Skip to main content

My body

My body is an unusual creature. For one thing, I have two uteruses. Congenital I'm told. A medical condition called Uterus Didelphys. Basically, my womb is split into two parts--right chamber, left chamber, is what the doctors call it.

Babe was conceived in the right chamber. So when I was pregnant, the gynaec told me don't turn to your right in your sleep. You could crush your foetus.
Can you imagine how I felt? I had nightmares about turning over, unknowingly in my sleep. So I only ever turned to my left during the pregnancy. And no, my pregnant tummy wasn't misshapen or anything. As baby grew inside, my left uterus sort of folded in so the right side could expand better. Amazing, really what our bodies are capable of.

When little man was nursing, I always found feeding him from my left breast easier. It always hurt like crazy trying to nurse him from my right side. And at night, that naturally meant, I again turned to my left.

Now, our son is nearly five. And I have a sore down my left thigh and buttock. I try to turn only to my right when I'm lying down. Because the left side starts hurting, a dull ache that gets worse after a bit. The skin there is now marked, permanently.

But I don't mind. Our experiences make us, after all. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wasteland

Something happened over the past two days. Our next door neighbours, or rather one particular family (like all metrizens in this cramped city, we live within literally, touching distance of the others in our neighbourhood), have decided to demolish their home. Fine, so what, you ask. They see how valuable land now is. Who can blame them? But along with their home, they have also decided to kill off the two trees -- a mango tree and a coconut tree -- in their compound. I used to look at those trees from my kitchen window. The mango tree, in particular, was a welcome sight. Bunches of ripe green fruit used to hang heavily from it. Looking at it, I'd think of my home in Kerala -- of the time when I was a little girl in a white petticoat helping my father pluck mangoes as they slowly changed from parrot green to a golden reddish-yellow-orange shade. That was our annual summer ritual, you see. My father plucked mangoes using a long stick with a hook or a 'kokka' (in my collo...

On seeing millions walking home...

We saw them on our way to work In those makeshift tarpaulin shacks Naked children playing with roadside trash Near piles of their own excreta As skeletally thin mothers tried to cook gruel in pots, We looked but didn’t really see.  Every morning, we saw them from our cars Shrunken bodies in tattered clothes, in a huddle Waiting for an ‘agent’ to get them work. What did we do then? We cranked up the AC, we plugged into podcasts “How long before this signal changes, damn it!” We drank the bytwo coffee they served us in darshinis We looked but didn’t really care to see. We were too preoccupied with ‘personal milestones’ That we just had to share on our Insta Stories #Ran5Kms #FeelingStrong #LifeIsGood #FeelingBlessed We passed under-construction sites In our localities and our neighbourhoods.  We saw them and... we quickened our steps. We held handkerchiefs (no masks then, you see!) to our noses Oh, the smell! These people are so filthy! We saw them. We all did. How could we poss...

Feel like a pickle?

I am not Nigella. I do not pout sexily on the few occasions I do enter my kitchen. Nope, I have a cook. Okay, update. I don't have a cook any more. She upped and left. So now I cook for my family and I mostly enjoy it. But no I still don't look like Nigella. Or cook as sexily as her! But I do love to experiment. I love to bake pies, biscuits and my fondest wish is to someday bake cakes that will come out soft and "incredibly moist" as all the food blogs I sometimes drool over, tell me. No, cooking is not therapeutic for me. It's supremely stressful--all that cutting, chopping, slicing and at the end of it all, cleaning. What I do love is the end product, specially if it's come out nice. It's a double-edged sword though. If my cake is lumpy and hasn't risen well, I sink into gloom much like my unrisen dough. But I'm determined to try, try and try till I become a dab hand at cooking and baking. Anyway, for me, food has to have a little zest, a ...