Pregnancy

Initially, Yoga and I planned to postpone having a baby until a year after our marriage. We wanted to slow down a bit after all the hassles we went through to make the wedding happen. I wanted to travel around, too. But when you don’t use contraception that much, and don’t mark your fertile days in your calendar, well, pregnancy is bound to happen. Eventually, the news about pregnancy came as a surprise that did not really surprise me (considering the fourth sentence in this paragraph, haha).

We are happy to welcome the bundle of joy, of course. But nervousness — and millions of questions — hangs in the air.

Will this pregnancy be safe until delivery? Will the insurance be enough to cover the pregnancy and delivery cost? Why is it so expensive to have proper medical care anyway? Can I have normal delivery? How can I handle the pain? What stuffs should we prepare for the baby? Should we find a bigger place to accommodate the newest addition in the family? When should I process my maternity leave? Can I be a good mother? Who will help to take care of the baby once my three-month leave is over? How much money should we save to fund our baby’s expenditure – diapers, food, education, transportation, recreation, etc? Should we buy a new, larger bed? How can we get and save that much money? Can I still eat sushi? Why can’t I sleep on my stomach anymore? *groan* Will I get baby blues? How should we deal with the religion issue — will the kid be Islam, Catholic, both, none, or what? Will sex be as great as before? Can I juggle between work and taking care of the baby? How will we deal with judgments and prejudices from others?

I can go on for hours, or days, if I keep thinking about the questions.

So we decided to deal with things, first thing first. And the first step is to keep both the baby and me healthy. I don’t want my kid to be stunted like 37.2% of Indonesian children, d’oh. Utmost nutrition and sanitation, coupled with proper medical care, should overcome this matter. I’m lucky to have health insurance from my office that covers pregnancy, including check-ups in major hospitals, USG sessions, and vitamins. This insurance also covers delivery. Yoga’s office will give benefit for the delivery only, not pregnancy, but it’s a good addition anyway.

Besides reading tons of online materials and downloading some apps, we’ve bought some books on pregnancy and maternity stuffs as well. Including two dedicated for first-time fathers (yes, Yoga should and will play larger roles rather than just helping me to conceive the baby hahaha).

Theory will be good, of course, but what about practices? God knows we cannot “train” ourselves before the baby is born, but we try our best anyway. I’ve joined one pregnancy exercise class, and as a couple, we’ve gone through a weekend course of hypnobirthing, which was really great. I’m trying to exercise and practice the knowledge we got from the courses as frequent as possible. At least we should be somewhat prepared.

As for other questions, well, we’ll try to answer them later. 🙂