Since I lived in California at the age of 16, I had been back there for visits numerous times. One time, I rented a car and drove up to the Central Valley, where I had lived, arriving in that small town as a “grown up” for the first time. Shortly after I found out this year that I was pregnant, YouTube asked again if I could travel to LA. Usually, I am not so keen on long-distance trips, especially if it is always to the same place. But having the baby in my belly, I jumped on the chance. As spring was arriving on the shores of California, my foetus and I cruised along the 101 in another rental car, fully aware that everything was going to change.
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| Hanging in Laguna Beach! |
Change - no better word for 2024 than that! While I reflect on all the other years I’ve been through, usually very proud of my personal development and how I tried to pursue change, this year it just found me. When my fiance and I tried to kiss in the streets of Egypt with everyone watching this frivolous act of public affection at midnight January 1, 2024, we knew the year ahead would be no joke: We were going to try to marry so we could spend permanent time together. We had also planned to have babies some time in the next few years. My contraception was expiring and we thought it never works right away especially with my age being in the range medicals call “dangerous”. By the end of that month, I was already pregnant…
Crazy to think that those first weeks I was scared about things I have now forgotten already, although it was only a few months ago. I was working out on the patio at our Airbnb in Newlands, Cape Town carefully to not hurt the baby, we saw a doctor that attempted to extort me (and of course failed!) and we sat at wine farms without drinking wine. It was quite genuinely a different life. The days in the sun passed by slowly, knowing that those days would come to a permanent end for both of us soon. No more Thursday afternoons at Cape Point Vineyards watching the sunset on a blanket with a beer. For me, these days had always just been a glance, but for Francois, they were reality for most of his life. When I peed on the stick on Valentine’s Day, the realization that he was giving this up for us had only just started to hit him.
You might think having a baby is that change I am talking about, and yet it feels to me that something so animalistic, inexplicably intrinsic doesn’t initiate a kind of change you feel unprepared for. It was definitely super hard (I don’t need to tell anyone how bad sleep deprivation hits you after a traumatic birthing experience), but then the baby… is just there. You know what you have to do. Kind of. Everything you don’t know, you are aware of needing to know. With all the other changes that found us this year, that was not the case. What do you do to get an appointment at the immigration office? How do you start a business? And how does the government issue a document you need insurance for when insurance does not take you on as a member if you don’t have exactly that document? Immigrating to Germany, even for me as the initiator, not the affected, was the worst experience of my entire life (other than living in Egypt).
And then, October 16, as Francois was at the doctor to get yet another document he needed for his business permit, I started having slight cramps. While I was ready to meet my daughter, the business wasn’t set up, we didn’t have insurance and there was a plethora of paperwork I still had to do (and still have to do today). I was hoping for as much time as possible without the baby - but my cramps were not cramps. 24h later, after an absolutely stunning ordeal, I gave the final push to eject baby Alma from my womb, then staring at her in disbelief: was I a mother now? Nothing felt different. I made another human that looked nothing like me, did they already make a mistake? Why wasn’t she crying? And why was everything I did before suddenly completely unimportant?
The first week, I couldn't believe how easy it was. The hormones took care of me, and while I was tired, I quickly realized I had one of those babies people called “easy”: no crying, regular feeding and pooping, gaining weight faster than Jared Leto for a movie role. And then the day came, where I realized my “old life”, despite me being ready for that before I ever had sex with Alma’s dad, was over for good. I hadn’t ridden on the back of a convertible in several years, but yet suddenly all I could think about how I would never be 21 again riding on the back of a convertible in Eastern Europe ever again. I saw myself partying in Ibiza, hiking up Corcovado mountain and going wine tasting with Patricia (who was also pregnant before I even finished my first trimester), having me mourn my past life despite it finishing even without me being pregnant (with all of my friends moving away or starting their own families). I truly felt that the first trimester of my life had come to a close, and I was now entering the second.
For the first time ever, I am scared. I know how to make myself happy, but how do I do the same for her and her dad? The things that made me happy in the past fail to do so now. I hate Berlin now, this unsustainable illusion that just reminds you of how close Russia is and that will exploit the money you saved so vigorously in order to afford a child. The flat I so carefully curated to fit me does not fit a family - and that is me now: a mom. Moving in Berlin is... so far from "possible that the word "impossible" doesn't cut it. The only thing that still makes me happy the same way is a good bottle of wine, only that the whole year I have had only 5 glasses of it. The things I strive for now are time in nature and a fireplace. And right now, well, we have neither.
If you had told me what I would be challenged with at 35 years old, I never thought it would have been this. The thought of raising a human seemed daunting enough, but I never expected something so hard coming so naturally. The true challenge is letting go: of your old life, of what you thought you needed, of trying to progress a career, a relationship, the goal of having a house or anything materialistic. As soon as I met Alma, that's all there was. Not because I wanted it this way, but because it's necessary. I just thought I would hate that more. I find myself being most scared of not being able to stay emotionally connected to myself, not ruining her. 2025 does not sound like a year I can even pursue the change I always sought, the self-development I usually craved. I won't matter. And since this is so new for me, starting the new year from a hospital bed with a feverish Alma felt like an accurate welcome: I'll be where she is, I'll do what she does... and comfort, fun or lightness are no longer part of my deal - at least for now.
