A Whole New World

I’ve been rather silent here because we chose to board a spaceship to a new universe: parenthood. The ride so far has been turbulent because of 2 words: morning sickness. Whoever chose to call it that had it easy and I’d like to give them a piece of my mind. The nausea was constant for me. We should adopt the Thai phrase instead, แพ้ท้อง (pronounced phe tong). If you translate it literally, it means allergic to pregnancy. Much better.

Now that I’m several weeks into the second trimester, the morning sickness has mostly faded. Hallelujah! I can eat again! And better yet, I want to eat again!

Also, I’m now facing a new dilemma: the search for clothes that fit. I live in a country of small people. I’m an average American which translates to taller and wider than my Thai friends. Besides that, I’ve seen maybe one maternity clothes store. That doesn’t give me many options. Thinking about it truly gave me anxiety. Thankfully, my local friends know more than me (surprise!) and took me to some places to find clothes.

Another area of adjustment and some laughs is “rules of pregnancy.” This is not really an aspect of culture that a new missionary studies before coming to the field. I for sure never asked nor saw any books on “What to expect when you’re expecting: Thai edition.”

The funny aspects of this are the rules we follow as pregnant women. One that I learned recently that is common in Thailand is pregnant women shouldn’t color their hair or paint their nails. Whoops! My toes are currently a very pretty shade of teal with multi-colored glitter on them. On the inverse side, they had never heard that pregnant women shouldn’t eat raw meat like sushi. I’m going to follow that one anyway.

I’m going to cut this short because baby is demanding food and a nap.