As if that is not sufficient, I am hotter than I’ve ever been in my whole Black life — and I am from Texas. And so, recent from a cool, afternoon bathe, I lay bare on my mattress with the air conditioner on, crunching on tap-water ice, watching a Convey It! marathon on Lifetime, and rubbing Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Components on my seven-months-pregnant stomach.
Along with rebuking ashiness, cocoa butter is meant to maintain my pores and skin supple and assist cut back discoloration and stretch marks which will come as my physique shape-shifts and expands. Plus, it smells like chocolate. However, to be sincere, stretch marks are the very last thing I am fearful about. After a blessedly uneventful “geriatric” being pregnant on the age of 43, I’ve been informed that it’s extremely possible I’ve a probably life-threatening situation that has fully modified my beginning plan. Delivering my little one in a non-public beginning room with my husband and longtime OBGYN by my facet has now turn into a public supply within the hospital’s fundamental working room with 5 totally different groups of medical doctors and a number of other pints of blood available — simply in case. However, hey, they will not know for positive if I’ve the situation till they function, so my medical doctors inform me to remain off of Google and attempt to loosen up.
Within the meantime, I binge-watch episodes of the Jackson, Mississippi, dance workforce and their wild-card coach as they observe, compete, and reside their Black lady lives.
In red-and-silver, shimmery bodysuits (with fringe!) the Dancing Dolls do demise drops, buck all the way down to the ground, and whip their weaves. When the captain jumps right into a toe contact and lands in a cut up, my daughter, who’s already a world-class somer saulter, offers an encouraging kick in my stomach. I take this nudge as an affirmation, a reminder to remain within the current, and I rub cocoa butter within the place the place she punted me. I relaxation my fingers there for a spell and let the warmth from my palms work like Reiki.
Mama’s Pearl
Atlanta — September 2018
I kneel on the padded, blue whale tub mat, eye degree with my attractive child lady. I am smiling massive and holding open the plushiest towel I can discover. My daughter steps wrinkle-toed out of the bathtub and throws her four-year-old physique into my arms, arms I cocoon round her, drying her off whereas she tippy-taps her toes fast-fast, laughing the chuckle of a kid who’s blissful, protected, cherished. This little ritual is our favourite a part of tub time, identical to after I was a little bit lady, and I am unable to consider my luck.
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