Tuesday, April 7, 2026
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Packing the Hospital Bag, part 1

By
Maryanne W. Waweru
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I didn’t know packing my hospital bag would require this much effort. Just like many other things on my ‘to-do-list’, packing my hospital bag ranks up there but I’m yet to execute it.

Today the hubby asked me if I had packed the bag and if it was ready to be put in his car boot coz he doesn’t trust that I will be able to drive any car when the contractions come. I told him I had packed ‘a little’. A little means I have packed just my hairband because I don’t want to pull off my hair during labor, so I will have to tie it in a bun. I have also packed a toothbrush and toothpaste because I don’t want my newborn to meet me while I have stinking breath. That is as far as I have gone with the packing. I did this packing two days ago.

Thing is, I know what I need to pack and I know exactly where the things are. Half of them are scattered in my wardrobe and the other half are still in the store waiting for me to buy them. I hear labor can come quite unexpectedly and at week 35, I surely need to have packed by now.

So what exactly is my problem? Chronic procrastination. I keep putting the exercise off, rationalizing that I enjoy doing things under pressure. That when I feel the contractions coming is when I will pack. Which makes me think I am quite on the non-serioius side of life because how then will I expect to get myself to the store and buy the remaining stuff in between contractions? Well, I’ll be damned if I know the answer to that.

Right now I am more preoccupied with having to go to work and when I get home in the evening, I have no energy left to pack a bag. What I do in the evening is pack myself on the couch and have a well-deserved rest.

But I think I need to set a date for this packing business. My Saturday afternoon (tomorrow) does not look very busy, so I will try and throw in a few things in the hospital bag. We will see who will win between procrastination and self-discipline.

Walking the Tortoise Way

By
Maryanne W. Waweru
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I have just returned to the office from having lunch together with a colleague. And boy oh boy, she kept complaining about how slow my pace is. To be very honest, my pace is slower than slow. It is comparable to that of a lame tortoise. Thing is, I suspect my baby is already head down, and the pressure that baby gives my lower abdomen is just amazing. When walking, my lower pelvic region feels so HEAVY I always feel like the baby is gonna fall out anytime. However fast I try to walk I simply cannot push my feet fast enough.

I have since taken to calling my colleague ‘Raila’, and myself Kibaki. Now, Raila is our Prime Minister, while Kibaki is our president. I am comparable to Kibaki, whose pace is similarly comparable to a tortoise’s. Might be his age or his ill-health but whatever it is, he walks extremely SLOWLY.

On the other hand, Raila is this energetic fellow, active and always on the move, an avid soccer fan and generally a good sportsman. Courtesy of various state functions where both Prime Minister and President have to attend together, they are often stuck with each other and have to walk side by side. And that’s where the comedy lies. Poor Raila has no option but to walk the tortoise way. You can actually see the frustration written all over his face as he struggles to do so.

Kibaki actually walks with a slight kind of limp on one of his feet, and I don’t know whether it’s only me, but I’ve noticed Raila also walking like him of late whenever they are together. Raila too drags his feet from side to side, almost like a limp – just like the president. I think a slow walk is contagious, because just like Raila, my workmate has also recently adopted my tortoise pace. Infact, I shift heavily from foot to foot, and I have noticed she has begun doing the same as well. Problem is she doesn’t even realize this, it is only until we run out of conversation that she notices the tortoise pace.

What I know is that if you can’t beat them, just join them. I’m sure she enjoys the slow walk, especially in this sweltering March midday sun. Me, I am only more than happy to provide her with the company for the brisk lunchtime walk.

Hospital Window Shopping

By
Maryanne W. Waweru
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I am 34 weeks and yesterday, the hubby and I went on a hospital-window-shopping spree. I am hoping to have a normal delivery, but they say you just have to be prepared for anything, hence we need it to be a place with well qualified medical staff, superior equipment, a clean environment, good facilities and a place that I will love to go back again. So the hubby and I went on a tour to four different hospitals within or near the range of our budget to assess their facilities. I must say that all the nurses who take us on a tour of the facilities are really good and friendly, and I liked them lots.
But there were some facilities that were a total let down. There is one particular one I went to whose post natal ward was quite squeezed. I don’t think the curtained rooms can accommodate more than one visitor at a time. Worse, this particular maternity ward’s washrooms were the least bit impressive. In fact, when I asked to see a private room, the nurse/guide was quite embarrassed when she took me to one whose loo had not been flushed in quite a while and the stench was extremely offensive. I definitely crossed that facility out of my list.

The next one we went to wasn’t that bad. Only that we met a patient being carried out, literally, in a member of staffs’ arms out of the theatre and being transferred to a ward I assume. The hubby and I wondered if there was a shortage of stretchers or if there was no ramp to the upper floors or what. I shuddered at the thought of coming out of theatre and being carried in someone’s arms to the post-natal ward. Not funny.

Off we went to the next one, but we were told we could not be taken on a tour of the maternity facility because all the beds were fully occupied. Our pleas to let us ‘just have a peep’ at one of the wards, beds or washrooms fell on deaf ears. We were told it would not be nice to invade the privacy of a patient, and more so, the hospital could be sued. We understood because I don’t want strangers peeping into my space either when I’m recovering. But we wondered what would have happened if we had already booked earlier and I was due for delivery at that very moment. Where would they admit me? Or would I have to wait until a mother is discharged for me to get a bed? I don’t know.

The last place we checked out was not bad either. Very clean facility actually. Can’t say anything negative I saw. Maybe I will consider delivering there.

Problem though I noticed with all these facilities is their pricing. They all have hospital packages for both normal and caesarian deliveries. Complication arises when you have your own private doctor whom you want to use during delivery. The itemized charges are not easy to understand, so you get out of there not knowing exactly how much you will spend, especially because they say the prices are all dependent on what you and your baby will consume during your stay in the hospital. Which is alright, only problem for us is that save for the doctor’s fees, we ended up not knowing exactly how much it will cost us to deliver in these facilities. And the estimates are so varied we ended up more confused. Grrrr.

One other thing is the talk out there by mothers about hospitals. By jove, I have heard all sorts of tales about different hospitals, including the ones I sampled. Both terrifying and good. One woman could have a horror story about a certain hospital, and yet another is all praise and heaven about it. There are such contrasting opinions about all these hospitals from the women in my network, right now I’m just about confused about where to go. And you know how convincing women, ESPECIALLY mothers can be about delivery and baby matters.

But you know what? I have decided if I listen to them, I will not deliver at all or I will end up popping my baby in the house. So the hubby and I will just have to make a decision and leave the rest to God.

The Baby Shower

By
Maryanne W. Waweru
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So two days ago my friends threw me a baby shower. Was I surprised? Hell yeah! So how did my cool buddies manage to pull that one off, because I had vowed that this time, unlike my bridal shower, I wasn’t gonna be caught unawares? Well, its starts from far.

All of last week, I was suffering from serious fatigue, and I had made the decision not to leave the house on Saturday. The hubby and I had made plans to commence our Lamaze classes at home in the afternoon, and other than that, I had planned to do absolutely NOTHING all day long but simply laze around, idling, eating and sleeping. I was not going to leave the house no matter what. I was just too tired.

So as I was going about my business of lazing around during the mid-morning hours, I suddenly got this craving for Ethiopian food. And when a pregnant woman craves a particular food, she won’t rest until she gets it otherwise there will be no peace. So I texted the hubby and told him to bring me Ethiopian for lunch. And recognizing the value of peace in the house, the considerate hubby promptly replied, saying he would gladly do so. But under one condition (grrr). That I would agree to leave the house after the Lamaze classes to go shop around for furniture (what a plan!!). Now why on earth would he give me such an ultimatum knowing how fatigued I’d been all week long and how clear I had made my plans for Saturday known to him? I didn’t think that was fair at all. But my protests fell on deaf ears. If I did not agree to leave the house, then he would not bring me Ethiopian. And that scared the living chickens out of me. There was no way I was not going to have Ethiopian for lunch.

“No excuses, no arguments.” The text said. Total blackmail if you ask me. Maybe in marriage you sometimes have to use blackmail to get your way. The pastor certainly forgot to mention that during premarital classes.

Anyway, I reluctantly agreed to the blackmail deal, only because I was going to go into depression if I didn’t eat Ethiopian. I was willing to do ANYTHING for that meal. So as I waited for him, I salivated and listened to my heart beat fast as I anticipated his arrival. Ooohhhh, but how the minutes dragged! Time simply stood still, and however hard I tried to distract myself by keeping busy (by watching a Nigerian movie), it wasn’t working.

But God is good because a few hours later, just when I was on the verge of collapse from hunger, the hubby walked in with the most delicious bag of aroma I have ever smelt. I don’t remember if I even welcomed him on his way in, but I do certainly remember aggressively grabbing the bag with the delicacies and proceeding to heat the contents, then gluttonously gobbling them down. My oh my, how I loved that food. Every bite and swallow was pure heaven. It was the sweetest and most pleasurable feeling, something comparable to a drop of ice in the hot Sahara desert. That food was toooooooo nyom (sumptous). And when I was through, I lay back on the seat, with a sly grin on my face, looking like the cat that had just eaten the canary. I was truly very happy from the very bottom of my heart, and I duly expressed this with a series of belches.

So when we were through with the Lamaze classes, the hubby told me to “get up and put on my shoes because we were leaving now.” And there I was thinking he had forgotten all about his earlier threat. My attempts to feign extreme fatigue and oh, you know my back, my feet, heartburn, constipation…were quickly thwarted by a certain look he gave me. I promptly dragged myself and threw on some bland clothes because hey, who dresses up when they are going to for furniture window shopping along the dusty roadsides of Nairobi?

So off we went, and I soon found myself in familiar territory – taking a turn towards a friends place. And in no time, there were cries of ‘Surprise!!!!!!”, and it was indeed a lovely surprise to see my close friends, all anxiously waiting for me. I don’t know how I missed out on that obvious hint – who goes for furniture window shopping at 6.45 in the evening, when darkness has already set in?

My Daily Pants

By
Maryanne W. Waweru
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Wash and Wear almost Daily
I have noticed that I only have one pair of pants that I sort of keep wearing on an almost daily basis to the office. I had a couple of beautiful fashionable pants at the beginning of the pregnancy, but gradually, I have had to part with them as my belly grew bigger. Actually one day I wore a trouser in the morning, and by noon it was no longer fitting! I had to urgently get into a store and buy a bigger size. Lesson learnt: a pregnant woman needs an emergency budget. But how my tummy grew exponentially during the day I am yet to understand because I thought the tummy only grows at night. (By the way I’m not sure what the word exponentially means but it sounded nice to use it in that sentence).

Anyway, now all I am left with is one very comfortable brown corduroy trouser, which I keep interchanging with a pair of black leggings. I have been planning to buy some more pants, but this planning continues to be executed only in my head. In between my busy work schedule and hectic family weekends, I neither have the time nor energy to shop around for clothes anymore. And when I do get the time and energy, I spend all of it shopping for my baby. My needs are not a priority. Clearly I can see I have developed the motherly instincts already. Yaaaaaay!

The last time I shopped for maternity clothes, which was about a month ago (at week 29), I bought some large denim pants knowing they would take me all through to week 40. But alas, the pants were two sizes too large and were dropping to the floor. So what I did was tie them up with some safety pins and hurry to work. But the safety pins seemed to be overwhelmed as the pants still kept dropping down. So all day long, I had to walk supporting my pants at the waist. My colleague told me I resembled a deviant 13 year-old teenage girl with sagging oversize pants and a huge stomach. Please note that I am 4’11, so I guess I was quite an interesting sight.

Thankfully, a few mothers in the office have told me not to worry, that no one notices if an expectant mother only has two pairs of pants. I hope no one has noticed. Though I doubt because being a woman, I KNOW we do notice these things. But I care about this noticing as much as I do about the botanical features of the Jatropha curcas Euphorbiaceae plant. Go figure.

To be honest, what I do feel like dressing in now is those old-fashioned ugly flowered maternity dresses that our mothers wore, the ones that had three buttons at the front and then flowed freely. Made a pregnant woman look like a tent, but right now I could care less about fashion. Those dresses are so comfortable because at this moment I don’t want anything touching my belly. Those leggings are infact beginning to annoy me because they have to rest somewhere beneath the tummy, which is irritating me. The corduroy is also irritating me a little bit but since it is otherwise serving me well I cannot afford to speak ill against it (desperados cannot be haters + beggars cannot be choosers).

To make matters better for myself, If I could, I would go to work in a nightdress, complete with pillow, blanket and headscarf. But I guess there are company policies to observe so I just have to make do with my beloved durable brown corduroy for now.

The Sleeping Bug

By
Maryanne W. Waweru
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A short while ago, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I was seriously struggling with sleep, and for about half an hour or so I debated with myself on what I should do. Thing is I had so much on my desk, but was being very unproductive as all I kept thinking about was how to ward off the gnawing sleep pangs. Reminded me of days in my first trimester when my sleeping sickness was uncontrollable. I have never had so much sleep in my life like I had then, especially between weeks 7 – 11. I mean, I was a mess! You would be talking to me and I would sleep right there in your face, without the slightest notice that I was doing so. At work, I would attend meetings and proceed to catch a few winks right in the middle of it all. I remember my jaws ached because of my constant yawns. I would yawn so wide you could literally see the small tongue behind my tonsils. And my eyes (when not asleep), were always watery and red, heavily pregnant (pun intended) with sleep. Each time you saw me, I was either yawning or sleeping. It was especially bad when the clock would hit noon, because I would promptly proceed to shut my eyes, regardless of what I was doing. By 1 o’clock, I would be sound asleep, wherever I was – standing, seated, walking, eating, whatever.

The worst was when stuck in traffic and I was driving, because despite opening all windows to get a cool breeze and playing loud music to keep me awake, I would often find myself dozing off. That was very unsafe and irresponsible of me I must confess, because I knew I shouldn’t have been driving in the first place. But just like you, I am a normal human being who more often than not throws logic out of the window. But I learnt my lesson soon after as I crashed head on with a matatu (a public service vehicle) during one of my half-asleep-half-awake stupors. And you would think it was because I wasn’t getting enough sleep but nooooooo, I would wake up at 8am, be at work by 9am, leave the office at 6pm, and be in bed by latest 7.00pm.

Anyway, the sleeping bug has now returned, in my last trimester. While I was quite energetic and active all through my second trimester, it now seems I’m back to square one. But I am proud to say that this time round, my sleeping sickness is of the mature type. What I mean is that I am now more cultured and mannered in how I catch those winks, and especially while at work. If you are talking to me, I assure you I will not sleep on you. If I attend a meeting, I guarantee you that I will not fall asleep. That is until you start speaking in a monotone. And thankfully, I am not yawning constantly like in the first trimester and my eyes are not blood shot. Just a little pinkish but not red.

How I manage my sleeping sickness nowadays is that during my lunch hour, I proceed to the basement and take a snooze in my car. That helps sort out the sleep pangs quite A LOT. So today, the sleep pangs came at about 10.30 am. For the next half hour, I agonized over how I would make it till my lunch hour. Clearly, it was a losing battle because all I was doing was fantasizing about that a nap. The urge was so overwhelming, perhaps comparable to what addicts feel when they need a fix. I badly needed to sleep. So I went ahead and slept in the car, only to be suddenly woken up by my loud snores and drooling I was doing on the car cushion. I actually didn’t know that one’s own snore could wake one up. I was both shocked and amused. More so because the hubby says I snore HEAVILY at night, but I don’t believe him. I am beginning to think twice. Since I slept for an amazing 75 minutes, I’ve kissed my lunch hour goodbye.

But I feel much better now, hoping that I won’t feel sleepy again in the afternoon.

The Tale of the Dark Feet

By
Maryanne W. Waweru
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1

I am currently at 32 weeks, and for the last couple of weeks, have not had the pleasure of having a clean pair of soles on my feet. Before I got pregnant, my soles were a smooth shade of soft pink, very inviting I must say. But those are yester days.

Today, while I was taking a nap (which I often do for the better part of the day), the hubby had a glimpse of my soles and let out a frightening shriek that immediately awoke me from my snooze. Now, if a man lets out a shriek like that one, then you know that something’s definitely amiss. The hubby was expressing horror at the color of the soles of my feet, which I must say were somewhat between a shade of dark tan and black, which is not very nice for a gracious lady like myself. Major problem though was the hubby’s insistence that the soles were ashen black, which was not a very nice thing to hear, though I confess he was right.

Thing is, I have been wearing, on a daily basis, these Maasai sandals that are soooooooo comfortable I cannot imagine myself in any other shoes. The sandals are flat and ‘expandable’, because when my feet decide to swell, which they often do, the Maasai sandals are quick to accommodate the swelling, unlike other shoes I’ve tried before. Now, walking around this dusty town of Nairobi has the effect of getting my feet to be a non-pleasant sight at the end of the day, comparable to those of a street urchin’s. Not good at all. It doesn’t help much that my bathroom floor is all tiles, I miss those old earthen bathroom floors we grew up in that were as rough as sandpaper, where I would have easily scrubbed my feet on them and they would have remained luscious pink. I can reach neither my feet nor my soles anymore to give them a good cleaning, so the best I can do is, with much struggle, pass my face towel over them when taking a shower at the end of the day. But judging by the hubby’s shriek, clearly this is not having the desired effect.

Anyway, the hubby has pitifully offered to scrub them soles and feet for me today, seeing as the trips to the salon for a pedicure are becoming more difficult as the days go by as my beautician is quite some kilometers away and I simply don’t have the energy to drive that far in this sweltering March heat. I have been using this beautician of mine for the last 14 years, and I cannot fathom the possibility of starting anew with someone else.  All those years, no one else has ever touched my nails for a manicure or pedicure. It’s like I’ve been in a marriage with her, she knows and understands my needs and body so well, I am at a loss at what I would do without her. I have been contemplating visiting nearby beauty parlors to get the service done, but I am too chicken to allow anyone else touch my nails. I actually get goose bumps when I think about it. So I guess I will have to suffer the consequences of dark tan/black feet and soles. For now, I hope the hubby will make it a weekly habit to scrub them soles. I will soon update you on that.

Why Am I Always Hungry? Pregnancy Tales

By
Maryanne W. Waweru
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0

I am in my last trimester and my cousin, who I haven’t seen in a couple of months has just sent me a text message saying “You need to stop eating!”

Now, this my cousin is very worried about my huge appetite. Thing is, ever since the beginning of my pregnancy, I have been eating ALL the time. It’s as though I have this bottomless pit in my stomach, such that regardless of how much I put in, it just goes nowhere! I had normal eating habits before the pregnancy, but the extreme hunger pangs I have been experiencing throughout my pregnancy have oftentimes made me think I am losing my mind. I mean, I am permanently STARVING. Regardless of what and how much I eat, I still remain famished. The amount of food I would normally pack in a whole day during my pre-pregnancy days, nowadays I have already packed by noon.

So what I have been doing for the better part of my pregnancy is spending lots of time in the fridge and the microwave. My hunger cycle is every 1.5 hours, and should I fail to munch on something I feel dizzy and quite sick. At the beginning, I would bite on snacks like cereals, nuts and fruits, but I soon realized that these were not doing me any good, as the hunger would be back again in another 30 minutes or so. My body (or is it my baby) needs serious food, not snacks. So what I’ve been doing is carrying lots of food to the office. Rich African foods, not snacks or fast food. And that’s what keeps me going every 1.5 hours or so.

My workmates have taken to taking jibes at me because of my constant feeding. What though surprised me the other day is when a fellow colleague, just five weeks behind me in her pregnancy told me that she doesn’t feed as much. That she can have breakfast at 10am, and the next meal she can eat would be at 3pm. I almost collapsed! I absolutely could not relate to what she was saying. Me, I would have long expired by now, if I did the same that is. But I guess we are all different. Me, I’m a HUGE feeder. Her, she’s a small feeder. God bless us both.

By the way, did I tell you that my hunger pangs wake me up at night? This used to happen on a daily basis throughout my first trimester. I mean, I don’t know what was worse, my heavy sleep appetite, or my heavy food appetite. Despite being in a deep slumber, the hunger pangs would wake me up and hard as I tried to ignore them, I would find myself tripping over the bed in a mad dash to the kitchen. I however don’t recall escapades to the fridge at night during my second trimester, thank God. But guess what? The interrupted sleep is back, now in my third trimester! In between my frequent trips to the loo, I have been making regular stopovers in the fridge department as well.

And this is what prompted my cousin to tell me to stop eating. Well I would have dismissed had she not had a pregnancy experience, but her son is a year old so let’s just say she’s been where I am. But on the ‘stop eating’ advise, I will have to dismiss her. Because I will surely expire if I do not eat. I can sort out the weight issues later :).

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