MY PREGNANCY JOURNEY - CHAPTER 1

Dear Diary,

I wrote this article on the 14th of November, 2017. By this time, I was already seven months gone and expecting my cutie. Now, I'm posting this article, my cutie has arrived and is almost three months old. How time flies. I promise you that this series is an interesting one. But this article is looooooooong, so grab a pack of popcorn and a drink.

Let me be the first person to tell you that PREGNANCY is beautiful! I have never doubted this, I only came to a full knowledge with this journey. Do not believe the naysayers who say otherwise. I’m not talking about the ones who TRULY go through hell to bring forth a child…I’m talking about those ones that derives joy by making you feel they are doing the most!

Interestingly, I always thought I’ll have a hectic preggo journey. I thought I’ll drag my legs, have a swollen nose, face and legs, spit into cups and be an all-round mess. ‘’We’’ got pregnant earlier than we planned to, and I was still trying to adjust to being married, my relocation to the busiest city in Nigeria and my new office. Some of you will say Barbara has been trying to adjust since April 2017…oh well, I haven’t adjusted fully, and I cannot come and lie biko!

So, we found out we was pregnant and I was kinda low, I just told myself that I was about to experience a roller coaster 9 months journey of my life. I sincerely thought I will run away from myself one day and come back after I had had my baby. I really didn’t know how I was going to combine a new home, work, school and a bump! Small me!

Anyways, I was keen on being as strong as I could all through my journey and interestingly, I kept a low baby profile at work. No one at work knew I was expecting a baby till I was at the end of my second trimester. I felt like a genius! And when my team knew, it was difficult for them to believe how far gone I was. I was the life of the party literally and was living up fine.

You know the morning sickness, nausea et all usually associated with early pregnancy? I had none of these. My early days as an expectant mother had me just puking whenever my toothbrush had a contact with my tongue. I’ll throw up so badly, MJ will jump up from bed and soothe my back till I felt better. The only day he got too used to my ‘’routine’’ and ignored my puking, I had his head on a plate. LOL. His defence was it was a normal thing and he didn’t feel the need to get up. I had to ask him if I had been puking like that when I was still in my father’s house and he came to marry me…drama queen? Yeah right. I had to always have mints in my bag to avoid mouth odour and keep me from spitting. Everybody always have mints in their bags, so nobody thought I was pregnant.

The other morning sickness I experienced was the sickness of getting up every morning to commute to work. This had nothing to do with pregnancy, this was just me being my lazy self.

So I informed family and I had to register at the hospital for ante-natal care (ANC) which I didn’t do. I thought I had time. Everything was happening so fast. In fact, I fell ill and went to the hospital at five months, the doctor threatened not to attend to me next time if I didn’t register for ante-natal care. So I had to. The registration process was a long one, but I have to give it up to them for being extra professional.

I was slated for doctor’s appointment and classes once in a month till I was in the middle of my third trimester. My first class was an eye-opener, I got to the clinic at 9am and was number 136 on the waiting list. Apparently, every lady in my neighbourhood was pregnant! I was exhausted when the session finished that day and since then, I try to get to the hospital a bit earlier.

When my team finally knew I was pregnant, it was easier to take excuses for doctor’s appointment and ANC. And they were all so accommodating. I remember once when I went out with a colleague and our driver ran into a bad spot and failed to apologise. My colleague was mad at him and made sure he apologised to me for being reckless in driving. The best time to be pampered is when you are pregnant, I tell ya!

Believe me, the world may be a wicked place, but we still have good people around…especially towards a pregnant woman and an innocent baby! I began to wonder why I didn’t let everyone know I was pregnant from day 1. I was treated like a princess all through.

MJ is the best. I think he deserves a whole article dedicated to him. He basically was hands-on on this journey. It’s ‘’big’’ to have a baby growing inside of you and even bigger for someone else to carry you and your growing baby. That’s what MJ did. He was carrying both of us! I think he did the bigger job. I enjoyed being pampered.

Did I have cravings? Not really. Occasionally, I’ll ask for random food. Dry biscuits, noodles, akara (bean cake) and everything in between. And these were all one-offs so I can’t call them cravings.

Some days, MJ had to step up and make dinner or breakfast. He also earned me some extra minutes of sleep by turning on the water heater and getting me set for the day’s work whenever my alarm goes off in the mornings. Sleep was never enough though. I also had leg cramps that were really really painful. I’ll stretch in my sleep and wake up with a sharp pain on my leg region. It was so bad that I’ll wake up screaming and poor MJ will be lost on how to be of help. I got really worried and read about it. Once I knew it was really nothing to lose sleep over, I tried not to stretch so much whilst sleeping. Stretching in my sleep was sweet but the pain afterwards did not cut it, so I gave up the latter for the former.

My first ultrasound scan was at 8 weeks, this one was on doctor’s order to determine the number of weeks I’ve been pregnant at that time and stuff. My second scan was very emotional for me, it was at 21 weeks I guess. Seeing my baby all grown up welled up tears in my eyes. I could see his bone structure, spinal cord and heart beat and I literally leapt for joy. I was in the room with MJ and we both felt the same way. I quizzed the lab guy for the sex of my baby and he told me it was sketchy now but he could see my baby is a ********

My boss introduced me to a birth site where I could monitor my baby’s development weekly and get answers to questions I may have. As a first time mum with a clueless idea on what to expect, I found the site to be very insightful. Once I expressed little worries, I log on and read up. I remember when I had a hot flush after a very stressful week and I thought I had spotted (blood stains in your underwear), I checked this up and found out that the stress could have ignited the flush, and since I didn’t spot, there was no worries. I felt at peace knowing my baby and I were okay.

Major things I will score myself low on during the duration of my pregnancy has to be exercise and eating fruits. I can count the number of times I actually took a walk or did some form of exercise all through the nine months. God is really faithful oh. If we are to be judged by our doings or undoing, I doubt I merit a baby. I had my weekends to myself, but I’ll rather sleep than take a walk or jog. The few times I did, was to walk to an ATM and back and I had to force myself to do it. On fruits, I deserve to be spanked I tell ya! MJ was my fruit police. He really tried to make me eat fruits but since I was never a fruit person before my pregnancy, I found it difficult to adjust when I got pregnant. I was an occasional fruit eater, and I had my spec. I prefer a smoothie, but I always had an excuse not to make one for myself.

On drugs, as a preggo, I had to take medications; folic acid, calcium, vitamins, iron and co throughout the duration of the pregnancy. So I had to get used to this one. I needed my baby to have a well-developed brain, strong bones, good eyesight etc. I did this for him mehn!

My only worry at 7 months was that my tummy wasn’t so protruded. Same me that was grateful my second trimester almost ended before peeps found out I was pregnant began to worry when my bump was only the size of a coconut at 7 months. The doctors said I was fine and my baby was fine too, but I still felt small inside and on the outside. I could pass for a lady with a big stomach and not a pregnant lady. I thought I wasn’t eating enough so I increased my food intake. But my appetite was still regular, so I stopped forcing it and maintained my normal appetite. I concluded that I’ll rather have a small baby I can push out in a twinkle of an eye and feed to be big, than a big baby inside me and have difficulties with labour. Wise decision yeah?

My nauseous feeling had to be lunch time at work. I’ll go to the lunch room and the aroma of different food at the same time will heighten my sense of smell and make me dash to the bathroom. Basically, lunchtime was a nightmare! And because my pregnancy was not ‘’out there’’ yet, I didn’t want to raise any suspicion. You know how vomiting is synonymous to pregnancy in this clime, once you burp and race to the bathroom in a room full of colleagues having lunch, everyone starts insinuating different things at the same time. So whenever I find myself in the lunchroom, I tried very hard to take all the funny smells in and behave myself. I later started eating very early in the day when fewer colleagues would be having lunch, or totally avoid the lunchroom all through the day.

Let's pause now, shall we?

Barby.