Ouch! A thud on my abdomen woke me from my deep sleep in the middle of the night. With my half open eyes, I glanced towards the table clock and it read 3:00. I noticed a cute little baby on my lap with his tiny palm clasping my night dress.
Gosh! One kick took me back 6 months reminding me of his kicks and punches inside the tummy while I was pregnant. Oh my god! I was a mother and just few months back, I was carrying my little one not knowing how he would look, how he would crave for me, how he would giggle.
After the First five months of giddiness and puking, here I was busy shopping for my soon-to-be-born baby. Trust me, I was enjoying every second of it. But, because I didn’t know the gender of the baby, everything I was buying was of neutral shade or unisex be it rompers or a bedding set.
TIP: If you don’t know whether you are having a boy or a girl, the safest colours are white, and any colour other than blue, pink or black. But, trust me and am sure you all would agree with me, babies look cute nevertheless.
With the new arrival on the way, I got the freedom to go on a shopping spree. At one instance, my hubby thought I would buy the entire Liverpool city center for I would return home after spending 6-8 hours roaming around. But my hubby did appreciate my smart buying. I would visit city centre searching for sale in good stores. This way we got some really good dresses of good quality at a bargain.
TIP: Plan in advance and look for bargains on dresses and especially nappies. Babies use nappies at the speed of light. They drink, poo, drink, wee, drink poo and the cycle goes on. Hence, stocking nappies is never a bad idea.
Also, buy very few dresses for the age group of 0-3 months because babies grow like hulk. Blink of an eye and the first few dresses would fail to fit. Try to go for 3-9 months, if you ask me.
Next on the list was getting the hospital bag ready. Finally my hubby started understanding the fact that you cannot do things at the last minute. Hence, 2 months before delivery, we started to pack our bags. With our little one busy punching me like a punching bag, I thought he was eager to pop out as quickly as possible. He was so wildly active inside the tummy, that if few minutes passed by without any movement, we would get worried and go to the hospital to get things checked.
TIP: We used the NHS site to get the list of items to pack and it proved to be really handy.
So now we were done preparing for the hospital, after delivery care and future. But, the most important preparation was yet to be done.
Yes, preparing for delivering my little one. I was scared to death. How am I going to deliver a 3 pound baby out of my tiny body. Will it be painful? Should I go for a normal delivery or a C-section. I spent hours and hours Googling and it would confuse me more than lessening my apprehension.
Hence, I resorted to watching videos of couples who had shared their experience of delivering a baby normally. Finally, I decided to go for a normal delivery.
But, despite our well laid plans, I ended up having multiple tears and stuck to bed for 2 months.
But, now when I look at my dear son, I ask myself; was it worth it? Well, hell YES!
I was a mother to a little boy for whom I hope I’ll always be the First Valentine.