The long journey to motherhood

The journey to motherhood sure wasn’t an easy one. Throughout the pregnancy, I had horrible morning sickness, seriously, who named it MORNING sickness(?), it comes at all times of the day!

The first few months, I was giddy, nauseated, lethargic. I had to leave work early a few times after throwing up into the bin cos the restroom was just too far away, luckily I had a room of my own and plastic bags within reach.

Heard that the 2nd trimester was supposed to be much better, it is slightly true, but the nausea didn’t go away. I did feel more energetic and could go around buying things for the baby. We found out the sex of the baby (A GIRL) at 5 months and my mum started getting all excited buying pink items. (I’m gonna be so broke if my next kid turns out to be a boy, that would mean buying a lot of new things.) It wasn’t so fun halfway through when one of the routine urine tests showed that my blood sugar level was high.

Was sent to have a glucose test at the Mt Elizabeth laboratories. I fasted after 10PM and reached the lab at 8:30AM. First step, draw blood, plus urine test. This was to help show your sugar level before you had any food/drinks. Afterwhich, they made me drink a huge, awfully sweet drink. Its like un-refrigerated F&N Orange without the fizz. Wait an hour, draw blood plus urine test again. One more hour later, the same process again. Fortunately for me, the nurses at Mt E were really experienced, before I had any time to react, the needle was in my vein, blood was drawn and needle was removed in less than 10 secs! Results that I got back later in the week was that I had borderline glucose intolerance, not very uncommon among pregnant ladies. It just meant I had to watch my sugar intake during the pregnancy.

The 3rd trimester got worse, I had constant acid reflux, with acid flowing up to the back of my mouth and it often kept me awake till 2-3am, until I fell asleep out of exhaustion. I was bloated and had swollen fingers, legs etc. And at 32 weeks, contractions and a very tense tummy got my gynae worried enough to ward me in the hospital for observation. I had a drip to help slow down the contractions, and 2 painful steroid jabs (12 hours apart) to strengthen the baby’s lungs, just in case she decided to make an early appearance. It helped and I was put on bed rest till giving birth.

Was planning for natural birth but cos the baby was growing quite big and we were worried about any complications, I opted for C-sect instead. And on 12th March, my lovely baby girl was born at Mount Alvernia Hospital. Lovely nurses working there too!

More in my next post – with pictures!