Here's What Every First-Time Mother Can Expect

When you first become a mother, there’s perhaps a good chance that your focus is completely diverted to your baby, and you’re paying little to no attention on your own experiences. And while motherhood is a journey you make with your baby, you tend to focus on her milestones, not yours. We’re here to enlighten you, and perhaps make you aware of the things every first time mother can expect to experience once her bundle of joy enters this world

After I first realised that I was pregnant, the feeling of ecstasy is not something one can put down in words. We had are slightly hard time conceiving and so when the twin lines on the pregnancy test turned bright, we screamed out in joy loud enough for the neighbours to think that aliens had invaded our planet. I had a relatively quiet pregnancy in the first two trimesters and it was only in the third that our daughter, now 10 years old, began to be really active. Come three o’clock in the morning and I would be woken up with a sucker punch from within my belly. Up she would be most of the night and that is when the food cravings kicked in for me. Besides Andhra meals during the day time (which my colleagues and husband were thoroughly fed up with), I always wanted buttered toast with jam at nights. And poor, groggy husband would be woken up to do the honours.

Funny thing is, our daughter, Anoushka, still wakes up at three o’clock in the morning for the bathroom or to crawl into our bed!

I had a long, but normal delivery. Most of the elderly aunts in the family were sure I was having a boy—from the way I put on weight, from my complexion, from the shape of my belly, you name it. So when the doctor announced that it was a girl, I could have done cartwheels.

Motherhood has been quite a ride— from crying louder than she did during her vaccinations, to watching her gurgle in happiness at the sound of a rustling plastic bag, to her running off the stage at her first show when in Montessori to being the cheerleader at her most recent sports day. There have been lessons to learn every day and memories to last a lifetime created every moment.

THAT FIRST TIME

When Nishara Antony, yoga instructor, had her first born Sabyasaachi 13 years ago, she was really excited but anxious.

First time pregnancies can do that to you. After knowing the baby growing in her for five months, she knew for sure she had one active child on the way. What did worry her though was that she was showing signs of Edema, what with her extraordinary weight gain and hyper-pigmentation. But all’s well that ends well.