Third trimester and birth story part one

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This is a safe place for all procrastinators, and I’m a mom so be nice!


Why didn’t anyone warn me about the heaven and hell that is the third trimester? I’m just thankful that we were locked up and unable to socialize cause hyper pigmentation and water retention had me by the b*lls. I looked like those mamas from emakhaya.


At this point, nothing has changed. I’m still getting a UTI infection every week caused by anything and everything under the skies, and I’m seeing the prenatal specialist, midwife and Gynae almost every week. I haven’t gained a single gram of weight since the beginning of the pregnancy and my energy levels were up there with the gods.


Covid is still around, and because everyone was out and about living their best Ausländer life in Spain, Holland, and Greece over the summer/spring holidays – the numbers are increasing and Germany is back in lockdown, but my husband and I are unbothered cause isolation is our life now.


We’ve also decided to move from our apartment into our house, cause the apartment was small and getting a little too cramped up for both of us – I can only imagine how crowded it would’ve been with a baby as well.

I’m ready to start ordering furniture, setting up and decorating the nursery – kumnandi maan!

I envisioned walking into Kids Emporium and other baby stores and wanting everything cause it all looks so cute and feels so soft, but I adjusted to online shopping and was obsessed with everything baby. We had everything and were ready for her arrival by 32 weeks.


At around 34 weeks, I started getting very dry and itchy skin, but my midwife told me it’s nothing to worry about and I just needed to moisturize more – being the good patient that I am, I listened and included more oils and Vaseline into my daily beauty regime. None of those helped, but my midwife still insisted that it was normal.

I also started harvesting colostrum at around 34 weeks, bought raspberry leaf tea and dates and was in full on nesting mode.

 

At exactly 36 weeks, I set up an appointment to see my Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner to assist with preparing my body for a vaginal birth, and my mom was arriving the next day.

Everything was just a vibe and smooth sailing until I walked out of my TCM practitioner’s practice. I got a call from my husband telling me to rush home because the prenatal clinic called and told him that he needed to drive me to the hospital immediately cause my blood test results (from 4 days prior) were back and not looking good. He was told that I’m most likely going to give birth that very day or the next day.

 

Under ideal circumstances, this would be an anxiety-inducing and nerve wrecking time. But, because we are in a pandemic, the stress and anxiety were amplified!

My husband wasn’t allowed to come into the hospital with me - with or without a negative covid test.

I had never met ANY of the medical staff that were about to attend to me because unlike other countries, including 3rd world countries, the midwife and Gynae that attend to you during pregnancy will not be there when you give birth, and off course being a black person in Germany means I’m most likely going to be treated like sh*t and have to deal with passive aggressive racism at a time when I’m supposed to be focused on the task ahead.

There’s really no sugar-coating this; it was a messed-up situation to be in, and it was at that very moment that I knew I f*cked up and should’ve gone to South Africa.

 

Eish! Hade but this blog is a little too long… stay tuned for the next episode of EMOTIONAL DAMAGE (the ones that know, know… those that don’t, need to log into TikTok asap)

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