Challenges of a working mother

By Doreen Allotey
YOU seem to have the morning blues. You feel funny and secretly pray that it is for real. You confide in your husband that you are pregnant and he looks like someone with mixed feelings. First is that of surprise, giving credence to the fact that even though there is a scientific explanation for how a woman becomes pregnant, men recognise the power of the Supreme being in the process. Otherwise why the surprise?
Well, your husband is very happy that you are about to let the whole world know that he is a man, but deep down inside he thinks about the implications and consequences, such as the family budget and what is expected of him as a father.
He starts helping around the house, ostensibly to make the household chores lighter, and starts treating you like an egg.
Your visit to the doctor confirms that a new one is on the way and your excitement increases.
Your increase in size attracts attention and your colleagues at the workplace start teasing you.
Some call you double-decker, some ask you what you have been eating, while others just look at you and sigh, to show that they know what you have been up to.
With time your clothes do not fit any longer and you need to buy or make clothes that will give you and the growing one some space.
Pregnancy brings with it different kinds of moods. Sometimes you do not feel like talking at all — not because you are unfriendly but because if you do so your mouth fills up with saliva, a sight that nobody likes.
A simple comment innocently made can send you throwing tantrums. Your mood is at it, playing games with you. And oh, how some women take advantage of this to do and say things!
You may hate to see the very kind of food which used to be your favourite and crave for something that people around you find extremely odd. There have been real stories of women who have chewed chalk, white clay (ayilo) salt and cola nuts to satisfy these cravings, very much aware that they are not healthy.
Some husbands have experiences of travelling from, say, Tema to Dansoman in search of kelewele (spicy fried plantain) from a particular seller because that is what heavy wife is asking for. Without it, she may nag the whole night.
Every pregnancy seems unique in the sense of how it treats you. You may have nausea or morning sickness and lose appetite for one pregnancy, while another gives you an unbelievable appetite. You also find that you can neither lie on your back nor your belly. You are sentenced to lying only on your sides.
The early weeks of pregnancy do not get you attending antenatal clinics so regularly, but as time goes on and the due date draws nearer, the doctor requires you to visit more frequently.
You have the choice, during your scans, to find out the sex of the baby — male or female?
This is another exciting moment for you and your partner. Even though certain items may have been bought for baby already, the confirmation of sex enables you to buy according to some colour scheme. Most couples choose blue for boys and settle on pink for girls.
Luckily, ante-natal clinics provide a basic list of what a new born requires. This facilitates the preparation for the new one and a provisional shopping list.
As a working mother, you plan your leave in such a way that you spend most of it when the baby arrives instead of before. That puts some stress on you because the last days before it descends make walking uncomfortable. But you struggle through, going to work just to have time for the baby.
Even though you are given lessons on the signs to expect as an indication of labour and when you should start heading for the hospital to be delivered of your baby, you can be overtaken by events because you may not read the symptoms right. If you are lucky to have some experienced old lady with you, this will not be a problem. The experienced ones have eyes like X-rays; they look at you and can tell what is about to happen!
Whatever the case may be, the cramps are good enough to race you off towards the hospital. But that may only be the “comedies”. There is this story a midwife told of how one first-timer walked into the hospital and announced to the nurses at the table that she was in labour. They quickly showed her to her room, knowing very well that nothing had started. She took a fashion magazine, started reading it and touched up her make-up. When it was show time, the magazine went flying across the room, while she hang onto the curtain railings in the room like a bat. What a strategy to cope with pain! The room where she was reading had become too small to contain her.
Now the baby arrives and this opens another chapter of your life — the sleepless nights as baby cries for what you will believe as no apparent reason! You may never find out the cause of baby’s cries and will keep guessing all kinds of things in a bid to stop the crying.
Your husband comes to the rescue and you take turns to carry the baby around, holding it over the shoulder and patting it on the back. Sometimes you are forced to march up and down the room like soldiers because any attempt to sit draws cries from the baby.
By morning the two of you are as tired as hunters from a night’s expedition. But the morning is when well wishers, friends and family members come in to visit and congratulate you! Mother will still have to see them, with bleary eyes and a smile, of course.
It seems it takes a while for new borns to get used to their new environment outside the womb.
In no time your maternity leave comes to an end and you have to resume work. This can be quite stressful for the working nursing mother. With no alternative of a relation to take care of the baby at home, you decide to send it over to a crèche, you look out for one that is neat and where the baby can have the best of attention. But you can never really tell what happens to it in your absence, for even if it has been crying the whole day and refused to eat, he will be cleaned up and powdered up by the time you arrive to pick him.
Leaving the baby at the crèche on the first day is traumatic. You get to the crèche and the baby is received warmly, but turning to walk away towards work becomes a big emotional problem, especially if you are breastfeeding. You find tears rolling down your cheeks while the baby also cries for you!
At work, you have divided attention. In fact, you hear the baby crying sometimes and if someone inadvertently touches your filled-up breasts, your dress gets soaked with milk!
Luckily, the laws of the land allow you to leave earlier than your colleagues. As punctual as you used to be to work on a daily basis, you realise that you sometimes just cannot get it right any longer. There are times when you wake up early to get yourself and the baby ready and are about to go out the door only to find that it just made another parcel in its diapers. You have little choice but to change the diapers and that takes some time.
In such a situation, make your presence felt at work by working extra hard to compensate for your lateness and do not make it a usual excuse at all.
As a working nursing mother, you find that your time is not yours any longer.
You would prefer getting some sleep at the least opportunity to sitting at your favourite spot listening to live band music!
Your responsibilities as a wife will also take a toll on you — taking care of the baby, cleaning the house, washing, cooking and keeping yourself intact for your husband.
In spite of all these challenges, do not be too surprised if you find, in less than two years, that number two is on the way. Why should you be surprised if you have not visited the family planning clinic? That old lady’s tale of breastfeeding being a contraceptive is not true.
So you start another cycle, but obviously you now have loads of experience and will, therefore, be able to cope better with the challenges. But as the number of births increases, so do the challenges.
One interesting thing is that every child has its own peculiarities. Some babies treat you kinder than others. While one would wail just because of a wet nappy, another will even sleep in his soiled nappy. Some babies want company all the time and refuse to lie in the cot except between you and daddy! Others can sit quietly for long hours while you do your household chores. Their character naturally produces for them pet names that you keep and treasure even when they have become men.
It is a great joy to watch babies grow. But with their growth comes a whole set of challenges — picking them up from school, moulding their character, the anxiety about making them responsible in future and helping with homework. Depending on your finances, you could employ a teacher to lend a hand.
There are times when the working mother has to travel because work demands that she does. She is very ready to respond to this duty but very worried about what happens to the home in her absence.
The working mother faces a stiffer challenge when she attempts to improve her curriculum vitae through further education. The decision to go back to school is a tough one for her knowing very well that what she is about to put her self through would increase her responsibilities. She is about to combine her assignments in school with helping her children with their home work and a lot more. Her responsibilities at home don’t change at all. Once again she is prepared to juggle, knowing very well that it is a temporary challenge that will make her a better person for the benefit of her family. She sometimes has to run from the lecture hall to pick her children at school. She continues with lectures while the children wait in the car or somewhere more comfortable and they drive home after the lectures.
At home, there is no time for rest, as her husband is waiting for his food.
Balancing your responsibilities at work, at home and to your husband and children as a working mother remains a challenge that one should plan and manage. You learn to juggle on the job.
After all is said and done, a real mother stands up to these challenges as they come, remains prayerful and does not give up her children for anything else in the world!