03-10-16 Pregnancy Everywhere

Monday 3rd October 2016

Great news was delivered to our family this evening! A very special couple we are friendly with have just shared their secret surprise with Erroll and I: the lovely wife – and my good friend – is pregnant; three months along already. This really is welcome news as the couple have endured years of infertility, a tragic still birth, and much societal pressure from their ethnic background wider circle to add to their family (they’ve got a very sweet and sassy two year old keeping them busy…and keeping Kingsley on his toes!)

With this terrific secret safe with me I make my way to Dubai Mall for my regular get together with other pregnant friend, Rio. This one is blooming at 6 months along. We meet at our usual spot in Carluccio’s and being the feeder that I am, present her with a box of French chocolate cookies and a croissant from our recent Paris trip. I am obsessed with nourishing her baby boy who will become good mates with mine. While Kingsley oscillates between quiet/content (watching his shows on the ever present iPad) and rowdy/destructive/bored (yelling and banging cutlery then running away into the mall itself; oh the joys) we get into the detail of her impending baby shower.

At home by 4pm and onto my messages, one of which is from another pregnant Dubai-based girlfriend. She is enduring frayed nerves as this pregnancy is the happy result of four cycles of IVF over two continents and at least four other postponed cycles where she withstood the punishment of hormone injections but never culminating in actual egg retrieval, let alone embryo transfer. Next week, once the baby crosses over into a strong 14 week fighter, she will tell her family. She is currently planting tomatoes and herbs on her balcony.

Then word comes from my dearest in Paris. Due on December 18 with baby number two, we spent a very pleasant morning together on my last day in France just three days ago, shooting her neat bump and symmetrical face against a backdrop of rustic, provincial French architecture. Kym worried me this entire weekend as I had not heard from her…but then relief! After a quick edit of her images and sending them through to her, I got my response; Kym resurfaced! With a very active toddler in the middle of toilet training, and one on the way as well as a stressful full time job working long hours with demanding lawyers, I get why Kym tuned out for a spell. We all sometimes need to regroup. All I wanted her to know is that I am here, for her.

And finally to my sister in law carrying Kingsley’s first cousin. Back from their babymoon in Hawaii and now enjoying a long weekend in Byron Bay, Annamiek’s pregnancy is nothing but healthy. She glows. I insist on receiving a weekly bump shot, usually taken in the loo, or while wearing a pyjama bottom. Like it seems all of us, Baby Gray will be born in December-January. We are talking both Erroll and I, both Annamiek and James, Kingsley as well as cousin Sam and his three kids all born either in December or early January! It’ll make for easy family joint birthdays on the Duch side that’s for sure. But for now, I am simply enjoying the pregnancies literally everywhere!

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