Our First Pregnancy 2
Hello people, so we were gisting you on how being pregnant for the first time went. We are here to continue the story. Read the first part HERE.
We were in our second trimester. Our belly formed a pouch, our nose suffered from weight gain and thankfully the frequent nausea was history. We walked around with the evidence of sex. Touts on the streets of Douala, market women and random people started calling us the names they often hollered pregnant women: “Fatigue! Manyi! Ekete!” Then there was the parlance that often made us cringe: “Qui ta fais comme ca?” (Meaning, ‘”Who did this to you?”)
We made frequent trips to the hospital for ante-natal check ups. Our first trip was when we were twelve weeks pregnant. We chose to go to our favourite hospital, Mboppi Baptist Health Centre, colloquially known as Mbingo. With our Mum around, we felt like a teen under parental guidance. We left the house quite early… or so we thought.
We walked from our house to the main street where we would board a cab to take us to the health centre. As cabs approached us, we motioned with our fingers for them to stop and yelled, “Mbingo!” It took a while and an offer to pay more than the basic two hundred francs fare before we could get a willing chauffeur.
For some reason, we enjoy medical visits so we were looked forward to our first ante-natal class. We jumped from the taxi and chattered with our mother like secondary school mates as we made way to the prenatal section of the hospital.
When we arrived, It was quite a sight. Phew! We have never seen so many pregnant women in the same place and at the same time. It was a mixture of hormones at work. We picked a number that indicated the order in which we will be received and quickly found a place to seat.
Our closest neighbour was Aunty Pauline. A little badinage with her revealed that she owned a hair stylist shop and was carrying her second pregnancy. With a mouth filled with saliva, she said: “Na truck bring us today. We no sure say we go fit cam every month.”
There was Elsie the puff-puff seller who had joggled her way all the way from Bonaberi, Amelie, the francophone girl who didn’t want to put on any weight and Annabel who hung her nose as though she was in a public school toilet.
After a brief morning devotion and a health talk, our vital signs were taken. We were tested for various STDs and our bellies were examined, they were many procedures to assess our well-being.
After that first visit, we took monthly trips to the hospital for antenatal check-ups. At every visit, we were given a lecture, our urine samples were tested for protein and sugar. It was fun to hear the medical personnel refer to us as “belle dem”.
With most of the nausea that almost made a skeleton of us in the first trimester gone, it was an easy breezy second trimester.
One very important part of the pregnancy was prayers. We prayed that the things that destroyed children will not destroy our child. We prayed to have a good and considerate baby. We prayed for a smooth delivery. The months passed by so fast then we moved on to an epic third trimester.
We will tell you all about that in the next post. Hope you read THIS POST so this one can make more sense. Which phase of pregnancy do you enjoy most and why? Talk to us below!
Hope your week started well. Mine started sluggishly but we had a rush of adrenaline and things started moving really fast. Thank God!!! See you in the next post!
