Being a parent and moreso, a new one, isn’t an experience anyone is quite prepared for no matter how many help books and parent manuals you arm yourself with. Prior to now, you must have “oh my ovaries” every single cute baby picture you’ve ever seen, but here you are, heavy and pregnant and thinking “oh dear, not what I bargained for”.
Experiencing parenthood firsthand and for the first time, is quite the roller-coaster. Lucky moms get the hang of the wild spin and others just keep winging it till it seems they’ve gotten the hang of things. At least, I for one, know this personally.
THE FIRST TRIMESTER…
The first trimester was hellish for me! I threw up every chance I got. I couldn’t stand the smell or sight of my favorite foods. Aha! I just recalled one nasty experience, on my part, that almost made me lose a five-year-old friendship! Oh, and did I forget to mention that in spite of the frequency with which I always threw up, I attributed all of this to stress and never suspected it to be any more than that. In retrospect, I honestly didn’t know how my brain was wired this period, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I only found out I was pregnant when I was almost three months in!
Okay, back to how I almost lost my friend. My friend came visiting on one of those days I got highly irritable and thought it was just stress. Guess what my pregnant ass did? Told her she smelled like stale meat from the slaughterhouse. As soon as I said that, I ran straight to the bathroom to puke. I came back out to see her hurt and felt really bad about how acidic my comment came across. But as soon as I tried muttering the words to apologize, I caught another whiff of her and ran to throw up again *insert fed up face here*. Wish I could totally erase memories from that day because I get random flashes from back then and I just cringe at how the whole scenario played out. Glad to say we patched things up when we both found out my pregnancy was to blame.
AFTER THE FIRST TRIMESTER?
Did things get any better after the first trimester? Hell no! I couldn’t drive in my own car because something about it made me puke. I wouldn’t eat my own food because suddenly everything made by my own hands began to make my skin crawl. Talking about food, I would only eat food made with fresh pepper, meat or vegetables.
Second and third trimester? A haze. My head felt woozy most of the time and my body just didn’t feel like mine anymore so all my recollections from that period is just me knowing I wanted to just pop and get my normal life back. And boy, WAS I WRONG?!
Not to sound like I didn’t have moments of shimmering happiness. The littlest joys came as the occasional kicks from my little bub whenever I held a clove of garlic close to my nose. But honestly speaking, there were more tears than smiles.
DURING BIRTH…
You see, pre-pregnancy, I had watched numerous water birth videos and imagined I’d have something similar complete with a beautiful bluish, pepperminty ambience and Etta James’ At Last playing in the background while I pop out my little one.
WHAT I HAD INSTEAD…
I looked forward to my due date and up until almost three days post-due date, I hadn’t gotten as much as a single contraction. My ceiling-high anxiety levels skyrocketed once more. My back hurt all the time, I’d feel spasms in my teeth and rib cages, my nose was already as huge as a doorknob, my feet looked like they’d permanently stay swollen, I’d cry every time someone asked if I was okay and honestly, I was really over it. On one of my visits to the doctor, I had to ask if I could just have the baby right now.
They were ready to start administering the gels for induction anyways. Fast-forward to all of that procedure which also included a C-section, several hours later and at exactly 12:37 am, my doctor pulled out an 8 pounds, 13 ounces and 19 inches little Amari! Hearing her cry made me feel all the things in this world I didn’t know I was capable of feeling. My eyes blurred with not just pure relief but joyyy! The nurses cleaned her up and brought her back to be breastfed and while watching her, I was just an emotional mess all through it. It felt like a part of me that laid thoroughly masked off all of those months finally peeked through and holding her just made all those horrible months worth it.
POST-BIRTH…
Every single part of my body felt like I was beaten into a moldy pulp but the difference now? I was bursting with happiness! Nobody could get my baby out of my arms. I became fully paranoid and wouldn’t let anyone hold her till they’ve had a good slathering of hand-sanitizers right in my presence. Even then, I counted the minutes until I got her back. I didn’t care how this came across. I wasn’t going to risk these humans with kickass immunity ruining my child’s barely two-day-old immunity.
NOW HOME…
Things then got
Surviving on barely three hours of sleep per day coupled with Amari’s agenda to milk me dry made me a living, space-staring zombie. I constantly woke up with stabbing migraines around my eyebrow region. On some days, I wanted to scream into a pillow but those were mostly periods Amari graciously bowed into few hours of sleep and I’d be crazy to not grab that time for some rest of my own too.
AND THEN SHE STARTED TO GROW AND WALK…
My cute little bug is no longer quite the bug but still cute or let’s just go with still a cute little bug but now a bug that can walk. But wait, bugs have always walked. Whatever, you get the point. And then the age-old anxiety (I recently read about postpartum anxiety) doubled up and crept back in where I always imagine the worst happening to Amari whenever she wobbly-walks. Sometimes it’s my head playing very vivid imaginations of her falling nose-first on the most slippery tileset ever. The rest of my imaginations? Too graphic to detail here. So I made it a point to let every member of my family know not to take her out of her walker if they weren’t going to VERY CLOSELY monitor her.
BUT THEN IT’S A LITTLE OVER ONE YEAR…
You probably expected I’d talk “snapping back” at the seven-month mark right? Yeah me too. But that didn’t happen. The stretch marks? Still there. Not just there but with deeply-set ridges and all, I use to cringe every time I had to look down at my tummy region. Looking at old pictures made me cry but not after I realized how
I decided to put conscious efforts into being. You know, if I can’t get the body back, I can get the who back. So I went back to painting, poetry and my favorite things. The best part? My little bug is picking my creative nack for things and we plan to really hone her little skill.
As part of my journey into re-being, I decided to make new friends and more mom friends. I also decided to be more open about my struggles with other people going through similar new-mom phase. A plus to this is that my little bug also gets to make more bug friends.
Honestly? There’s no hard manual to this thing, it’s mostly just winging it and learning on the job. But overall, it’s an experience I would trade for nothing.
If you’re reading this with a frizzled bun and milk-stained tees, thinking “I can
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