Are you a tummy-obsessed mum-to-be?

“The idea of having a baby can be scary, so women use the nine months of pregnancy to prepare themselves mentally. Sharing your feelings is an effective way of doing this.”  If, in your mind, the person you’re speaking to has her hands over her ears and is singing, “La-la-la”, she’s probably heard enough about your morning sickness.

By Tessa Clayton

Being pregnant is amazing, and you should make the most of every minute. But not everyone wants 60-second updates on your baby’s movements or your morning sickness. If you’re worried you may be turning into a bump bore, stop what you’re doing and read on! 

GIVE IT A REST
Catherine Tang, 29, is 31 weeks pregnant. “There’s a woman in my office who’s due at almost exactly the same time as me, but it’s like she’s the Queen of Pregnancyland,” she says. “She sits there all day, stroking her bump and giving us all a running commentary, ‘Oh, I just felt Baby doing a somersault. Oh, Baby’s got hiccups.’ Sometimes, I feel like tapping her tummy and saying, ‘Baby, would you mind asking Mummy to shut up and do some work?’”
Catherine’s experience is far from unusual. 

Most of us know someone who’s so wrapped up in her pregnancy, it’s as if nothing, or no one, else exists. In fact, we’ve probably all been guilty of the odd yawn-inducing moment ourselves. It’s amazing how you can switch the conversation from any subject - Gray’s Anatomy, the weather, or the best makan places - to your pregnancy! But while every woman feels the need to talk about her pregnancy occasionally, just what makes some of us cross the line from blooming to boring?

Psychologist Susan Ashbourne believes problems can arise if we feel isolated during pregnancy. “The idea of having a baby can be scary, so women use the nine months of pregnancy to prepare themselves mentally. Sharing your feelings is an effective way of doing this, but not everyone has family nearby, to discuss the joys of pregnancy with. Antenatal classes can be useful, but you usually start attending only during the later stages of your pregnancy. Until then, it can be quite isolating if you don’t feel that people understand where you’re coming from.”

Isabelle Lopez, 26, is 37 weeks pregnant, and the first in her group of friends to have a baby. “From day one, it was like something flipped in my brain. If anyone, even a stranger, showed an interest in talking about my growing bump, I really went for it,” she recalls. “I remember telling the guy behind me in the long taxi line at Ngee Ann City that I couldn’t have sashimi because I was pregnant. Fair enough. But then I started going on about the size of my bump, I just couldn’t seem to stop myself!”

Thirty-year-old Song Ching Ching had a similar experience when she was carrying Ellie, now 6 months old. “I was really proud of being pregnant, but I didn’t look it until I was about seven months. So before that, I made up excuses to tell people. In Guardian pharmacy, I’d ask, ‘Can you use this moisturiser when you’re pregnant? Is this hair dye okay for pregnant women to use?’”

YES MAN
It’s one thing boring the pants off shop assistants, but what about our spouse? How does your man feel about the woman he loves turning into a one-subject wonder? “It sounds harsh, but I used to tune out Sarah’s voice,” says Collin Chiew, dad to Jayden, now 19 months. “She moaned all through the first trimester about feeling sick, all through the second because she kept catching bugs, and in the third, she got a bad back and went on and on about how painful it was. There wasn’t much I could say.”

Be especially on your guard during the final trimester. “In the later stages of pregnancy, women tend to withdraw a bit from the outside world, and become less interested in it,” says Ashbourne. The same nesting instinct that makes you want to scrub the floors can also lend your conversations an obsessive edge. “Towards the end, my brain was whirring away like a computer, and I couldn’t switch it off,” says Rehana Mahmood, 33, mum to Haryani, 22 months. “I used to wake my husband at 4am to talk about strollers. I found a list recently that I’d written for him, telling him what to do when I went into labour. It was three pages long and looked like it was written by a mad woman! I’m sure he didn’t read a word of it.”

Pregnancy can be an overwhelming experience, but that doesn’t mean becoming a bump bore is inevitable. Stay interested in other people, and find a safe outlet for your baby chat, be it another pregnant friend or an Internet forum. Most of all, just follow your instincts. If, in your mind, the person you’re speaking to has her hands over her ears and is singing, “La-la-la”, she’s probably heard enough about your morning sickness - until tomorrow.

What happens to your brain during pregnancy? Forget the old wives’ tales - the latest research shows that far from making you scatterbrained, pregnancy might give your brain a boost.  Tests on animals conducted by neuroscientists at the University of Richmond and Randolph Macon College in Virginia, USA, found that the hormonal fluctuations that occur during pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding can actually remodel the parts of the brain involved in learning and memory.  This might explain how you’ve managed to memorise The Bumper Book of Baby Names from cover to cover!

If you have any comments or practical suggestions, write to us at editor@family.sg

- Mother & Baby
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