So much future to look forward to

I am lucky to know exactly what will unfold for me, and to have had the time to process and prepare myself. Representation pic

It's odd to have a delivery scheduled. It's literally pencilled into my calendar. On the 24th of February I know I am to show up at the hospital at 7.30 am and within an hour or two I will meet the being that has been growing inside me. Concerned friends ask me how I feel about a C-Section, and I've grown a bit tired of explaining that my medical history has predisposed me to one, that I trust the doctors because I witnessed how each one validated the other's suspicions, and also because I'm using the public healthcare system so no one profits monetarily from the decision. I like that I will have to spend at least four days in the hospital and that I have the option of staying longer should I need to. I am training myself to be okay with asking for help, and relying on the midwives to assist me with my needs and those of our newborn. I'm mentally preparing for my partner not being allowed to visit for longer than one hour each day, and I'm counting on my previous experience of healing from surgery to enable my recovery from this one.

I veer between feelings of excitement and even an anticipation of what it might feel like to hear our child's first cry and a sense of nervousness about how dramatically our life will change. How I might not be able to access the solitude upon which my writing practice is so dependent for a long time. There's a finality to this decision that is unique and unprecedented. There is no going back.

I count myself fortunate, in a sense. I have been privy to many accounts of friends who spent hours in labour until the situation got so distressful, they had to undergo an emergency C-Section. I also have friends who managed the intensity of labour but had to spend one hour getting stitches on account of tearing. Childbirth is messy and unpredictable, and I am lucky to know exactly what will unfold for me, and to have had the time to process and prepare myself. Because I had the option, I have also known the sex of our child. We were both clear we didn't want to be surprised. I wanted to know so I could better prepare myself for the challenges of mothering a son so as to ensure he doesn't grow up to be an entitled man-child but someone who respects women, queer, and trans people. It is patently absurd to think how a child's genitalia dictates so much of their social conditioning, from what they are allowed to wear to what toys they can play with and what their social circles look like.

I have often wondered how I could raise a child as gender-neutrally as possible, to allow for the possibility for them to determine their sexual and gender orientation and not to impose an identity or a personality upon them that they have to then maintain for the sake of my happiness or for the sake of societal peace.

I have feminist friends who have told me how challenging it is for them to watch their sons move into the sphere of influence of their peers. Little boys who might have enjoyed playing with dolls or playing dress up suddenly, when exposed to other boys in kindergarten, start preferring Nintendos, pirate ships and knights. Their parents tell me there's nothing you can do, you have to give in, and it sounds so defeatist. Their sons no longer want to play with girls, and no longer want to have much to do with the feminised universe within which they had been happy to be held.

I don't know or cannot anticipate how I will handle these challenges. If our child turns out to be anything like his father - conscious of his boundaries, gentle, respectful, considerate of what consent means - I think I'll be overjoyed. We decided to follow a single dictum as parents, to prioritise kindness above all else, which means not only teaching our child to be kind to himself, and therefore to others as an extension of having internalised that virtue, but also modelling kindness in our interpersonal behaviour and in our everyday life. We have to be patient with ourselves and each other, speak respectfully to one another even if we find we are low on emotional resources. The ability to regulate one's emotions is not innate. It is something we have to learn and it comes from training ourselves to be more considerate of our own feelings, and to know that they are valid and to not shame ourselves for feeling them, to let them pass through us, but to not let them dictate entirely how we respond to situations.

I cannot yet fathom what it'll be like for our child to grow up exposed to at least three or four languages - English, German, Urdu, and Italian. I am excited about him being exposed to Urdu because our Pakistani neighbours have become a colossal part of our support system.

I don't know yet if he will inherit elements of my skin tone or if he will look more like his father. So many uncertainties to contend with until D-Day. Yet, so much future to look forward to.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.