Single, pregnant and traveling: My journey to solo parenthood via Sri Lanka

Cocooned as I am on a sandy, palm-fringed beach near Midigama on Sri Lanka’s southern coast, a cloud of saudade has settled that I just can’t shake. ‘Saudade’ is a Portuguese word with no direct translation into English, but means a kind of nostalgia, but for the present moment. I am longing for now, trying to soak in every last second.

Today is Poya, a full moon holy day when practicing Buddhists flock to temples, and alcohol and meat are forbidden. Consequently, the Piña Colada I’m drinking is booze-free, although that’s not why I’m abstaining. I’m celebrating another kind of moon, the baby kind. Today I am 23 weeks pregnant. That means—according to a Dorkling Kingsley day-by-day guide to pregnancy that a friend gave me, one of only two baby-related books I’ve read—my baby is the size of a squash and weighs the same as a bag of wholewheat pasta. (Why wholewheat pasta? I can’t help but wonder. Even pregnancy has been gentrified).

I am also, as the National Office of Statistics politely calls it, one of the one million plus women aged between 35-45 who are “not in a couple and live alone.” My driver and guide Thila literally cannot believe I’m traveling with child yet without husband. I don’t want to disabuse him of the notion I might not have one. While being single isn’t exactly a choice—I spent many drunken, unhappy years of my 20s trying to find a mate—today, women like me are empowered by our singledom.

I’ve traveled from the peaks of the Himalayas to the Antarctic ice shelf and the center of the Silk Road. I love to travel alone—it allows you to get further and closer and more intricately weave yourself into a culture or custom, seeing more. But for a while now, there’s been a nagging feeling that the greatest gift I can give is to share the world with someone, inspiring a new little person with a passion for the world’s wide open spaces.

The only other baby book I’ve read is Gowri Motha’s Gentle Birth Method. Motha is a Sri Lankan obstetrician who advocates for women and recommends a program of nutrition, massage, reflexology and aromatherapy in line with traditional Ayurvedic practices.

On her blog she writes that here in Sri Lanka, “It’s usual for relatives on both sides of the family to visit a pregnant mother, regularly bringing her easy-to-digest, delicious food to eat. This ritual of feeding a pregnant woman is considered to be one of the most meritorious good deeds and builds up good karma—hence the motivation. I love this tradition because it acknowledges the soon-to-be-born baby and shows that the extended family are already taking care of him or her.”

Those magic words were read during the peak of my morning sickness with no one to tend to me—and too scared to ask for help. I lived off Marks & Spencer ready meals and protein shakes. They played no small role in my decision to come to Sri Lanka, and I’m glad.

I’m reasonably sure that I wouldn’t be sitting in here, in this hut with the neighbors peering in at me, if it wasn’t for the baby bump straining at my dress. So it’s opening new doors for me—literally—but in another way, it’s holding me back.

At Mama’s, a shack on a sandy strip of beach near Weligama, a town on the country’s southern coast, you can buy fish so fresh, it’s still flipping. Mama tells me proudly that it’s the only female-owned restaurant on this stretch of sand. I choose some big squid, but Mama says no. “No good for you with baby,” she says with a gappy grin. “I’ll cook you small ones, in a special sauce.” And then carries it to me with such care that I feel my heart swell.

As I sit on the beach, toes wiggling in the sand, I feel held, treasured. Flavored with fresh curry leaves and lime, the meal is so much more delicious than anything I’ve ever tasted. Possibly partly because every taste, touch and sound is underpinned by a feeling that it might be the last. The baby flickers its approval like a minnow. Am I cooking up my perfect travel partner? Here’s hoping.

The downside of Thila is that he wants to drive me everywhere and has valiantly set himself the task of protecting me—and bump. At times I’m made claustrophobic by his care. He always wants to know where I’m going next, and where I plan to stay, and I’m just not that kind of traveler. Yet, anyway.

We’re heading vaguely into the tea hills, a three-and-a-half-hour drive inland. Along the road, gigantic thousand-year-old Buddha figures cut from the rock at Buduruwagala still bear traces of the orange sunset colors they were once painted. In Ella, a small town in Uva Province, I hang over the edge of Nine Arches Bridge—a majestic 91-meter-long bridge that curves around a valley that shelters a tea plantation—marveling at the feat of engineering. All the while Thila is lurking watchfully nearby. Meanwhile, I’m desperately looking for an Airbnb.

The next day, I mastermind an escape, hopping out of the car to take a picture and losing him in maze-like rows of highland tea plantations. I’m adopted by a gaggle of tea pickers, one of whom takes me home on her lunch break. She hands me her baby while she makes tea. “Good practice,” she laughs, and my own baby becomes ever more real.

The thing about traveling solo—well, almost solo—is that things happen that just wouldn’t happen if you were with other people. And I’m reasonably sure that I wouldn’t be sitting in here, in this hut with the neighbors peering in at me, if it wasn’t for the baby bump straining at my dress. It’s opening new doors for me—literally—but in another way, it’s holding me back.

Staring up at the ancient rock fortress at Sigiriya, the top so distant it’s wrapped in fog, I’m filled with a certain sense of foreboding. Can I really make it to the top? In this condition? As if reading my thoughts, Thila says, “Madam, this is not for you.” Which is just the kind of boost that I need.

Rising high above the rainforest canopy, Sigiriya has been on my list of go-to destinations since I was an 11-year-old-schoolgirl and our teacher blushed as she told us about the secret world where King Kashyapa (AD 477–495) spent his summers with 500 concubines lounging around a series of pools.

It’s hard to get used to my new energy levels, but I’m exhausted and for the first time in my life have to admit to myself that it’s not always possible to do it all.

This holiday is a ‘do—or don’t know when I ever will again’ for me. So I stubbornly huff and puff my way up through layers of secret gardens designed to befuddle intruders and eventually step between the paws of a huge lion carved into the rock on the final stretch of the journey upwards. A pause to catch my breath and admire the view becomes an hour’s reflection. What kind of mother will I be? I’ve already found a backpack you can put a baby in. But am I strong enough—and brave enough—to carry it alone?

But a new mothering instinct is kindling in me, and as much as I loved watching elephants tug the grass and graze on palm fronds in Kaudulla National Park, located on a reservoir in the North Central Province, I didn’t love the park itself. Squashed into too many jeeps that crowd around, jostling for the best positions far too close to the earth’s greatest matriarchs. A baby strays too close to the road and its mother turns and flaps her ears at our driver, so that he backs away. Stay safe little one. Stay safe.

It’s far more rewarding catching glimpses of them grazing on the side of the road as we drive northwards to the sacred city of Anuradhapura, a few hours away. It’s a stunner of a city, known for its many ancient Buddhist temples and giant dome-shaped stupas that glitter among paddy fields. I spend an afternoon on a rickety old bike lent to me by my hotel before conceding that a tuk-tuk might be a marginally safer way to transport my little squash. It’s that push and pull again. Do it all. But play it safe. You’re a mama now.

Work on the tracks means there are no trains to Jaffna, on Sri Lanka’s northernmost tip. For both the baby’s and my sake, I forgo the five-hour car journey north. It’s a huge disappointment to give up on the end goal of my trip, and it’s not taken lightly or without tears. It’s hard to get used to my new energy levels, but I’m exhausted and for the first time in my life have to admit to myself that it’s not always possible to do it all. Instead, I head straight to Trincomalee on the East coast, where a small family-run beachfront hotel called Memo’s Beach awaits.

It’s a tiny, independent, bohemian-feeling cluster of shacks on the shore, a kind of secret garden paradise. But I’m sold on it by this line on their website, “We think Sri Lanka has enough men’s employment, that’s why we are more prone to employ local women, to improve women’s emancipation and give them a second chance.”

Run by a husband and wife team, I’m greeted by them and their delightful baby daughter so warmly that it feels like a welcome home. Here, I have the chance to breathe. It feels completely and utterly safe. The perfect place to take stock of my tour of Sri Lanka as I eat my homemade curry with a dog lying at my feet and Mama Memo fussing if I’m comfortable enough.

At every step of my journey, I’ve felt special. Watched over and bathed in warmth. And so I end my trip as I started it, in a hammock beneath a palm tree, on an empty stretch of beach staring out to the horizon trying to indelibly print every second on the inside of my eyelids. I already miss this. But I know now that my greatest adventure is still ahead of me.

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