So you have a Bun in ur Oven..??!!

“Woow!! Great news, congrats !”
“Hey that sounds exciting…u r about to enter a lovely phase of life !”
“Wow take care dear…Im soooooo happy for u !”

You feel out of this world and made to feel as if you are an angel fallen from 7th heaven! The hype and the excitement make you believe that you are indeed entering a wonderful phase where you are going to live life Queen Size!! Enough! I have been one of those poor gullible souls who imagined all the nice things about getting pregnant. The over excited world around us highlights only the happy things and blissfully ignores the not-so-happy parts! To have a green chilli after you are made to enjoy your fave dessert is really painful ! At least the other way round would have helped us to lower the expectations.

You are treated like you are fallen from heaven, but only you know that you have fallen flat & hard in some pits of hunger, continuous sleepiness and eternal tiredness. And while falling you have also thrown some things like your figure, that slim waistline, career and your energy into the ether ! Once the excitement of breaking the news subsides, you are now shut in a silent world where all you can hear is hunger pangs, puking noises and irking smells. You start hating your fave food and suddenly feel like having something which you never wanted to have in your wildest dreams. You begin to hate people and their over dose of advice flowing in from all possible directions. You have no clue why this happens, then that happens. Your number of whys and hows increase, and along with your pills you have to start taking some unpalatable surprises. But one thing you definitely can predict is that your health now is unpredictable. On the flip side, you get into a privileged class. Your laziness in the name of pregnancy is excused, early to bed and late to rise also makes you healthy, being with your mom and getting pampered is acceptable. At office an occasional nap during office hours is forgivable, the hawk-eyed manager is now trying to lessen the stress and burden on you, you can skip that imp all-hands, you are out of the cultural events of the company. All the career-oriented women, you can read all these in one phrase - "Sidelined at workplace". It is both relieving and frustrating !

The world now leaves the excitement and tries to paint a rather real pic of what it is like being pregnant. Now they dump some advice like this is how it will be till your 5th month or so…and let this 3rd month pass I am sure you will be fine. Then there are these emotional aunties who keep telling how wonderful it is to give birth to a baby, how lucky are we to be blessed with that virtue ! Don’t ever react and say what you really feel….that you feel sick, that it hurts and that it is so uncomfortable and so sudden in your life that you are not ready for it blah-blah…!! That blah-blah will make them feel that you don’t count your blessings in life and are an unwise fool. You will also be looked at as unemotional, immature and arrogant too. If you ask me it’s ok to be pissed with it, have that cranky mood of your speak out, vent out the frustration especially to your partner. The husbands are such a lucky lot ! With some minimal effort and a few seconds of pleasure, they have a readymade baby falling on their laps after 9 months.

Wait !

If you think this is it, think again. Like all dark clouds even this has a silver lining. Once the 3rd month begins to end and the months increase, you feel the difference. The sleepiness, the nausea, the cranky moods tend to reduce. Your body gets a lil predictable and you slowly start catching the pulse of it. By the time you are in your 5th month, things look brighter and in 6th you are infact feeling your best. You occasionally feel like humming your fave tune, shaking a leg, are more comfortable in meeting and talking to people, are OK with the various smells and are almost leading a normal life. The only difference being your protruding belly (if its already begun).

Now when things look much better, I get a lil positive about me and my pregnancy. I am enjoying this phase of life when I am treated royally and taken care supremely. If you are one of those lucky ones to have gotten a great loving husband then every moment of your life is all the more special now. A slight movement here and there in your tummy sometimes makes you wonder and keeps you excited ! I have also been lucky till now maintaining my weight, health and that figure ;-). Also our new house, the house-warming and everythiing related to 'our home' kept me in a never-ending excitement all thru. I am also glad that our future kid is partially involved in all these auspicious things (And when did I get soooo emotional?? :O) Even before I know I get possessive about the lil one. Phani and me have occasional bickerings on baby being my best friend or his best friend. Its true that you have advice attacking from all sides but some really make sense. Like reading a book (encouraging silence as you wouldnt have much energy to talk now), listening to some soothing music (loud music irks you like hell), eating at regular intervals (to avoid getting tired), enough rest (enough sleep). These things can actually make your initial months of pregnancy bearable.

This journey of life has brought me to this station (read stage) called Pregnancy. If life is all about the various experiences, then its foolish to not to enjoy each stage thoroughly. After all everything is a passing phase so we should enjoy before it passes off. This is what my journey is till the 6th month. Do wait for the 2nd part of this series to know how I felt about the last stage of my pregnancy and what my mind has to speak then. Needless to say the post will be out only after March 2010. Till then its me the would-be-mommy signing off ;-)