Pregnant in China, Part 2

I shared in the last post how pregnancy is sometimes viewed as a sickness in this country. I’m prepared for this to become somewhat annoying as more and more people realize I am pregnant and then feel the need to tell me what to do/not to do (as they already do about so many things: "You need to wear more clothes" or "Your child shouldn't play with that stick." Rebuke is their culture's love language.)  I'm bracing myself for when I return to the gym after my nausea/fatigue subsides. I’m fully expecting the gym people to tell me that I’m not allowed to do certain things (when I know full well that, in the States, it’s fully acceptable to do them). I’ve already planned on pointing out that this is my 3rd child and I did the same exercises with my first two with no problems. Or I may mention that my OB in the States ran a half marathon when she was pregnant!

So there are some annoyances, but being pregnant in this culture can also work to my advantage. Pregnant women always get a seat on the bus or on the subway. My friend Mel tells a hilarious story of one time she was on the bus. A 20-something girl was sitting in the yellow seat (which is to be relinquished to anyone old, carrying small children, disabled, or pregnant should they get on the bus). A decrepit old lady gets on, and the bus driver uses the intercom to remind the people sitting in the yellow seats to get up and give a seat to the lady.  The 20-something girl hears the announcement but continues to sit in the seat. Another passenger tells her to get up for the old woman, but the girl responds, "I'm pregnant" (which clearly the other passenger should've known since she was wearing an anti-radiation apron). If the girl had been 38 weeks pregnant and about to burst, that would be one thing.  But my friend reports that the girl was not showing at all and so was in no way being physically strained by the load she was bearing.  No questions were asked though and the old lady had to stand. Classic.

I feel the need to confess that I pulled the pregnant card a few weeks ago. It was while Adam was in Hong Kong. Cooking was still non-existent in my life then, and so before he left, Adam had helped me think up a game plan as to how I was going to feed the children each night of the week (which meant helping me decide which restaurant we were going to go to or order from). Friday night had been allotted as “Eat at Subway Night” which was going to be a bit of an expedition considering the closest Subway is about 2 km away from our place and would require a bus or cab ride. Well, Friday night came and, wouldn’t you know, it was raining. The one night we were going to an attempt an adventure and there’s rain. Not to be deterred from “The Plan,” I cheered myself on and said, “Okay, we’ll just get a cab,” forgetting that getting a cab during rush hour, let alone in the rain, is next to impossible in this city. We waited for about 10 minutes—both girls had umbrellas (3 year olds with umbrellas is never a good idea) and I’m waiting on the street in the rain trying both to stand out in the street far enough so I can spot a cab coming before other people but yet simultaneously keep my children from getting hit by various modes of transportation. Suddenly a cab appears right beside me! Victory! But before I realized what was happening, a girl walks up to it, ready to steal it out from under me. “No way, lady,” I thought to myself, not this time. I put on my bold, direct American self and said to the girl, “I’m sorry, but I’m pregnant and have two small children. This cab is mine,” and shoved my girls into the back seat. Score.

I won’t mention that it was even more impossible to get a cab on the way home, and the girls and I ended up walking the whole way back home in the rain (because I had forgotten my bus card). Awesome.