Weeks 9 to 16: All things seem possible in May (and June)

Butterflies flit, in a field

of sunlight, that is all

                        - Matsuo Basho

And suddenly the rains stopped, the clouds became fluffy white and the sun was out. No not really. Not so easily in these parts in late May. But that is how my insides felt. Without any outside affirmation of any sort (the doctor's visit was another week away and I was still feeling like wrung-out jeans on a clothes line), I felt OK. Totally there. All there. From somewhere there rushed a warm gush of confidence and contentment. I somehow knew all my fears and anxieties will be just that; the nuchal scan will be completely fine. Aren't there moments in life, too fleeting to comprehend and yet brimming with magic, when you simply know. I had one of those. 

After which, my body seemed to naturally respond to this state of mental well-being. Miraculously, the gagging stopped one fine day. My appetite returned in full force, so much so that some afternoons, I spent circumambulating the refrigerator. If I looked long enough, I could even spot a tiny tummy (er...the pregnancy-related tiny...I had a substantial tummy even before...so yes, the difference could be only made out by dreamy eyes like mine). 

The day of the scan finally arrived and just as predicted, the little thing in there was happy playing truant with the radiologist -- somersaulting just when she wanted to see its nasal bone and making me drink gallons of water and showing up in the right position just when I felt like an about-to-be-pricked water balloon. 

It is rather disconcerting to have that stone cold gel applied just above your pubic bone while an emotionless monitor displays new life inside and husband watching everything, rather shyly. Or was that the beginning of reluctance? But then, who said pregnancy will not be disconcerting. 

And so, I could finally burst out with the news to the one friend I really wanted to say it to. For she was the only one in this whole wide world, who knew it from the time this baby was conceived in a shining corner of my little brain nearly two years ago. Needless to say, she was suitably excited. 

But I confess, the thing that gets me most excited, sometimes I suspect, more than actually being pregnant, is watching the husband pacing up and down, planning for the baby, teasing, laughing, cuddling baby thoughts and smiling that guileless smile when I spell out my random dreams. Is this the same man who frowned at the mere mention of a child?

The world indeed is "mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful". Touchwood.

I leave you with a classic varnam in the most joyful raaga of them all - Mohana and a jing-jang version of Mohana raaga, which was serendipitous. But first the original.