The superwoman syndrome
Things change when another human being is developing in your body; your body develops a mind of its own. You are tired more than half the time (even when you have just woken up), everything smells awful and nothing seems to stay in the stomach. Have I mentioned the annoying regular visits to the toilet for shot calls? That has been my experience for the last couple of months. All these are beside the point though, as they represent only the prelude of what many pregnant women experience.
As for me, life had to throw in a few twists during the beginning of the first trimester. In addition to irregular moods, being the classic pregnant woman, I had a live-in house-help straight from hell. She did everything opposite of instructions. The house was becoming dirty and, over time, cockroaches were becoming house mates. She spent most of her time watching Mexican soap operas rather than doing what I had employed her for. She was becoming more of a liability than an asset.
If it was up to my husband, she would have left much earlier than she did but I wanted to get a replacement before asking her to ‘step aside’. The replacement was not forthcoming, yet she was getting from bad to worse. Then, as though that was not bad enough, I discovered that not only was she also pregnant, but she planned to terminate the pregnancy while in my house. This was the last straw and I forcibly made her leave.
Obviously, when I did this, I knew that not having a house-help would make things harder before they got easier; though not to the extent they did. Now, before I get into the nitty-gritty, I should let you know that I am really not the housewife type. I hate doing household chores and only do them because I have to. I would gladly do manual labour, say like fixing the TV Arial than clean the house floors. With the house-help gone, I needed to plan my time between preparing our daughter for school, cooking, cleaning, performing my wifely duties and still running my business. While doing all these things, I was still going through a not-so-easy pregnancy. As much as I was giving my all into everything and trying to convince myself that it’s all mind over matter, some things in my life began to unravel.
My daily routine involved getting up at 5.45 a.m, preparing our daughter for school as my husband-bless him-prepared the breakfast. After breakfast, he would drop her in school and then head off to work. After they left, I would begin with cleaning up the house and sometimes washing the clothes. Thereafter, I would get ready for work and leave the house at around 11.00 a.m. That is the beauty of being self-employed-flexibility! However, being your own boss also means that you work longer and harder than those in employment since the income is directly related to your input. Rarely do you have a predictable 8 to 5 schedule. Most of the time I would get home after 6.30 p.m, to find my husband and daughter already there.
As soon as I got into the house, I would rush to the kitchen and begin to prepare dinner. It had to be ready by 7 p.m so that our daughter would eat and go to bed by 8 p.m. Soon after putting her to bed, I would rush back into the kitchen to clean up the dishes, the kitchen and polish the little girl’s school shoes. All in the name of being super woman.
Once all these were done, I would join my husband in the sitting room and ‘pretend’ to watch news. Within a few minutes, I would start dozing off. This became the routine for a couple of weeks and as a result, my body was failing me and more importantly, a wedge was developing in our marriage. We rarely had time to catch up on the day’s events and at some point, I began to feel resentment towards him because I felt that he was not appreciating all that I was doing. Truth be told, I expected him to see it all and shower me with love and affection. Well, clearly men are from Mars.
In fact, instead of noticing the back-breaking chores I had inflicted on myself, he instead noticed how I was constantly in a foul mood. As a result, he decided to keep his distance, lest he experiences the wrath of a pregnant woman. Not only was my husband distancing himself from me, but our daughter too felt that mummy was no fun anymore.
These gradual changes became a wake-up call and I decided enough was enough. I needed to accept that I could not do it all.
My family was more important than me trying to prove to myself. I had always been skeptical about having a day house-help-I had heard too many horror stories about them. But there are even more horror stories about live-in house-helps. Therefore, I kept an open mind and decided that I would take whichever type of domestic help that came first. Of course, she had to be agreeable with the standards I had set.
A week or so later after making this resolution, I got a call from a relative that there was a lady who was willing to come and work for me on a day-to-day basis. We.arranged for a meeting and after interviewing her, the decision was made. She was going to start work the next day.
It has been a month since I swallowed the humble pie. My family is happier and the pregnancy hardships have eased. My business has improved and I feel and look much better. Many out there, pregnant or otherwise, can identify with the invincible feeling; but we need to accept that we cannot do it all, no matter how much we think we can.
END: PG 37 /26-27