In Which Our Heroine Goes Bald
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I cut it all off.
There was no ceremony.
With my housemate in the other room I slipped away and unpacked the men’s clipper kit I’d purchased the day before. Inches of wavy hair fell into the sink as I ran the nibbly grille over my scalp. Rawl! Rawl! It growled deeply as it encountered thick patches. Rewl! Rewl! It cried at the short ones. I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes, enormous now, looked back from between my black eyelashes. My thick eyebrows seemed thicker and I decided to start penciling them again. I ran my hands over my dome, still scattered with the debris of the massacre, and reveled in the tingly massage. I felt Egyptian, ancient, feline.
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This second pregnancy is nothing like my first. I am calm, cocooning. I do my exercises, occasionally even yoga. I have an ample supply of comfortable maternity clothes and a giant (and I mean giant) horseshoe pillow that encloses and immobilises me in a firm hold at night. Sshhh. It whispers. I got you.
I am on top of my medical appointments. I take my vitamins and monitor my blood pressure. I have been registered at the maternity hospital since around the third month of my pregnancy. My husband and I spent about 15 minutes discussing a baby name, decided, smiling, and haven’t wavered since.
I am, in short, having almost the opposite experience as my first pregnancy.