The Adventures of a Xhosa Princess

So, the second trimester begins, and I’m over the moon because our little Gummy Bear is growing and forming into an entire human being. I’m finally starting to feel more energetic and can stay awake for much longer. I’m even able to tidy up the apartment without feeling like the world is about to end, however, the reality of the pandemic hits me like a ton of cement bricks and I sink into prenatal depression - this is not how I planned to have my first viable pregnancy!   Before I even fell pregnant, we had decided that our children would be born in South Africa. I wanted my husband to be at every Gynae appointment. I wanted a gender reveal party, a baby shower, a baby moon and a baby pinkeln for my husband - only the gender reveal party materialized, and that too was by chance because ngithanda ukufosta. I also wanted to attend prenatal classes, pregnancy yoga and aqua aerobics, but that very quickly became a far-fetched dream.   We were stuck in a 65m2 apartment in t...

As stated previously, the first trimester, though coupled with a few mishaps, was blissful!   There were a few negatives though, and on top of the list is my fingers, face, nose and lips swelling TF up and hyper-pigmentation from those very early days. I’m beautiful and I know it, but pregnancy turned me into the ugliest duckling on this planet (laughs in ‘oksalayo muhle utoothless bear wami’), and because the pregnancy was our little secret, I kept hoping that people on my social media wouldn’t notice the puffy face. I was also extremely bloated at some point and when that bloat went away, I couldn’t stop my farts from coming out for weeks, lol! I sincerely apologise to my husband for having to sit through those because on some days, I too would lowkey die from the smell, kodwa isoja lifela empini, so I maintained my straight face.   Another negative for me was the constant pelvic pain I had from my uterus expanding as the embryo grew into a fetus and so forth – thi...