. Only one will unite with your egg. The instant the strongest sperm reach your egg is the first decisive moment in your future baby’s life.  Whoa! 300 millions? That was shocking news! That shocked me at least.  That maybe shocked the other two companions too. My mother’s doctor and his team must have been really tough jury in selecting process of whose going to end up at the jar for the IVF session.  I felt triumph and exaltation in my conscience and for a split second I could feel goose-bumps all over the flat surface form of my existence.  I was chosen.  Together with the other two companion.

It was once though that sperm penetrated the outer coating of the egg by realizing enzymes. Today, science suggests an egg opens its outer membrane and embraces a single sperm.  Could it be that egg and sperm select each other?  Well…I could tell you now that in my case and my two other companion’s that obviously was not how it worked.  We were selected prior to that process and by the current available technological innovation we were chosen to by-passed the sexy conservative ritual.  I glanced at my mother’s face as I heard her heaved a soft sigh while her hands lifted and adjusted her spectacles and read on.

Once inside, your partner’s sperm sheds its tail and body and its head fuses with your egg’s nucleus. The new cell that is created is called zygote.  Aha!, so…that what they called me at this stage…a zygote.  That was kind of a cute name….zygote, and I guessed I would be zygote number one, and the other two would by zygote number two and zygote number three.  I wondered if that was the order of the numbering. I would hope so since I was the first to take up residence at my mother’s womb. But did it matter? Would it make any difference? I was not convinced.  There should be more to it than just numbering. We would need to demonstrate growth and development for one thing. We would need to upgrade our status from zygote to….hmm…what would be next?

Your body adapts to provide the nutrition and protection your baby needs, and your growing baby is primed to get the very best from the womb environment. Nature works in you favor, and what you eat, how you feel, what’s happening in your life also have an effect. Ok…I see…the next determining factors of what we become would be my mother’s womb and how well she would nurture her mental and physical condition. So far I felt comfy and homely inside. I don’t know what the others would say, but looking at their forms, they came to a good start as well.  I would say we were all would have the same percentage of survival here. On our part, the determining factor would be how much we would like to succeed.

Unexpectedly I felt my head spinning….that of course presuming I have formed a head in my zygotty stage. I was sure my forehead, again presuming I had one already, showed lines that indicated I was thinking hard.  I started to shape and strategize my plan.  What would I have to do to be ahead of my other two companion slashed competitors.  Where would I seek extra advises of survival. Would the doctor give me any guidance? Would my mother lend me a hand in this case? Would my dad have a clue to what should be done from now onward and forward? To keep me exist. Please…please help me. 

My mother turned her body to one side of the bed, having her feet crossed the left one on top of the right ones.  One of her hands reached out to the side bed table and grabbed her breakfast tray. Bacon, eggs, red beans and two slices of toasts. There was a glass of water and a glass of tomato juice on the side.  Not bad. Not that my mother needed my approval, but I considered the classic basic breakfast menu was sufficient. She put down the book and stopped reading. She turned the TV on and then unhurriedly started to have a bite of the bacon.

I wish I could tell my mother to flip another page on the book and seek for more information and explanation on my participation in this course.  I was curious what would happen next.  I gazed to my right and left, and there I noticed two sets of eyes with the same interrogative expression pierced at my direction. Of course, we were all in this together, what was I thinking? We were here with similar interest. Of course they would be as curious as I would. They would potentially become my siblings after all.  Of course we would all fight for our existences and we would all aim at winning our mother’s heart. But would I battle fairly? Should I? The answer would be.....an opportunity. And as the old saying ‘may the best man standing’ or… something like that.

My first day minus 38 weeks

First day minus 38 weeks

It was all started today. We were in a Novotel Hotel - Kuala Lumpur, the busiest capital city of Malaysia. Typical city in a tropical part of the world, it's humid. Sun is shining harshly, piercing through the bone. My mother's face was sweaty and tired even though my dad had turned on the hotel room AC into a blast mode with fan-full swing in order to get the temperature cooler. He aimed for 26 degrees Celsius.  My mother sat at the edge of the extra king-size bed, feeling exhausted after the semi-rough taxi ride from the Tropicana Hospital in down town KL. 

The taxi driver, despite my dad's thorough explanation on my mother's condition, cruised fast and jerkily maneuvered his way along the busy road from the hospital to the hotel. "The city central will be jammed, if we don't rush, you know" the taxi driver provided explanation to my dad's questioning look. My mother was already started complaining at the back seat, and threatened to get out of the taxi.  My dad calmed my mother and said it only a matter of another 10 minutes. Besides it was quite difficult to get a taxi at that time of day and with my mother's condition, it would cost more inconvenience to have to wait for another taxi to come by. 

So my mother had to endure the journey. She was trying to stay calm. With one hand gripped the hand-rest to keep her from moving from side to side of the taxi, and the other hand pressed to her belly as if to keep it from moving around too. I was sure that my mother was very concerned and worried about her belly.  Her face showed it all...the twist in the corner of her mouth, her strong jolting black eye lashes almost crossed together and the tiny spots of sweats all over her forehead.

This was my first day minus 38 weeks. It was 3 days after I was conceived in a small hygienic glass jar under the supervision of a very skillful team of experts of In-vitro Fertilization of the Tropicana Hospital. This was the day when the team of doctors carefully undergone the procedure on my mother, the time they inserted back and attached me into my mother's womb. The day that my dad and my mother never stopped holding each other's hands and whispered quietly with the high degree of desperation, wishing and hoping that I will grab the wall, live and grow inside of my mother's womb for the next 38 weeks. I was sure it was not a pleasant procedure, and the cold and auras of the hospital surgery room were enough to make my mother's face white as cotton sheets of the operating table. My dad's face was also desperate and full of anticipation. 

I felt a great amount of sympathy on both my parent's desperation for sure, after all....they had been through similar procedure before and this was their 5th attempt. They had also taken advises on various methods and alternatives medical suggestions prior to that. They had taken in all experts tip dips.  They also listened to what so many couples sharing experiences and tried to make a sense of it.  They had said many prayers nights and days. At least, for sure my mother did in her Christian believe.  My dad....I don't know for sure, but I think he did pray, someway or the other.  So, I guessed it was only fair and right that in about 38 weeks from now they would deserve my existence to the intriguing place my dad and my mother called the earth...the world.

My mother asked my dad to get her some foods and drinks.  She said she would take a rest in bed and try not to move if not necessary.  She took the doctor's advice on 'bed-rest' very literally and obediently. She was only getting out of bed when she was urgently needed to go to the toilet.  I saw my dad smiled a little bit but he didn't make a comment and instead he agreeably did what my mother asked him to do and rushed for the errand.  My mother closed her eyes...still looked exhausted and in pain from the post surgery. She stayed still with her hands on top of her belly, caressing it gently as if she worried that her tender strokes would hurt me.  

I was lying still in the wall of my mother’s womb, trying to get the new sense of my new inhabitance. I felt so close and attached to the skin of the wall of my mother's womb.  I looked around and then I realized I was not alone. There were two others latched to the same wall not far from me. Quietly I scrutinized and gazed at both of them in turn. They were about the same sizes as me, and by the look of them they could be as healthy and strong as me. So, I was not the only one being put back and attached to my mother's womb. Hm...Suddenly I felt a little bit uneasy. My first instinct and sense of competition came rushing to my form of existence.

I looked at them again and tried to measure their ability and possibility to survive together in this comfortable, warm and cozy environment of my mother's womb. Would I like to be accompanied by two others? Would it be enough space? Maybe it would, for now....! But to be crowded with two others for the next 38 weeks...and the days, and weeks, and years after that? I was not sure and I would not know the answer to that. What I know now was to make plan.....plan to survive for the next 38 weeks.  I would first have to prove to my mother that I was a chosen one. The one meant to be existed. So there started the competition, on the first day of my existence.