Motherhood – the first moments

Wow…where do I start? When people say parenthood will change your lives, I really didn’t expect it to change this much, and this way. As much as you try to read and prepare yourself, it’s just not enough and wildly different in reality. I thought with the amount i read and prepared, I would at least be ok, but i wasn’t. I thought that given my experience of being a pre-school assistant teacher, I should be ok, but I wasn’t.

I’ll leave the delivery process to another post, it’s probably one on its own and I’ll jump to how things were like in the first month.

Before giving birth, I was quite sure I wouldn’t get post partum depression, for I’ve always had a strong mind. I was also sure I would love the journey because it’s been my life dream to have kids! And I was finally having one. but somehow, i still fell a little into the postpartum blues, and i actually hated the first month of motherhood.

Let’s start with the very first moment when baby J was born….

When she first came out and I took my first look at her…I saw how much she looked like me, and somehow i felt repulsed. I felt repulsed because I always wanted my kids to look like H (because i think he has better genes/ facial features) and I actually felt upset that she looked like me. Like it was my own insecurities…I always looked at myself in disgust and feel like “I’m ugly”. Maybe I never opened up about this much but H knows how low confidence I actually am about my looks. And that’s how pregnancy took an even bigger toll on me in that aspect. So when I saw that she looked like me, I felt a tinge of sadness. And that’s how I would describe my first moment. It wasn’t “magical” like all the social media posts description. It wasn’t one where it was full of “love”.

In fact, I looked at her and wondered “is she really my daughter?” Yes she looks like me so she is.” “But how did this stranger just appeared out of nowhere.” “I literally grew a cell to a human”.

I felt like she was a stranger still though as much as all things point to her being “related” to me. By blood and by looks of course. I felt no “connection”, it was one created because i KNOW for a fact she is my daughter, bc she came out of me. And i felt like, maybe something was wrong with me.

“Why do all the other mothers describe their delivery and first moments with their kids as such a loving one?” But it wasn’t like this for me.

I actually feared sharing how I felt cause I didn’t want people to think I’m some heartless person who didn’t “love” my daughter, this is esp in stark contrast to what social media puts out there. I didn’t even tell my own husband, because for him, it was probably “love and joy”, and all the positive emotions which already started since my pregnancy. He was already sprouting kisses to her, even faster than how we had our first kiss. I watched him and thought “I guess this is how parental love is supposed to be”. It seems so natural for him, but it just wasn’t for me.

And in the first month of motherhood, that love didn’t develop much. In fact, I was so burnt out, it could have even dropped….(I’ll continue what happened in the first month in another post) Shall stop here today…but in summary, my first moments of motherhood was nothing near to magical and happiness.

I first shared it with Y, and I really wondered if it was something wrong with me. A few days back, she shared this post with me and I guess maybe I wasn’t the only one, so I plucked up the courage to write about it as well. Just for a personal diary, and for maybe if anyone else comes across this post – to know you’re not the only one.

https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/parenting/i-didnt-love-my-daughter-straight-away/

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t hate my daughter. I still felt a strong instinct to care for her and make sure she was well-fed/ not crying. But it felt like one that stemmed from responsibility, not love. At least not yet.

Baby Announcement

So, I’ve taken a long hiatus from blogging because….I’ve been baking a little Baby J the past 9 months and boy, it was a whirlwind and that’s probably an understatement.

So starting right from the beginning of this journey….How did we first find out?

We’ve been trying officially for a few months then already but I really didn’t have much high hopes because the “fortune-teller” said we would have some difficulties trying for a kid. That was also the reason why we decided to start trying a little earlier than planned.

Then, it seemed like a bad decision, but now I guess no regrets, as long as we were successful would have been the most important thing.

So, I guess i was conscientiously monitoring my period already and when it was late for a few days, I started to suspect so and bought pregnancy test kits. However….In the first few days, the test came back negative… and so H didnt think it would have been true. He kept saying my period was just late.

Sure, my period has been late before, but at the 5 days late mark, i knew something was quite off as my period hasn’t been THIS late before. It’s been rather regular all the time (and i finally understand how important this is esp when TTC).

So, finally on our third pregnancy kit test, I saw a v faint line and I was soooooo sure that it was positive. I left it on the sink in the morning for H to see before he left for work, but funnily he saw it as negative. Well, i don’t blame him. This was how it looked like.

3rd pregnancy kit test results – I was positive it was positive.

While H continue being in denial that it was positive (he didn’t want to get disappointed), I started my research on a gynae + pregnancy. It was such a daunting task because pregnancy, motherhood and the whole journey was something entirely unknown and there was just SO much to learn; it was an overload of info and i was really very stressed out. I wanted to ensure i kept the baby safe but there was just so much I didn’t know.

So somehow, not knowing where to find a good gynae, I started off by checking which gynae on my company’s insurance was the closest to our house. And i shortlisted 2 of them, one in CCK one in Bukit Batok. Both were under Thomson Women Clinics franchises. Upon researching about the gynaes there, I found that the one at CCK had very mixed reviews but was listed as one of the top gynaes in Singapore on an article. He was also said to be rather affordable for a private gynae.

The other gynae has much lesser credentials, but rather good reviews.

So calling in to both clinics, i enquired more about their consultations and prices and found the CCK one to be more attractive as they allowed me to sign a package as of the discovery of the pregnancy, but I had to pay per consultation for the Bukit Batok one, until 12 weeks. So somehow i was just more inclined to go see the CCK one. PLUS the cck one allowed me to do walk-in consultations, which i think is most important if any emergencies crop up.

Booking an appointment to see the gynae…i got my confirmation that indeed i was pregnant! Texted H and he finally believed me and got excited. And that’s how the journey finally began!

I was so desperate to keep the baby safe I went all out to get so many supplements (but please don’t follow my example) I ended up not being able to finish them as my gynae gave me as well and they were sufficient.

But the excitement soon died down as the journey became a tough one as more 1st trimester symptoms came up, and i was just so nauseous and bed-ridden for most of the 1st tri. It was just really really tough. I was even unable to drink water for nearly 2 whole months! It was just so so tough.

The only food i could eat during 1st tri.

But I’m glad 2nd tri took for a better turn and it was indeed what people called the “Honeymoon phase”, also took the time to start preparing for Baby J and it was the best part. We actually prepared everything even before 3rd tri, and so 3rd tri was just quite much a waiting game, until even today, where i’m finally on HL at 38 weeks going on to 39, just chilling at home, DESPERATELY hoping for her to come out. Not too sure if anyone is interested in the breakdown details of each tri’s symptoms, but in any case, I’m going to hopefully resume back blogging, but more on the baby stuff, so stay tuned 😉