Post Preganacy Care With No Help Or Less Help In Us

I am writing this because I dealt with my post pregnancy with no help (mil/parents) and I survived. I have also noticed women in the US need this kind of support it doesn’t matter if they are on H4 or H1B. By the end of the day, we all have to agree culturally Indian women’s plate is always full. Things that I share are truly what I experienced, challenges that I struggled and overcame with. The same things may or may not happen to you. I am here just to share the knowledge and my experience.

A bit info about me- my husband and I planned to conceive and we wanted a child. I am south Indian Kannada family born/ brought up in Bangalore and my husband is Kannada from Salem. I was underweight before I conceived around 92 lbs and I am around 5 feet 3 inches. October 16th was my original Due Date.

Due to the family situation, my mother couldn’t partake in my post pregnancy care. I come from a family where I have 4 aunts and being the first grandchild I have seen my aunts post pregnancies at grandmothers house (as a child) and as an adult, I was an active participant in my cousin’s post pregnancy care. I am meaning to say I had a lot of expectation and I literally wanted to have the beautiful post-pregnancy care myself. It was a mental struggle for me to accept I wouldn’t be getting the care that I had expected. I wish someone told me that I would be great in dealing with everything on my own, I wouldn’t have stressed a lot about having the ideal PPC.
I am going to divide this into things one need to be ready
1. Emotionally (before/ after)
2. Family (before/ after)
3. Relationship with your partner (before/ after)
4. Body changes being pregnant (before/after)
5. Things to pack in hospital suitcase
6. Things to get ready after 34th week
7. Things to expect after the baby is at home
8. My family’s bananthi –the grand post pregnancy care
9. Baby-care
10.My GD diet plan
11. My post pregnancy family diet (Request for recipes I will put it up.)
12. My list of baby products from India and US.
Anything else you guys want to know..

 

1. Emotionally- (before your baby arrives) I am going to declare this is the best phase, enjoy it as long as you can. On the day, we went to the first scan I literally cried looking at my baby growing.

· Before 8week- I was very nervous, I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell my MIL and my husband’s family. Because although I had peed on a stick and got positive results, I had had my period the previous month. I kinda didn’t know what was going on with my body. Uncertainty is the feeling that becomes first nature being a new parent. It is ok to feel uncertain about feelings and things around you. Please take your time to figure out your feelings or do your research or ask for help things that are making you feel uncertain. Go with your gut feeling all the time!
· There will be so much of blood work/ ultrasounds/ OB visits that at the time you might feel a bit anxious about your babies health. But don’t worry its all part of your OB’s job to keep track of everything about you and your baby.
· My husband was super anxious more than me! He was literally afraid of things that may or may not go wrong. I couldn’t handle my husband’s over-sensitive nature. I know it all came from a good place, but seriously I needed a break from his anxiety. I wish I had talked to him not making me go through his anxiety.
· I also hated when anyone who started to give me advice on things I need to do or I can do. I was way too irritated with it for some reason.
· I hated women who touched my belly in public places/grocery store or asked personal questions about my baby. This is common for everyone be it white/desi/Mexicans. Women just take it for granted to feel your belly and ask private questions. If you are ok with it, no worries. If you are not ok with it, politely say “We are waiting on the gender or we want to be surprised”.

· After 6th month I was an emotional wreck, I cried a lot, was cranky. I am not the one who gets cranky during periods. But pregnancy is the whole different boat. It was a struggle for me and my husband because I am this sweet, jovial girl who turned a switch in her brain and was exactly opposite right around the 6th month. Best thing is to pick up a hobby of you are H4. If you are on H1 I am sure you will be working and although you might be feeling all these, it won't affect you too much.

· I was in good spirits throughout my pregnancy, I had problems accepting that my post pregnancy care wouldn’t go as I had expected. As my due date was nearing I really hated my family for not being there for me and I made sure my parents knew how I felt. I didn’t realize the fact that by not accepting the reality, I am making it hard for everyone around me emotionally hard too. I have had time to realize that I could have just accepted that I won't be getting the beautiful post-pregnancy care my aunts or my cousins got. I wish I had accepted it, it would have made me emotionally better. My advice to you ladies- Accept the fact your family is tied up and will be there to help mentally and be confident you will be able to pull through. Confidence will help you long way, even if your parents came to help you. It is your confidence in managing without them will what get you through (because at certain point parents have to leave)

· I had 2 complications during my pregnancy- Being 28 years and practicing healthy diet throughout my life. Emotionally it was hard to accept I had complications. It is a feeling that haunted me that my body failed me. It was hard for me to accept my first complication was Gestational Diabetes. Being a South Indian we are genetically wired towards this, because of consumption of rice. My numbers were not too high during the glucose test, it was 5 points above the cutoff points. I hated being 5 points over and blamed everything (including my husband/ his mother/ my food intake/ my parents). The reality is I thank god I got GD, it helped me to maintain my sugar throughout pregnancy and after pregnancy. With a strict diet, I am very proud to say I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight within 6 months of post pregnancy.

· Pregnancy can make you emotionally act crazy; it is ok to feel that way. If there are any complications, don’t blame yourself. Trust me it is better for Doctors to find the complications at an early stage and help you mentally and emotionally to cope before your baby arrives.

 

@Avanti30
Yes, listen to music and don't think of anything negative. Watch romantic movies, comedies. One thing that helped me is recreating my childhood memories.. like I liked how my mother used to burn incense stick while she was cooking. I started doing the same and by recreating certain things from my childhood, I kind of soothed myself from missing my family. My aunts and my mother started to send me childhood pics. It helped me to focus on something other than missing out my PPC.
Make friends/hang out with them/ take your husbands to be with friends/ watch movies/ yet to be parent meetups. LIVE UP YOUR LIFE NOW. By keeping yourself busy, you might not think about family not being there. It will help to get past the 'let down' n anger which is not worth it in the long term.
It is going to get better. Make sure your husband reads too about hormonal changes, so he can be supportive.

 

@Avanti30
Yes, we reconcile into being and doing things that we liked the most from our parents. It's not by choice, it a very emotional phase that we just do it to seek comfort.

I also took courses on Coursera and a painting class at Michael. I had the energy to do 1000 things at once, but even after I did it, my mind would wander back to my PPC and my mom! I literally went not talking to her for several days. Even her voice triggered every negative thing that could trigger!

Hope your first trimester wasn't bad, for some reason I never had morning sickness! Everyone's body is different and I was a bit distant to the cooking oil, apart from that I was doing everything in my first trimester.
Hope your first trimister was a success.

 

· Family (before)

· Coming from a large close knit family from both dad and mom’s side and being the first grandchild on both the side (that too first girl) I was pampered and raised to feel like a princess every bit. They were all very happy about me able to conceive. My husband and I told the news about being pregnant after 8 weeks to immediate family and after 5th month to most of my extended family.

· The care and love that the extended family show feels very warm and good.

· On my husband’s side, there was no response. It didn’t matter to me or to my husband.

· As the months progressed in my pregnancy I was getting unsolicited advice from my mil about stupid traditions/customs and outdated info and caution. I was too irritated by these things. I hated every bit of my MIL doing this. I have no idea why and I couldn’t express to my husband or MIL. It was a serious struggle for me to always say “Yes, amma I will do it”!! My advice to you ladies- makes this your favorite phrase. Because this unsolicited advice will start to pour even after the child. There is no point in arguing or making it a big deal. Just say yes to MIL and family/ friends on unsolicited advice. No harm no foul. The thing that your family/ in-laws forget is that we live in different country and some advice may not be feasible coz of the weather, technology, blind beliefs or more access to information.

· I had a couple of aunts who are quite jealous of me, in their opinion that I got a way better deal in life than their children; kind of types. These aunts were kind of rude and weren't celebratory as others. Unknowingly coz of the hormones anything negative from my family hurt me so much more than imagined! My advice- there are always these jealous and insensitive people, avoid them at any cost at least during your pregnancy. That negative feeling isn’t worth it.

· My in-laws wanted to know why my mother couldn’t partake in my PPC. This was way too complicated for me. One hand I had built a resentment on my mother not able to partake and on the other hand the love for my mother (which will never go). I was stuck in between and I couldn’t make up my mind what I should feel or how I should go about expressing it. I came up with a simple answer that she will partake after few months of the child being born. My mother couldn’t come immediately before the Due date and come for 1 month after 2 months of my delivery. My advice to you ladies- handle this situation in a delicate fashion. Keep the answer simple and truthful.

· And my MIL wanted to partake in my PPC. This was shocking for me to even wrap my head around, this idea of her helping me confused me way too much. But I evaluated everything and I didn’t want my MIL near me during my PPC. One of many things- my MIL is from a small town and from the different culture and importantly not from my family. MIL and DIL not getting along is the most common theme all throughout Indian history because our culture is structured around it. I was nowhere confident I will be able to do things around my MIL. My advice to you- do what makes you feel confident.

· My husband is a mama’s boy through and through. Before the delivery, he was the most supportive husband. He wanted to know how I ate, how I slept, he got me a body pillow at around 4th month. He made sure I visit my family in the US and invite them, hang out with them. He did everything pleasurable and never insisted that I had to follow his customs or family traditions during my pregnancy and he basically didn’t pressurize me to cave into letting my MIL come for my PPC. However, the flip side of it is, which I came to know much later. He had been talking and getting advice from his mother (not a bad deal). However mother and son have such strong bond right now after my delivery its like my MIL sits in India and tells how my kitchen should run. I have seen my husband take pics around the house and she gives him suggestion how to maintain it. My advice/mistake- I am trying to point out (with my venting) is that husbands have feelings too and when they are trying their best to accommodate your feeling and making you feel good.. they might feel the need to be praised/valued or make an effort to do something beyond your position that shows thanks for their effort.

· With all my negative feeling toward my mother who couldn’t partake in my PPC, I had made sure everyone felt the same way around me. I complain to my friends/ husband/ my extended aunts/ family. By the end of my delivery I had made sure, everyone will see my mother as a bad person, just because I felt like that about her at that moment. I regret doing it every day. I have realized my mistake and there is not much I can do to change it right now. Because of me constantly complaining, my husband was also not sure how I would be able to manage my PPC, involving him to get connected with his family even more. (a little bit info about my husband- my husband grew up in a small town and doesn’t really care much for his father and his mother is everything to him. After marriage I had made sure I come first in my marriage. I took care of my husband needs more care and love than he ever got from his family). With the constant lack of confidence, I somehow feel like I opened up a hole in my relationship that I had built in my initial marriage phase. My advice to you ladies – Don’t complain to your husband (if your husband is somewhat like mine). Accept and ACCEPT the fact your mother loves you and will be there with you when she can and don’t make it a big deal. (trust me after walking the path and struggles It is not a big deal)

 

AN IMPORTANT TIP- for no stretch marks
Start to apply bio oil right after first trimester. Apply it even after you deliver your baby.
I don't have a single stretch mark! It works so beautifully! It is amazing!

 

· Relationship with your partner- The things I say in this section is basically my experience and things I had to change my lifestyle..


· Being on H4 and a single car in the family, it was very crucial for me and my husband to comprehend that I would be needing the car more than he would. I start to drop him to work and pick him from work. Please start this practice way too early, because my husband being the anxious kind, always worried about me being pregnant and driving. As your pregnancy progress I had so much of OB visit/ ultrasound n blood work that needed to be done. It was way easier for me to drive around and do these myself rather than wait and go with my husband. After adapting into me driving around and able to run errands/ doc visits/ bloodwork. It felt a lot of pressure off my husband too. Although he constantly worried about my safety. I had to convince him that after the baby, it might become way too cumbersome for him if he didn’t have confidence in me driving.

· Involve your husband’s in birthing classes/ baby shopping items. Although my husband was involved he saw all these classes his attitude towards it was “why should I do it” and I have caught my husband dozing off in these classes too. My husband being a typical south Indian male where they see childbearing as women’s duty. Once he saw many men involved in these classes, he kinda accepted that men should know about women’s body changes and the experience is valuable. My husband may have participated in all childbirth n CPR classes, however he only took maybe 30% of the lesson. My advice- take these lessons at around 7th month this is the ideal time to be in class- you and your husband will be able to relate and know what awaits during the delivery and PPC.

· Share all the articles you read- I shared most of the articles I read, about pregnancy with my husband. My husband kind of knew it's hard being a pregnant and he helped me clean/dishes and sometimes cook to help me.

· Try to create a unified look of you, your baby and him. With all baggage from MIL & SIL it was hard for me to get my husband to have a unified approach. This is still a struggle even after the baby. However start early, consider your baby as a person and make sure your husband puts yours and the babies need first.

· Your sex life will take a dip/ make sure you and your husband and you are mentally ready for it. I had heard for some women there is an increase in sexual drive, however I wasn’t one of those women. It was hard on my husband too. Be creative, I constantly cooked his favorite things for him.

· Being a single income family, I constantly maintained the budget of our family expenses- as all the child stuff can easily gets expensive if you decide to buy them at one go. Make sure you get the Costco card and buy stuff in bulk, this helps, Amazon helps too. My SIL told me Target does similar to Amazon and it was a big help for them.

· My husband wanted to have a baby, the idea of the baby is what he had for 9 months until the actual baby came. He wasn’t ready to be a father until the baby actually arrived. Until the men see it, I don’t think they can feel strong emotions towards the babies. This is something I had to get used to.