Life Matters | Jul 01,2023
Nov 30 , 2019
By Kidist Yidnekachew
As a new mom to be, you worry about so many things. You worry about the health of your baby to be, labor, whether you will be able to get back in shape after giving birth or not. These are some of the things that come to mind in a nut shell. But worrying starts from the first minute one learns they are expecting.
No matter how planned it is, it still comes as shocking. As a soon-to-be mother, all I do these days is dream about my baby, what it will look like, whether it will have its father’s nose or my eyes, what its little delicate features will look like and of course whether it’s going to be a boy or a girl (we chose to keep it a surprise). As first time parents to be, my partner and I are very excited to meet our baby. My husband often says to me, “I can’t believe we made a baby.” As excited as I am, I am also terrified of so many things that could go wrong. I will not even get into the details for fear of attracting the worst.
I remember the first months of my pregnancy. I was in complete denial. I was acting and living as if nothing has changed. I figured if I do not think about it, then it would sort of go away, not the baby but all the stress that comes with having a baby. It worked for awhile. And then my belly started showing and my emotions were all over the place. I was emotional for no absolute reason and for the most part I was just angry. And then as if the magic had been reversed, I was happy and all giggly. I have been doing a terrific job hiding my bump and up until recently I did not even look pregnant. And then it started to come out as the baby starts to claim its territory. Honestly speaking, I still have a hard time walking around with my inflated tummy; it feels weird like I was put into a costume.
As a student of psychology and a self-critical individual, I spend a lot of time introspecting. I think the major reason why I felt embarrassed about being pregnant was the community I grew up in. As a young girl, I watched many girls have babies at a very young age either out of marriage or before they finished school and realised their dreams. I vowed not to be those girls who in my head were a disappointment to their families, because their parents wanted them to learn, get a job and start a family in that order. So even though I am married, earned degrees and more or less is accomplished by society’s standards, planned to have a baby and is old enough to have one. In my head I still felt like a disappointment to my family.
I could not shake the feeling that I have somehow let them down. I know that is far from what they feel, because they are actually more excited about me having a baby than I am. The thing is our family is small and there is a demand for children. You know how they say babies listen to their mother’s heart beat in the womb. I felt like my baby was picking up embarrassment. I felt bad like I was sending a subliminal message to my baby that it is not wanted and I am not proud of it.
On so many levels, I was not ready to be a mom. On top that, I was constantly thinking what the neighbors or people who know me would think. I even cared what strangers would think of me. I needed to remind myself that everybody has their own lives to worry about and did not have time to even look at me twice. Note to self, "you aren’t the centre of attention and the world doesn’t revolve around you."
For most women, pregnancy is a difficult time, but I got lucky. There are so many rules to being pregnant. On top of that some of the rules are not even substantiated. The minute my family and friends learned I was expecting, they bombarded me with advice. More my family than friends, actually. Going through these feelings inspired me to share my feelings with mom-to-bes and made me wonder if anybody else felt the same way.
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Nov 30,2019 [ VOL
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