Pregnanthood - Part 2

My wife is now 8 weeks pregnant. Despite having to go through the difficult first few months of pregnancy, she still have to work during the day, sometimes on some evenings.

She threw me a question before, "Why do women have to go through such difficult moments. Not only is it tiring when one is pregnant but a woman has to go through a very painful and agony time during labor as well".

I replied jokingly about the sin Eve had done before by offering to Adam the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and God has decided that men will have to work hard to earn a living for his family whereas women will have to bear the pain of labor.

My wife replied, "It's not fair. Because women nowadays work to earn a living too".

Unfortunately, she is right. Women in the past used to stay home to look after the children and the family needs. Earning money for a living is never an issue for them, even till my mom's generation but things have now changed. An average family needs to have working parents in order to go through a more comfortable living unless either parents are very well-to-do. A single working parent in a family will only create more stress to the person working out there to make a living. In our recent days, it's even hard for a single to enjoy a really comfortable life without having to worry about the empty pocket by the end of the month before the salary can be withdrawn, what more to say feeding another person or maybe even another child with the same amount of income plus the need to secure some for retirement.

Being a husband whose wife is pregnant, the first few months of pregnancy proves to be very antagonizing moments. My wife who is exhausted most of the time plus the nausea that she is feeling right now has to work everyday, sometimes during weekends and public holidays. She even has to work in some of the evenings as scheduled.

She vomitted on Monday at the parking space near her parents' house. She vomitted again last night at my parents home after dinner as she was getting ready for the evening shift. Although I am not the one experiencing those agony and discomfort, I could see that she is really exhausted due to the pregnancy and the symptoms that occured. I could not pretend to understand how it feels to be in such state but looking at her helplessly really punctured my heart.

There are moments when I felt that she should resign from her work but that proved to be a little extreme. Spending about 7 years to master what she has studied and given the fact that she is doing something she enjoys doing, to quit just like that and become a fulltime housewife feeels a little too much. Besides, I fear of future social problems if she is to quit working and stayed home. Although Jesus has blessed us abundantly and we are never lack of anything, I feel that what I am doing right now is still not sufficent to give my wife and my future child a good life.

Pregnancy is really a very difficult moment. I salute my mother who has carried me around for 9 months before I was born, taking gentle care of me and investing her time on me until I am who I am right now. Not having the chance to witness such difficult moments of pregnancy really make it hard for me to appreciate what our mothers have done for us.

All I can do right now is to pray to Jesus everyday for HIS help to ease my wife's suffering. May the first trisemester ends soon so that she will start to enjoy her pregnancy more than now.

Pregnanthood (if such word exists)

Making babies is easy but bringing up babies is hard... How nice it is to be indulged in romantic love making sessions with scented candles burning, cool air conditioner blowing, nice and comfortable bed to sleep and the dim lighting just nice to let you fall asleep right after sex.

The sperms then did their job by swimming across the large ocean, in search of their soul mate (the ovum) and be joined together, never to be separated again. Once together, they produce and reproduce a lot of cells to form another human being and come out a new baby.

Let's just forget first about bringing up a baby after he or she is born. Even in the pregnancy period, things have not been easy. Having to cope with morning, afternoon and evening sickness (who says sickness happens only in the morning), the pregnant mother has to be strong to go through the tiredness, the exhaustion of her body due to the hormonal changes as well as bodily changes to accommodate the new baby inside the womb.

How lucky it is for the rich ones who can afford to stay at home, relax themselves and to have the privilege of the help from the servants to prepare everything. Tough it is for those who have to go out to work as if the exhaustion from the pregnancy is not enough to wear them down. As if child bearing is not tiring enough, the expectant mother have to go through series of check ups, queuing up at the local clinics, taking injections, taking supplements as well as having their blood drawn for blood testing and so on. The waiting period itself is so tiring even to those who sit there waiting.

Not only is pregnancy not easy for the mom, the dad has to play his part too (besides, he is also taking part in the fun and pleasure during sex). To have to accompany the wife to the clinic, to do the house chores, to try to make the wife enlightened during her downs (because of hormonal change) and not to forget a little bit of scoldings here and there by the exhausted wife. Blessed are those with work which he can arrange himselves, without having to follow any office hour. Blessed are those dad to be who do not have deadlines for their work, for they can arrange to complete their work at their own sweet time. But still, no matter how easy the work is, physical and mental exhaustion is still something unavoidable.

Although it is a wonderful experience to have a child, the process even from the beginning (except sex) is not an easy one. Now, before we do something that might hurt our family, should we twice and try to understand how hard it is for our parents to bring us up even when we were several weeks old, inside the womb...