Pregnancy, how did it feel for you? How did it feel for your
body to be completely taken over by someone/something else for nine months? My
mom calls it 9 months prison sentence. How did your first pregnancy feel?
Second time, third time and fourth time moms have a way of belittling (I don't mean this in a rude way) your
experience by saying, "it's just your first pregnancy."
It doesn't matter what anyone says, nothing prepares you for
the pregnancy experience. It's like a roller coaster ride. No matter how many
pregnant women you have cared for, it still doesn't prepare you for pregnancy.
My heart bleeds for women who go through pregnancy alone without the support of
their men and families.
I remember when it all started. For the first six weeks, I
was all cool. But after then, hell broke lose over me. I didn't understand my
emotions. I didn't understand my body. I didn't understand my appetite. I
didn't understand the silly dreams. Nothing made sense. I would complain and
complain. I would pity my husband but still I wouldn't stop complaining. I
wanted him to understand every single I was experiencing but how could he?
Still I wouldn't give the young man a rest. My mother and mother-in-law would say,
"you don't tell a man everything you feel," but that story wasn't for
me. Infact the day my husband told me we
were pregnant together was the day he got into trouble, literally. I made sure
he knew everything that I was experiencing. Was I doing it to stress him? Very
far from it. The thing is that for each new experience I shared with him, he had
a soothing word. He had a way of healing me with his words. His words became my
balm of Gilead and I lived for those words.
I remember that doctor's visit that changed everything. I
was having this serious pain and so I had to see a doctor. As we sat across
each other, she told me in the strictest terms, "you have to stay off
anything work. Your only work would be to lie down and rest." Sensing that
I was struggling with the idea of doing nothing she added, "if you don't,
you would be endangering your baby's life." I was alarmed and ran back
home to report to my home doctor, my husband. In his usual manner, he soothed
me. He said, "don't mind what she said. She's supposed to be encouraging
you not scaring you. Nothing will happen to our baby but you would need to heed
her advice."
And that was how pregnancy made me a stay at home queen. I couldn't
do much, and if I forced myself to, the pains would return. I envied women who
were pregnant and could still go to work. I would come home and tell him I saw
a woman who is pregnant and hawking satchet water. I would tell him a saw
another pregnant woman who was lifting heavy objects. But that is the different
colors of pregnancy.
Sometimes, I would complain that I was no longer contributing
to the society by staying at home and he would tell me I'm doing the greatest contribution-
bringing another life who might invent something that will save millions of
people. Because I stay at home, it gave me time in abundance and so I had the
opportunity to read a lot. That was the color pregnant threw at me.
In antenatal, you
would hear some women say they never had issues in their pregnancy and others
who spent almost the entire nine months in hospital. You would see some women
whose tummies are big like trucks and people like us who get constantly asked,
have you put to birth because of our small tummy. You would hear some women say
they eat everything and other say they are having difficulties eating. I once
attended a church service and saw a very heavy woman dancing so hard. I tried
it and could hardly walk after. For some, first trimester was hell. For others,
they didn't know they were pregnant till about four months, literally.
No one's experience explained that of another person. We
were all unique in our experiences. And no matter the color pregnancy threw at
us, we all had one thing in common: we, God and our men were creating new
lives. That reality makes every woman glow in pregnancy.
So, if pregnancy was easy for you, enjoy it girl. If it was
a difficult period for you, remember that if you didn't experience the pain,
you wouldn't have had that baby; so be grateful for the process. Never look at another's
experience and be ungrateful for yours. It's a colorful experience; what you
have is what you have.
And so it doesn't
matter what color pregnancy throws at us, we simply absorb it and create with
God.
