Pregnancy
November 10, 2008
has this to say about pregnancy-sickness (I can't call it morning sickness when pregnant women are sick morning, evening, noon and night!)
http://shortindiangirl.livejournal.com/277303.html
I agree, none of this is ever talked about in those rose-tinted advertisements.....when I was expecting my daughter (of course I didn't know it was a daughter) I was sick until the seventh month, I think. But..I didn't have a job and a career to take care of....I could pamper myself and feel sorry for myself (KM left for work in a fairly distant factory, with the work culture he had, at 7am and returned at 9.30pm and was on tour 12 days in a month) but generally I could take good care of myself, and I engaged a maid to do the housework too. I feel bad that this is not the case for SIG, and that she has to work hard both at work and at home.
Similarly, no one talks about post-partum depression which can rob motherhood of all its joy....or what happens if that "instant bonding" with the baby doesn't happen...I suspect that the powers-that-be feel that if all this is publicized, women just might decide NOT to have babies!
There was an article in ToI a couple of days ago about couples who have read up on all the pros and cons of pregnancy and childbirth and have voluntarily decided not to have children. It was an interesting article, and I found their reasons pretty valid. What I thought, in disagreement with them, was that...there is something intangible in a child which, obviously, transcends all these woes and worries and makes it worthwile....then, suddenly, all those Hallmark baby-card sentences make sense....
But the reality is that there is a lot of pee and poop, literally and figuratively, in bringing a human being into the world...and years of worry and concern and making an adult, responsible human being out of that wailing little "bundle of joy". After 30 years, I find that the umbilical cord that ties me and my child is still very strong.
So it's one's individual (or twosome) decision as to whether the baby is worth all the upheavals, or not...and should be unconditionally accepted.
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