The joys of expecting... and the shame!

There is no joy greater than that of knowing that a miracle is taking place ever so quietly within your body, that all the sciences and all the myths and all of God's forces are working together to create a life inside. It is the most amazing thing, when you are lucky enough to have such a facility, to watch that life grow week after week, from nothing to something that looks like a mini-dinasaur the whole 10mm long and then on to something more human, with tiny arms, legs and a belly, a fluttering heartbeat showing on the sonogram, moving about within it's little cavity, still so small and months away from being in our arms.

Aside from the sonograms, there is little evidence on the outside that I am carrying a miracle inside me, but I keep looking at our miracle's pictures from the sonogram, and I can feel its heart beat, I can imagine it moving about. I want to sing to it, talk to it. Occasionally, though, I want to share my joy with others. I want to show them how our baby's growing. I want to tell them... this week our baby will learn to use it's hands, or it will actually move away if I shine a flashlight at my tummy because it's eyes will become more sensitive to light.But I can't. This is one of the happiest times of my life and I can't share it with anyone and I don't understand why.

I'm sure there are people reading this, particularly those from our culture or religion, who are blushing and perhaps thinking this information is a tad inappropriate, if not outright shameful. But that logic eludes me. In the Muslim world, you begin learning early on in school that we must have children. Once you get married, you have everyone asking you when and if a little one is on the way. It gets worse later on... "you've been married how long... and no kids? have you checked with the doctor?" I have even had people ask me "Are you doing it right or often enough?" It can be relatives, friends, acquaintances or complete utter strangers. It's as if everyone has the right to discuss and pry in public (possibly in a mixed gender gathering) what is essentially a very private part of your life and your marriage. But no one sees any shame there. I am expected to share the private details of my personal life of how long we've been "trying" (Gosh, I wish people would know how embaressing that is) what the doctors have said, but once I'm expecting and our miracle is on the way, suddenly we're all modest and pure. What's shameful about a baby that is on it's way? If anything is shameful, it's the "trying" part! But no one feels any shame discussing that openly.

A friend of mine made a scrapbook of her daughter's 1st year in this world. As I was flipping through the first couple of empty pages, she told me she had meant to put up some songram pictures there, but then she felt embaressed. I wondered, how embaressed are people when they ask her if she and her hubby are trying for another? And how embaressed is she when she answers that question? This is just one of a long list of hypocrasies we live with in our religious culture. A woman is to feel shame for carrying a baby for 9 months. She is to make every attempt to hide the swelling of her belly. Why? I've noticed that people from our culture tend to be more discrete now when asking me how I'm progressing, whispering vague statements like," So is everything okay?" (accompanied by uncomfortable laugh), compared to earlier when people would just ask me and hubby upfront,"So, are you guys trying for a baby? Enough fun already!"

Next time someone sheepishly asks me how everything is going along, I'm going to pat my tummy and say, "Baby's doing well, Alhamdulillah. Wanna see a picture?"