I’m pregnant, not a cancer patient

~ sonaltiwari ~ Leave a comment

Anyone who has ever been pregnant can vouch for this – pregnant women deserve no less than a VVIP treatment. But that is the thing I sort of dread. Yes, I like the pampering part but when it goes overboard, I feel overwhelmed.  It’s hard enough to go through the changes and dealing with people’s opinions only makes the matters worse.

All of a sudden, you are the center of the universe. Everything you do or say determines what kind of a mother you will be. For instance, if you are the cautious kind, you get the “mother of the year” trophy and if you want to be just yourself, people start lecturing you on how to be more careful.

So, as soon as I announced to everyone around me that I was expecting, suddenly my pregnancy was all that was cared about. Even before people asked me how I was doing, they would shoot a “so which month?” question. The events unfurled in such a way that instead of beaming with pride about my special news, I started getting reclusive about the whole thing. There was plethora of advice from what I should be eating to how I should be sitting.

While there are some like me who advise me to simply enjoy this time, there are several others who are so well informed that they consider themselves to be the Gynecologists. And those are the people you need to stay away from if you are the callous kind for they will inculcate so much into your brain that you would spend your free maternity time ‘googling’ everything.

But all said and done, the biggest nuisance comes from people who tell you how your life has ended and that you are no more the fun couple of the group. Some even go the distance to tell you that your sex life will take a hit once the baby arrives. I mean perhaps these things are true but haven’t you picked the wrong time to be telling this crap? (P.S – You might think that I’m over reacting a bit here but some things are best experienced and not told)

The other nuisance of course is with people telling you all the time how to behave now that you are a mother, how you need to be more mature. There’s no wonder I had to resort to telling people that “hey, I’m only pregnant and not a cancer patient”.

Ready to plan yet?

~ sonaltiwari ~ Leave a comment

(Just to give you a little taste of what you should expect to read here – on a maternity break right now, these are excerpts from a diary on motherhood that I maintain in my brain..uh yes in my brain because I’m too lazy to write about every moment. This one’s first of the series and I hope to connect with many out there who think along similar lines or perhaps even otherwise, doesn’t matter)

As clichéd as it may sound, (in the place I was born in )about 60% (my own statistics of course) couples still like to plan their pregnancy and of course 40% out of that go through a forced pregnancy what with the pressure of parents and relatives and peers. Let me explain why I say ‘forced’..Even today, life is a never ending project plan – when you attain puberty, parents start worrying about getting you married; when you get married, they expect you to start a family..and well when you start a family, you are forced to expand the family.

So you would expect to be asked questions like these and let me guess if you are thinking the same as I did:

“Beta, when are you getting married?” //as though you are going to sponsor my wedding//

“Are you seeing someone?” //like I would tell you//

“At your age, I had four kids” //Good Lord, you had an awesome reproductive system//

“I really want to see you get married before I leave for my heavenly abode” //let’s not get emotional here, shall we?//

…or the worst one these days “Are you gay?”  //Duh, didn’t you see me getting up, close and dirty with that female there?//

After marriage

“Arre, it’s been a year and you both are still ‘single’” //”Single”? Hello?//

“How much more are you going to make us crave for our grandchildren” //Umm..a century more I guess//

“Career is not the only thing in the world beta” //oh yes, reproducing is//

“Wait till your friends have kids of their own and you have surpassed the fertile period” //Can I steal one of their own, please?//

”So what if he’s away? You should try to have kids” //No comments here, do you think I’m an asexual plant?//

and the best one – “have you consulted a doctor; it’s been a year since you got married” //Yeah, doctors say it’s incurable//

After 1 kid

“Beta, you know you must have another kid to give your chhotu company” //And then have one more to give the second one company, right?//

“What will happen if you both were to die”//Seriously??//

So, this is how many Indian couples make up their mind to start a family.

This, is somewhat my story too, not the parental pressure part because as a couple we were a little adamant but the whole motivation to go for this chaos. Our source was the reasoning that the sooner we have a kid, the sooner we can be free of our responsibilities….wait that’s a kind of pressure too, right?

And so began the whole round table discussion that would last for hours at a stretch and we weren’t quite sure of our decision. Add to that somehow, all discussions with married couples of your age would go down this road and we would end up discussing our family planning plans as if we were brainstorming the Iran nuke deal.

Ok, let’s not forget the ones who de-motivate you from going this way…those who have treaded this vicious path. And then the lecturing almost always began with lines like

“Take your time; you don’t know what’s coming”

“Oh god, I can’t get a single minute off for myself”

“You guys are lucky; it’s just the two of you. You can head off wherever you want without packing an extra bag”

Unfortunately, Murphy ’s Law dictates that you hear the last lines after you have started the journey itself and well, you are left in a lurch to ignore and move on.