This is what is said in the movies, at the baby showers and in the church sermons: that when I saw my child for the first time, the joy of motherhood would overwhelm the pains of pregnancy. You see pregnancy sucks. I suspected that my discomfort, irritation, depression and downright unhappiness was linked to the fact that I was overworked, underfed and sleep deprived. However, I later realized that there was a deeper issue at hand.
Many people are surprised when they see or hear that I have a child. I had, unconsciously, delayed pregnancy and children for as long as I could. I had the best of excuses. I wanted to have children within a state-recognised marriage because I know that the answers to those questions can be horribly, and unnecessarily, uncomfortable especially when the children start to ask. I was too young and busy with school [read MSc!] to get married. Then, I was busy with a career. Then, I was thinking about starting a business. Then I run out of excuses – except that I wasn’t ready. In a sense, I feel like I never will be. At times, it feels like I am watching someone else’s life unravel and soon we shall hit “stop” and “rewind” back to the start of the scene.
I am afraid I will mess this up. I am very prone to depression, so doubts and fears, however slight, can easily tip me over the fence to the dark side. I found out we were pregnant and I panicked. I have an unhealthy fear of unknown situations. I brood and dream up the worst possible scenarios, imagining that anything I touch will turn out to be foul. It is irrational, I know. I have been quite lucky and successful in life. I am actually quite good at the things that I set my mind to. But this fear is so real that there were times I was sure I was swallowing the bile that it created.
My fears were augmented by the fact that my hormones and senses were on overdrive. Nothing tasted or smelt right. Then my feet got so swollen that my doctor started to worry about my blood pressure. I was sure I was doing something wrong. Then I got so busy that I barely ate. Everyone else was now worried too. I was not gaining weight as I ought to. I wasn’t dressing right. I do not own a single maternity dress, to date. Apparently, if you wear trousers far into the 3rd trimester you will not be able to have a vaginal birth. I was constantly worried about the kind of person I had growing inside me. What ought I to teach him? I was worried that I might infect him with my darkness and moodiness.
By 7 am, on the morning of his birth, I was exhausted. I had been sleeping poorly for months and had not slept at all that night. The nurses kept telling me that I should not make too much noise because it “makes the baby tired”. The husband and my mother were completely befuddled. The idea of having to go into surgery had them worried. We had planned a vaginal birth. It got complicated. So at 7 am, the nurse brings a screaming babe up to my face and asks me to identify the babe’s sex. It was not joy that I felt. When I was told to figure out how to breast feed him a few hours later, it was not joy that I experienced. Every day, when I wake up after too few hours of restless sleep and have only another busy soul-draining day to look forward to, it is not joy that comes to mind.
Today I was at the hospital. Another mother and her infant, along with two other older children came in. The mother was so glad for the opportunity to sit and collect herself. Soon, she had dosed off – right there, holding her baby. Eventually, she gave the baby to one of the other children, lay down on the hospital chairs and took a nap.
To be fair, there are instances of pure delight. When he smiles at something I do, or giggles because I walk into the room, the sun breaks through the clouds. These moments, sprinkled all over the day, revive whatever little hope I have left.
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