Our First Pregnancy Part 3
Wait, have you read MY FIRST PREGNANCY 1 and MY FIRST PREGNANCY 2? Please read them before this so you can get the complete picture.
We woke up for the twentieth time to pee. Okay… not twentieth but that’s what it felt like. Our sleep was constantly interrupted by the need to pee and that was nettlesome. We pulled our self from the locally made oak bed and slowly walked towards the bathroom where we quickly emptied our bladder. With our eyes partially closed, we made our way to bed to continue with our adventures in dreamland.
In a short while, we felt the need to pee again! We were infuriated. How did our bladder fill up in such a short time? If our bladder were a person then we would have been having a serious ‘talk’. Attempts to ignore the need to go and sleep away didn’t work. We grudgingly got out of bed and went to the bathroom again…
Sleepless nights for mothers do not begin when they give birth. They begin in the third trimester of pregnancy. The numerous discomforts in this phase makes a good night’s sleep a fantasy.
We struggled with sleeping positions. When we turned to the right, we felt like turning to the left. When we turned to the left, we felt like going back to sleeping on our right side. Then when we finally got to our right side, we would feel as though laying on our back will do the trick for us. When we lay on our back, we would wish we could just lay on our stomach. But we couldn’t lay on our tummy! Our nights were characterised by poky shifts of tossing and turning.
After enjoying the comfort of the second trimester, we moved to dealing with the hassles of the third trimester. We were an inflated version of us. Everything on our body had increased in size. Our favourite shorts could no longer go beyond our thighs. Our fingers grew bigger and our wedding ring got stuck. We tried severally to get it out but failed.
Our feet were as big as those of an elephant (okay, hyperbole). The hospital said it was due to fluid retention, a medical condition known as oedema. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt though it seemed so.
As we moved about, we still attracted comments from onlookers but this time around the tone changed from sarcasm to sympathy. Almost everyone advised us to drink lemon grass colloquially called, ‘fever grass’.
We almost finished a neighbour’s fever grass in her garden due to this recurrent advice. We harvested the fresh ones boiled them and gulped down the tea most of the times without sugar. When the fresh ones got finished, we began harvesting the dried ones. Thank God for a generous neighbour! Lol. There was always lemon grass tea in our flask. Drinking it did not change a thing, though. We drank it so much that our ‘drinkittude’ became contagious. Almost everyone around us began consuming the homemade tea.
Then we were advised to have an ultrasound. Hear the midwife:
Belle dem, as time for born di cam reach e fine for go make dem look pikin for computer. E go helep we for know if pikin di grow fine. Them go check dat water wey e shiddon inside if e correct. Den dey go check if pikin shiddon fine. Abeg, for here we no di talk wether pikin na boy or girl because some Mami dem di vex when they say na boy when they want girl or they say girl, when they want boy. Pikin na pikin!
So we had an ultrasound which cost, 10,000 CFA frs. Thankfully the ultrasound technician said we were healthy and baby was doing just fine. They gave us a picture ‘claiming’ it was one of our baby. All we could see were black and white things overlapping each other. Well, we were thankful that our baby was fine.
Next, we'll talk about our first delivery!
