Yes, I am dating a pregnant woman.
Image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License
It isn’t easy dating a pregnant woman especially since Murphy’s law kicks in right when we are about to savor the scarce slivers of moments that are exclusively ours… but I can vouch that it’s great. Yeah, call me crazy or whatever… but I write this with not a drop of alcohol in my system, nor for that matter a hemorrhoid-stung crazed mother-to-be holding me to it at gunpoint! I write it because love can come calling anytime… even in the first trimester of pregnancy.
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I met Aisha the day she’d probably wanted to kiss the stick she’d peed on, in the excitement of what it read! (FYI, she didn’t; she just screamed in excitement and dropped the stick on her customized rug!) Of course, I learnt all that later for we met for the first time later that evening, at a friend’s party. She had sparkling emerald eyes, like the glimmer of a sheen of morning dew in sunshine. And yet, whenever she turned her head this way and that, trying to explain to me why the Indian constitution was a paradise for lawyers or how the political structure of the country was, perhaps, framed when the lawmakers were taking a dump, the lighting in the hall melted the green of her eyes, making the color run. Like the green that pushes its way through piles of gritty snow to announce the soon-arriving spring! I must have spoken to her for what may have been an entire change of season in her eyes, when I asked if she wanted to sneak out for a bit. As she took my arm and I led the beautiful lady out, I made sure to grab a bottle and two flutes.
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As we sat in the parking lot, talking animatedly of everything from politics to art to religion, and even, Neruda, I realized feeling a strange connection with the woman. As I poured a drink for her, she stopped me and said, ‘Oh no, I can’t because I am…’ and hesitated there for a second. But before I could say anything, she seemed to have made up her mind and completed ‘…well, because I am pregnant.’ ‘Wow,’ I said, ‘that’s amazing. You must be cold out here then. Want to go back in?’ ‘Nah,’ she said, ‘I have lived in Canada all my life. So this temperature doesn’t bother me.’ And we ended up talking about her life, her pregnancy, and well, quite a bit about me until the sun spread its cheery pink on the eastern sky. I dropped her home and tried to refute my heart’s incessant chants of, ‘dude, you are neck deep in love’ on the way back to my own.
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I’d thought that’d be it, for I had no way of reaching her, save show up at her door, which, to be honest, I thought would be stage-five stalking! So, I held out against my heart’s wishes (and the garb of a stalker) for… well… three hours before turning up at her door again for taking her out to lunch. I knew I wanted to ask her out the moment I had set my eyes on her and lost myself in hers. The fact that she was with child – I learnt later – skyrocketed my points as a ‘potential date’ because I asked her out knowing full well she was pregnant, and therefore, quite clearly wasn’t going to treat her to a first-date sex menu! By the way, we had delicious crock pot ravioli and an even yummier conversation! And right when we stopped by the drug store to get her some meds, I think I mouthed a silent ‘I love you.’ So glad she didn’t see!
Image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License
Anyway, days rolled into weeks and weeks into months, and I am still seeing her. Dating while pregnant wasn’t easy and isn’t getting any easier. Not when we have to squeeze dates between doctor’s appointments, our own hectic work schedules, and not to mention every twingle, twinge, hemorrhoid, morning sickness attack, and more of the biological-phew-mess! I wonder how she juggles all of it with the stress of getting to ‘know’ me, or simply finds the patience to deal with my desire to ‘know’ her! Guess it comes with love.
Agreed she isn’t like the rest of the women but pregnancy changes more than just your body. The need for undivided attention during those initial butterflies-in-the-tummy period of dating was, in our case, filled with a real soccer-playing colicky being in her tummy. The good morning flowers or the breakfast-in-bed niceties fell by the wayside as more and more bouquets were used as puke-holders and the breakfast brought on the urge to vomit some more! Talking dirty isn’t something we are into, well, not because we haven’t possibly imagined it, but because with that baby bump it seems like our li’l one is getting a Harlem shake in the womb and that’s something we won’t do. Of course, our subtly-disguised jokes make the frigid vanilla of our relationship melt under the heat of the chocolate fudge we so crave – but then, Braxton Hicks and well, mood swings! So dating her has been like riding the roller coaster, blindfolded! Because I don’t know what turn’s coming next.
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But I guess I like it that way. I like that I do not know what’s coming next. All I do know is that I love her and I like it that way. I like that I am the one who is there to pick the spoon she drops while having pickle and that I am there for her to vent all her baseless anger. I like that she is asking me what wallpapers and cribs might look nice in the nursery and which items on the baby catalogue are indispensable! I like that I am building my life with her – as she is becoming a mother – to her child – to my child – to our child! I hope she feels the same way. I feel that she feels the same way.
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Image source: Google, copyright-free image under Creative Commons License
I haven’t told her the seemingly innocuous three words yet, but I am pretty sure those green, misty eyes of hers can read them in my own brown ones! Sometimes, I wonder which set of eyes our children would get. Hah, I am getting ahead of myself, right! But then, nothing with this amazing woman has followed any rules – not even time! But yeah, okay, I can wait to find out if we have a daughter as breathtaking as her or a son as athletic as me! Right now, though, I am waiting eagerly to change diapers and put tiny ponytails on the head of our soon-to-be born baby. Yeah, kinda feel like her dad already! And I plan to pop the question right after Aisha holds the li’l one for the first time!
Image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License
Wish me luck guys, coz I am not just dating a pregnant woman – I am dating an amazing pregnant woman! Someone I wish to call my wife soon… as the baby she births to life holds my finger in her teeny tiny fingers to tell me in her own way that she’d like me as her dad!
Featured image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License
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