Chapter 2

Some men think that being pregnant is a normal state of a woman. I wish they could try it. The pregnancy books list a wide (and wild) variety of ‘side effects’. First and most talked about is morning sickness. In simple terms it means – you will feel noxious and keep throwing up your meals. Thank god I did not have that.

I spent first three months of pregnancy sleeping. I honestly did nothing else. Now, in the forth month, the energy is coming back. It is still not up to the normal level, but I can occasionally cook and watch a movie. Not every day though. The biggest problem now is a weight gain. Most books discuss issues with too little weight gain. I don’t understand how any book published in the US – the capital of overweight people – misses the issue of excessive weight gain. Being pregnant I can’t go on a diet, and I don’t have enough energy to exercise. The result is more than double of the amount of weight I was supposed to gain till now. If I continue gaining with the same speed my final gain is going to approximate 100 pounds. This is a very scary perspective. Since it seems that I am getting some energy back, I signed up for the special aqua fitness classes for expectant mothers. Hopefully, it’ll help.

The second biggest issue is, well, the lack of sleep. Who would have thought? I already can’t sleep on my stomach. So, my preferred sleeping position is out. I can’t sleep on my back, the book does not recommend it and my stomach hurts if I accidentally fall asleep in that position. It leaves sleeping on the side. In this position the baby feels fine. Unfortunately, my neck does not. I spend the night tossing and turning, and not getting enough sleep. This situation should change from today as my husband bought a special pregnancy pillow. It looks VERY comfortable.

Another pain of pregnancy – the diet. At the request of my doctor I removed all caffeinated drinks – for the past 3 months I did not have coffee, tea, hot chocolate or cola. I also excluded all herbal teas and decaffeinated tea because my body does not like them any more. Long-time hated items, like spinach, broccoli and carrots have entered my diet. Sitting and munching carrots at work normally ends up with the feeling that if I eat or see another carrot I am going to lose the contents of my stomach. I also gave up grilled cheese sandwich, french fries, hamburgers, sushi, chicken wings, beer, wine, cocktails and many other things I like. All for the good of the baby.

All of the above does not make pregnancy more real. The moment when it really hits home is the first ultrasound. There is nothing more fantastic than seeing your baby for the first time. Five and a half centimetres long human being is happily waving his or hers legs and arms inside your stomach. On the screen we could see the head, ears, mouth, eyes, legs, arms. We could even count five little fingers of the right hand. We could see and hear the heart beating. It was the most amazing experience for me and for my husband. This is the moment the baby becomes real. Still tiny it is already a human being.

December 2, 2003

Road to Motherhood

For many people this road starts with months of planning, visits to a doctor, and hard work. Those who think that trying to conceive is a sheer pleasure have never had the experience. It is a hard work that includes the avoidance of alcohol, physical activity to lose weight, and proper diet. Even actual process of making a baby is not all fun. It gets filled with the pressure to achieve the result. But not all people go through the coherent process, for them the road to motherhood starts with the panicked trip to the drugstore for the pregnancy kit. Few minutes later they find themselves facing all those lovely thoughts about implications of becoming parents.

Regardless of the way a woman gets to the point of staring at the two blue lines the next step is to confirm the event with the doctor. It is in the doctor’s office where it all becomes official – you are on the road to motherhood. The first thing that my doctor requested was to bring my husband. Next week we were sitting in his office together asking all sorts of questions about diet, exercise, vitamins, hospitals, etc.

At this point you still don’t have any proof that there is new life inside of you other than the smug smile if your family physician who is already counting how many times you will have to visit him in the next year. Canada has a universal healthcare, but family doctor’s income still depends on the numbers of patients and visits. But soon that new life ensures that you are very aware of its existence. So far, I’ve been lucky. According to the books recommended by my doctor, the list of ‘side effects’ of pregnancy is depressing. I’ve only been slightly noxious and extremely exhausted. I’ll keep my fingers’ crossed. Many people told me that all the rest might still come.

Till now, the most difficult thing to cope with was the exhaustion. I tried to explain to my husband just exactly how I feel. The only memory of being that tired is the ill-fated trip to the collective farm back in 1992 when I just entered university in Russia. As all first year students we went picking potatoes on a field of some collective farm near Kaliningrad. It was the one and only time I ever went for potato picking but the experience etched in my memory: cold wet boots, knee deep in mud, under the drizzling rain, picking mud splattered potatoes. By the time we got back to town I was tired as I had never been tired in my life – till now. Every morning I get up with the feeling that I spend the night picking those potatoes or loading the bricks. I have never loaded the bricks in my life, but I feel like that is exactly what I was doing.

Going to work is an achievement in itself. The only thing I can do when I get home is to go straight to bed. I sleep all the spare time I get, including most of the weekends. At home I do nothing else. My dear husband had taken over all house related activities – cleaning, grocery shopping, doing laundry, and most of the cooking. I don’t know what I would do without him.

The next stage after finding out that you are pregnant is informing the parents. I wish I had waited a bit longer to tell them – like 9 months longer. They are all way too excited. While I’ve been going through various levels of paranoia about having a miscarriage, my mother in law managed to inform all of her 5 sisters within 10 minutes after being told herself. Next day we got congratulatory phone calls from relatives in the States. Under the pretext that if the whole India knows why not Ukraine, my mother informed all of my Ukrainian relatives. Both sets of parents declared that apparently it was the god who heard their prayers and they are all going to respective places of worship to thank god: my husband’s parents to the temple (probably to all of them located nearby) and my mother to the church. Moreover, my in-laws, whom we were unable to persuade to visit us for the past 5 years, announced that they are ready to come to Canada immediately regardless of the upcoming winter. It looks like they will be coming closer to the due date. Everyone behaves as if they are already holding a baby in their hands.