the tale of the man in a bundle

wow, it's been a year since i last posted. so much has changed, and judging by my inability to sustain my narcissistic lifestyle of blogging and looking at all decent, motherhood has officially taken over. last year, i was still a struggling ghost of my past, lurking around the corners of fellow fashion Twitterers that led the hectic yet decaying rat rate of the local art scene, envious of their footwear, eager for their cigarettes. today, i'm walking around in a milk-stained t-shirt, my legs have not been shaved since the last time I wanted to impress a man, and glasses have overpowered my bad skin and chubby face. yes, glasses, the same lopsided ones that i've been hiding from society for the past five years.

i also have a newfound penchant for holding my own, now extremely large, boobs. fine, i'm holding them up, but whatever.

about two weeks ago, i was being wheeled into an operation room, bleeding internally and gasping for air. i was flung onto a table that felt like a cold cross, and bound by the limbs as if a sacrifice. i was given a shot of the best drug i had ever come across, and a sheet of white was used to block my view from the neck down, perhaps to deny me the knowledge of what would transpire below that point of my diminishing life. 

see, my husband decided - much to my horror yet on my sad behalf - that we would opt for induced labor. the baby wasn't due for another week, but he was bored and i was suffering. this pregnancy was unlike the first; i was constantly ill, the morning sickness followed me through each month, i could barely keep water down, and my asthma attacks were getting the better of my sleepless nights. still, he opted for it out of boredom. and i, unable to speak from the lack of oxygen, agreed.

so we went in on a monday morning as scheduled through a casual email. and i was thrown into the labor ward all on my own. and it was there that i stayed, from 7am til 11pm, probed and injected and probed and dejected until my obgyn arrived to tell me the bad news: i was bleeding internally and there was no dilation, causing the baby's head to swell from the pressure. 

he advised that we do an emergency caesarian. the husband agreed, again believing that probings and surgeries were simply unicorns having a drugfest on the highest highs of the mountaintops. idiot husband. before i knew it, i was being cut up wide awake. and he wasn't at all in sight. 

the obgyn told me that there would be no pain, and that within minutes i would meet my baby. he said i would feel nothing. but i felt it. besides the pain, i felt it all. it started with a poke of the knife, and then an incision grew to the length of five inches. i felt them shift my guts aside as they were discussing a potential supper meet up at jalan imbi, and i felt them pull unmentionables out to make room for their hands to delve farther into the depths of my probably unrecognizable body. i was shivering from the trauma of the situation, and since my idiot husband was nowhere to be found, i grabbed the nearest male in a robe to squeeze the crap out of. he was nice, he let me squeeze him. it was quite fun.

the horrific ordeal went on for a good ten minutes, and i just laid there thinking, shit i should never have collected a single mcfarlane tortured souls model, nor should i ever have been a fan of eli roth's gore. all those scenes suddenly rushed back to me. this was all payback, i told myself, for the many nights i'd forced the husband to watch saw 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 with me. that bastard, i cursed, this must be payback.

they gave me another dose of morphine, and after a sickening pulling of things down below, i was introduced to my baby. except one doesn't really want to be introduced to their baby high out of their minds. i started bawling underneath the oxygen mask, babbling a language that could just be genius baby talk, and even asked for a burger mid-emotional breakdown. burgers are awesome. so is hokkien mee with fried pork lard.

they wheeled me out and back to the husband, who claimed he was denied entry into the operation room. i tried to lift my hand to slap him silly, but my limbs felt as if they were being lifted by the feathers of the cutest pomeranian bird. and i don't even like pomeranians. instead, i smiled at him, happy to just be alive. of course, that joy would run out a few hours later, and i would slap him then.

two weeks later, and i'm still healing from a rather neat incision, scarred for life and banned from bikinis. i now walk like my ass is on fire, and i now own a belly that flops like a wet sack. was it worth it, all that pain and torture and trauma? well, you tell me...

meet my little fighter.