Picky Series, Part 1
“Veloce! Veloce!”
My bulging belly threatened to burst from the bathing suit I bought a month earlier in the Italian department store near our new apartment. With no maternity section, I settled for a matronly black and white number bearing a striking resemblance to a real life orca.
Since moving to Rome, I followed all the Italian food instructions for someone in my condition—Never eat cured meats. (Beware toxoplasmosis!) Avoid salads. (Look out for listeria!) Only drink a little wine. (Live la dolce vita!)—and yet the largest piece of clothing I ever owned fit like a sausage casing as the aqua gym instructor shouted at me.
Faster, he yelled. Faster!
I sighed. Rolling my eyes didn’t work either. So much for body language as a tool of international communication. I’d have to waddle-glide to the edge of the pool to remind him. Again.
“Sono incinta,” I said.
“Huh?” he asked, the blare of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” bouncing off the indoor pool’s walls.
“Sono IN-CIN-TA.”
It was the first phrase our friend Dan taught me when we moved to Rome six months earlier. “I’m pregnant” can get you into (or out of) many situations in Italy. I really was moving as fast as my internal organs and their new roommate would allow.
Okay, okay, the instructor relented.
He organized himself in the center of the humid room. From there, his high kicks could be better seen by the dozens of women in the pool. This group typically included me and twenty elderly Italian ladies in every shape, size and shade of gorgeous olive skin. Depending on the time of day, we’d also have a handful of young ladies, perfectly sculpted in their one-piece suits. Neither group ever talked to me.
That was fine because I was busy trying to learn Italian gym culture. On top of grocery store culture, walking-your-dog culture and of course, Italian pregnancy culture, aqua gym was only one ray in the confusing kaleidoscope of our lives in Italy.
Everything was so weird. And so fun. Luckily, that’s my favorite combination.
I was newly married to my long-time boyfriend and together we packed up from New York City for Rome. He took a role with an agency of the UN called the Food and Agricultural Organization. I took a break from corporate life at a big media company famous for creating gorgeous homes, crafts and food, to become a long-distance media consultant. And a mom.
Our first daughter was on her way.
Everything was about to change.
I had no idea how to do any of it.
So I stuck to things I knew. Like exercise. I’ve always been active and even though my body looked practically sphere-like, I was determined to stay in shape. And not just for myself. I’d recently read one of the aughts classics, Skinny Bitch: Bun in the Oven. Victoria Beckham swore by the authors’ advice for her svelte shape and who was I to question that famous waif?
Watch out for your baby, books like this warned. If your child becomes fat in the womb, imagine the life they’ll have on the outside! Best to start with healthy eating (or not eating) now, so your unborn baby can stay fit. Nobody likes a fat fetus, you guys.
So off to the gym I went. My pregnancy was considered “high-risk” because I was thirty-five, and water aerobics was one of the best choices according to my OBGYN. That’s how I learned important skills like how to navigate an Italian pool. Every person must have the following: a one-piece bathing suit, swim cap, flip flops and a robe, preferably knee-length and made of waffle fabric. The robe is separate from the towel and worn only to and from the pool. The towel is for showering afterward, a complex process involving several loofahs, oils and lotions. The hair drying station doubles as a nudist colony but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Once you arrive at the pool, you take a shower wearing flip flops but not the robe. Then you get into the pool with the cap but not the flip flops. About five minutes after class is supposed to start, the instructor arrives and fires up the music. Meanwhile, us aquatic athletes have assembled in the pool facing the front of the room.
There are two instructors for this class: a man and a woman. She’s tall with a mop of brown curls, and the bossiest person I’ve ever met. At least fifty percent of her job seems to be yelling at me: make smaller movements, keep one foot on the floor, stop trying to balance on the crazy floating noodle. Once she asked for my name, but Charity turned out to be too long for her to keep straight so we agreed on Ann, my middle name. She’s never used either one. Instead she whistles to catch my attention.
Now picture Jon Bon Jovi. He’s a ringer for the male instructor. Same size (small), stature (muscular) and hair (shaggy). But, and let me be clear about this, our instructor is much less sexy. This guy’s wearing a white muscle shirt, perplexingly loose biking shorts with padding, black socks and shiny white running shoes. His musical stylings are rooted in classic rock but not without the occasional unexpected twist, like last week’s tunes from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The women swoon.
Also he never, ever, remembers I’m pregnant. And since my whole bump is submerged in the water … you see where this is going. That’s why he calls me out when he doesn’t think I’m moving with enough gusto. Week after week I drift up for a poolside consultation where he re-discovers that:
a. I don’t really speak Italian and
b. “sono incinta.”
Ah, bene, he says.
Every time.
Want more? Read part 2 >>
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