Glitchtown

Before I continue writing, I would like to say that this post is NOT about complaining but IT IS TO GIVE IT UP TO ALL MOTHERS OUT THERE! *applaud*

We are absolutely amazing! Also, all pregnancies are different and this is my experience.

Let’s begin 😀

1. MORNING SICKNESS. Honestly, I do not know what I was expecting but I definitely did not anticipate how intense and debilitating it was. Vomiting 5-6 days a week for 10 weeks straight without a minute of relief was not on my radar. I was nauseous 24/7 and sometimes the nausea is so bad that it woke me up in the middle of the night. I had to sleep elevated with 2-3 pillows or just sit because it’s more tolerable that way. Everything smells absolutely sickening to me and it’s not limited to only food but just smell in general (nature, scented household products, skincare, toothpaste, people’s breaths etc).

Tips: Have either Vicks VapoRub or Peppermint Essential Oil with you. That helped me curbed the nausea a little. I also have nappy bags with me at all times because you just never know when you vomit and regular plastic is too big so nappy bags are just the perfect size! Picture below is the one I use but really, it’s just a plastic bag. Just get smaller sized ones.

2. MATERNITY PANTS. No one ever told me that this would be such a waste of money. Why? Because they probably wouldn’t fit you past 6 months. Depending on how big your baby bump is but by the time I reached 6 months pregnant, the bands were digging into my skin and it was so uncomfortable. I even got a size up and it was still uncomfortable. Dresses are the only way to go.

Tips: If you are newly pregnant and planning to buy maternity clothes, forget about buying maternity pants, just buy dresses from the get-go preferably button down ones so you can use it for nursing too if you are planning to breastfeed. Saves you from spending so much money. They aren’t the most flattering thing in the world to begin with.

3. Rolling in bed takes strategy! Before you even make any movement, you need to think the best and easiest way possible to get to where you need to be even if it’s only turning from your right to your left side. You gotta locate your special pillows, make sure they are not kicked to the ground while sleeping coz that is a whole other strategy you gotta think about to get it. It turned into a mini-series on Netflix and by the end of it, you can’t sleep anymore.

4. Nursery / Baby Room. I am surprised at how unexcited I am about having a nursery room to a point that I don’t even plan to have one until we really need it. But it looks like we will have to soon because Alhamdulillah people have generously gifted us, changing table, cot, pram, car seats and lots and lots of baby clothes and other essentials which we are very thankful for. I just thought I was going to be more enthusiastic about it but it is a lot more work than I’d like it to be. Although all the gifts make up for it! We are very lucky and this baby is already so loved by so many people MasyaAllah.

5. Constantly craving junk! My diet has gone worse than before I was pregnant but I obviously do not give in all the time. As much as I’d like to satisfy my cravings, I love my child a million times more than to deny the nutrients he/she needs for development.

Tip: Drink lots and lots of water because it makes you so full that you don’t feel like consuming anything after. I drink 2.5-3 litre a day. Sometimes more when I exercise and sweat a lot and that also means that the toilet becomes your most visited place of the year.

6. How massive, sensitive and cracky your boobs get! They pretty much grow the same rate as your belly. I knew about Areolas getting larger and darker because that was one of the very first symptoms I knew I was pregnant but the whole “nipples turned pacifier” was something I did not expect. I mean… I should have since I will InsyaAllah be breastfeeding but really…? this big and pointy?

Below is the nipple butter I’m using and I recommend it. I already started applying it even when I was still in my first trimester. It’s the first non-GMO nipple butter in the market based on my research earlier this year. I don’t know if there are newer and better ones now and I like it because you don’t have to wash it before feeding and it’s all natural and organic making it safe for both you and your baby!

7. YOU HAVE SUPER HAIR! I noticed a drastic change in hair loss at about week 7 of pregnancy. My bathroom is completely hairless. When I say “my” bathroom it’s because my husband and I do not share one because we do not have His and Hers bathroom vanity. I have a lot of products and so does my husband so we decided that we get a bathroom each haha. That is exactly how I knew about the amount of hair I did not lose! In fact, you start growing hair in places they never grow before like your stomach! How incredibly strange that is. I remember shaving my belly one day in the shower and thinking why am I doing this? I’ve never done this before and that was when I realised I have hairy stomach. It’s actually not just hair, I have good skin and strong nails too!

8. SUPER STRETCHED SKIN! You see people’s bellies expand so much during pregnancy but you wouldn’t know what it feels like until you experience it yourself and people don’t normally talk about it too. It is the weirdest and the most stretched out sensation your skin could possibly be. You would feel this more especially if you are small before pregnancy. I was concerned one time because I couldn’t point out exactly what the discomfort was. Is my baby ok? Is this just my skin stretching? Or is there something I need to be concerned about? But I don’t feel pain at all just really tight, firm and uncomfortable all around my abdomen. I called my obstetrician and she said that what I am feeling is my skin stretching because my baby is growing and it is completely normal. Also, I hardly ever get period cramps, so I don’t know what contraction feels like and here I was being dramatic and thinking I was in labour. Yeh, damn you google for making me a paranoid mess.

9. How selfish I become. I am generally a very *coughs* caring person if I say so myself. I am sensitive to other people’s feelings and I do try to make life as easy as possible for the people around me but that level of sensitivity goes down by 70% since I fell pregnant. It started when I had my morning sickness (yeh, of course it would) haha and it kinda carried on till now. It’s like… “Listen, I am in so much discomfort right now, please deal with your own problems because I have my own to survive and think about”. What’s worse is, I do not even feel an ounce of guilt for being selfish because there is no way I can give others my 100% if I am battling to feel even remotely normal myself. It’s gotten better now that my morning sickness is over but there are other discomforts as you get bigger and I’m just like “I have faith they can deal with it themselves”. I just become a lot quieter now because I’m not offering something I can’t give. I would need my pre-pregnancy Rima back because she is a lot more considerate and helpful.

10. People treat you like you are incapable of doing anything. Don’t get me wrong. I love special treatments and sometimes I milk it but seriously… I can carry paper towels HAHA. They weigh nothing. In saying that, I love these people. You guys will always have a special place in my heart ❤

11. TIME SPENT ON GOOGLE! Literally, it seems like I have forgotten how to live! It’s ridiculous. I catch myself googling crap like “the right temperature to shower when pregnant”. Like seriously Rima.. What? You going to bring the thermometer into the bathroom and measure the temperature of the water or something? And this is just one example out of the millions that I have googled so far. But then again, better to be safe than sorry. That’s how I justify my actions. Lulz.

12. The stress of becoming parents! I know parenting is not easy. That’s why they say you can never ever repay your parents and that is 100% true. You can carry your parents up Mount Everest, give them all your time, money, love, attention and it would only be THE LEAST that you can do for them. Being a parent is the biggest responsibility you could ever be given on this planet. Your child is a reflection of you and of course, you would want to raise them to be the best person possible and be useful and kind to everyone around them. Question is, am I already the person I pray my child to be? That is my main source of stress lately because let me tell you… changing yourself for the better is one of the hardest thing in the world. It requires consistency and an immaculate sense of discipline and then you have maintain it forever. I have trained myself for years but it just feels a lot more real and urgent now that we are expecting a child soon.

13. It feels like driving a cargo truck! Not that I have driven one but I can imagine it to be the same. You would misjudge the length of your front end and your bump would just run into things as you passed. You’d think you can squeeze into tight spaces only that your bump can’t tuck itself in like your stomach could before hahaha.

14. IMMENSE LOVE FOR MY CHILD! Every decent parents love their children but what surprises me is that, what I feel is much more than what I have felt for anyone. I never thought was possible especially for someone whom I have not met before. I am not just carrying my child inside me, I am nurturing, learning, changing, loving, caring, persevering and fighting for my baby and I would not trade it for anything in the world. This is by far the biggest and the most beautiful present God has given us. Alhamdulillah. I hope to be a parent this child deserves and a mother who can sincerely give her children everything without expecting anything in return.

RABBI-HABLI-MINAS-SALIHEEN. Ya Allah, grant me a child from among the righteous. Aamiin Ya Rabbal Aalamiin.

x, R