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.