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This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #102, March/April, 1999. Related articles from this
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Five Stages of
Pregnancy A letter to mothrs by Dorcas Smucker |
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Dear Moms, Personally, I thought the most efficient way for us to have a baby would be to find a foundling on our doorstep. Since that didn’t happen, we had to go the conventional route. Not to argue with God or anything, but I could think of much more efficient ways to have a baby than to go through these first months of pregnancy. Here’s what it’s like, for me at least. Once the suspicions are confirmed, you enter... Stage 1, the frenzy phase. This is a two-week period when you madly sling casseroles and cookies into the freezer, paint the dining room and sew clothes for the children. But then a giant hand starts to squeeze the energy out of you, and you get slower and slower. Finally you give up and go to bed, whereupon you enter . . . Stage 2, the coma phase. This also lasts for about two weeks. You spend your time lying in bed in a foetal position, eyes shut, clutching your stomach and moaning. Every two hours you have to get up and stagger to the kitchen for something to eat so you don’t throw up, but you do a lot of that anyway. Taking a shower is the biggest accomplishment of the day. You long for Heaven, where no one will ever throw up again. But finally you decide to live and not die, and you enter . . . Stage 3, the knitting phase. At this point you’re able to sit up for a few hours a day. So you knit, cross-stitch, fold laundry, snap green beans (in season) and darn socks, all while lying in bed with your head propped on pillows, and of course with a barf bucket close at hand. By this time your family is very nonchalant about all this. The children have contests to see who can sound the most like Mom throwing up. You have lost 7 or 8 pounds and find all kinds of odd bones jutting out of your body like a cow’s hipbones. Then one day the state of the kitchen actually bothers you and you enter . . . Stage 4, the spaghetti phase. This is when you try to get up and do a bit of housework every day but find your arms and legs feeling and functioning like strands of cooked spaghetti. The nausea and vomiting aren’t as bad, but your diet still consists of bread, crackers, cheese, peanut butter and donut-shaped breakfast cereal. This is where I’m at as I write this letter, hoping soon to be back to . . . Stage 5, normal. Imagine, drinking a tall glass of ice water! Running up and down stairs! Going on walks! Having a “do” list and checking it all off! AND getting excited about the baby, which I never quite manage to do until this point. Thanks to the efforts of a couple ladies, I have never before felt this well cared for during pregnancy. One lady organized a supper brigade, so that we had suppers provided every other day for several weeks. Different ladies came and cleaned the kitchen or did laundry or took my three-year-old for the day or filled the freezer with baked things. God bless them all. Regards, Dorcas Dorcas is one of Ilva’s friends and lives in Brownsville, Oregon. |
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