Guns and roses, that’s how I would describe motherhood. Being a mother is the most beautiful thing on earth – you get to give life, have someone you can fully call your own, a nature’s gift to women. You get to be treated like an egg, getting away with a lot, such as lazing around and being moody; it’s like the world stops when you want and moves when you want. Your food preferences are taken into consideration.
Baby showers are planned, gifts showered upon you – the world seems sweet, like roses. This is what we often think, wishing for foot rubs as we see women on TV receive. However, from my experience, I would dispute this notion. Pregnancy is also hard; the rollercoaster of emotions women go through when pregnant alone would make anyone think twice about getting pregnant. Personally, the first emotion I felt was joy and excitement. Why was I excited? Because I thought I was going to experience what I had seen in the movies – my partner giving me belly rubs, ice cream in the middle of the night, hot wings cravings, and because my partner was excited.
It was two months after finding out we were pregnant that all hell broke loose. Anxiety began to creep in, anxious about carrying full term, praying not to lose the pregnancy. Mind you, I had never been pregnant before, but knowing someone who had lost their pregnancy made me paranoid. I worried about where to send him or her to school, how to give them the world, what values to instill, and prayed for a normal baby. I worried about whether he or she would love me and didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes I saw my mom make. I worried about the kind of relationship he or she would have with the father.
Then came the paranoia where everyone seemed like a threat, convinced that the enemy didn’t want me to have this child. To make matters worse, I even began to dream of it – someone trying to run over my baby, and at one point, that very same child rescued me.
How could I leave out the so-called morning sickness? When you hear the term, you think it only comes in the morning, but lo and behold, it comes at any time of the day. With my pregnancy, I was sick half of the time, so I didn’t enjoy it much. I even lost weight, which stressed me out.
Nearing the end of my pregnancy, fear set in, and the real reality hit the wall. I feared going into labor – how to handle everything, whether it’s painful, how to push, and when to push. I started missing the beginning of my pregnancy, wishing to go back to being two months pregnant. I wished to change many things, from a birth plan to the timeframe itself, and the fear of going into the labor ward and coming out without a child returned. It took my best friend to dispel those thoughts and pray for me. It helped a lot, but the fear of labor pains lingered.
Little did I realize that my partner was going through an emotional rollercoaster, and the bases of our arguments were how he wasn’t considerate of how I felt. But I too was not considered. It was only after the child was born that he opened up and told me about his worries and fears. There were times when he refused intimacy, fearing he might hurt the baby. At that time, I was not having it. I wanted what I wanted, and if he didn’t give it to me, it interpreted that he was getting it elsewhere because he was disgusted with me. He said every time we were intimate, he would be left with the guilt of ‘what if something happens to the baby; how will he ever forgive himself?’ So, men do go through pregnancy hurdles; society has taught us that men are strong, but pregnancy is stronger.
One thing I learned from my personal pregnancy is to plan nothing, be spontaneous, live life as it is. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Nothing can prepare you enough for the process, so don’t plan, just live in the moment, take life one day at a time, and remember, all pregnancies are not the same. What you experience with your first pregnancy might not be the same with your second or fourth. Trust in the process, enjoy what you can, and do not try to compare your experience with anyone else’s. Do what makes you comfortable.