On hormones

I had a truly very easy pregnancy, for which I am really grateful. Unlike some of my friends, I’ve barely had any nausea or experienced any major complications or discomfort, which allowed me to remain very active well beyond my due date. I guess like any expecting woman, I had bouts of doubts and anxiety, especially after watching the news and all the crazy things going in this world (ISIS in the Middle East; global warming; pollution of air, food, water, you name it in China, etc.), and wondered why on earth would I bring a kid into life. But mostly I felt I was very serene during the whole nine months. I didn’t have any cravings or repulsion for particular foods or didn’t behave crazily at anytime. Or so I thought. In hindsight, the hormones did play some tricks on me, albeit on punctual occasions and isolated, but specific, events.

The crystallisation of these tricks happened to be T. the driver at J.’s office. The poor chap had of course the very best intentions at heart but the fact that he is culturally conditioned, his overzealousness and occasional nosiness during my pregnancy just got the best of me at a time when I wasn’t in full control of my reactions.

My resentment for him didn’t come gradually. It was triggered by his reaction when J. told him we were expecting a girl. He reportedly nearly choked on the spot in disappointment for J. Any remark on the fact that I was expecting a girl really put me off as much then as now, as a woman to start with and for my baby, unborn and already subject to prejudice. The guy couldn’t get over it and enquired a few times throughout the remaining months whether it was certain that we were having a girl. He really thought we were kidding or that results couldn’t be trusted. When I was nearly 8 months pregnant, he asked me: “So you are having a girl?” to which I calmly replied “yes”. He pondered for a minute and said, as if I had been pulling his leg: “nah, it’s a boy!” Even after S. was born, he texted J. enquiring whether the baby was indeed a girl.

That in itself, each time, drove me absolutely crazy. Unknowingly, he made matters worse for himself by sending me text messages telling me to take care of myself, rest, etc. It was out of consideration and fondness for J. and very well intentioned of course but by then I couldn’t stand the guy and would throw a fit every time he did anything at all. Whether he sent food, vitamins, text messages, told me I shouldn’t go swimming, or gave advice on which hospital to go to because (after having chatted with a nurse in our hospital and enquired about prices) ours was far too expensive and there were cheaper options. I had to tell him that I needed a doctor and staff with whom I could communicate and luckily the insurance was covering the costs.

My anger towards him became so irrational and obsessive that I once dreamt that he was going to pop into my hospital room unannounced and tell me and the nurses how to handle the baby. Or even try to impose his wife at home to help take care of the baby because we non-Chinese didn’t know any better. I would have to be very rude with him and tell him to fuck off and that I didn’t need him or his wife because my parents were here and that in other parts of the world people had newborns too and knew how to take care of them. Yes, the whole thing got very far in that little hormone-injected head of mine.

This self-winding up of mine continued for some time after S. was born and I would refuse that we go with him to the clinic whenever S. was due for a check-up. Thankfully, for him and my sanity, I’ve since then come back to my senses and do feel some degree of remorse.

Not that it recently occurred to me or that I am trying to justify the still fairly widespread tendency in China to prefer boys over girls, but I’ve given it some thought in the case of T. He has one child, a daughter, who lives in Beijing with her husband, child (I assume she has only one) and most probably her in-laws. In China, it is the tradition for the parents of the husband to move in with the new couple, so that the younger generation can take care of the older one and the older one can help out with the grand-child(ren). So T., as much as he loves his daughter, probably feels a bit screwed by the one child policy and the fact that he had a girl. In his early 60s, he doesn’t seem to have a comfortable retirement pension, if any and no one to take care of him and his wife but himself. He is sort of “doomed” to working many more years into his late age. Had he had a second child or, “better”, a boy that would’ve been his insurance for his old days.

With the abolishment of the single child policy last week (end October 2015, couples can now have two kids), 37 years after it was instated, the Chinese government intends to curb the forthcoming pension crisis. Hopefully it will also give a fairer chance for this working generation to be taken care of by their kids when they get older. In the meantime, T. happened to get in the way of my hormonal imbalance.