Are you a first-time, full-time mom? If this is your case, or that of your cousin, daughter, or sister, you will know that no one can tell you and explain motherhood as it is until you experience it yourself. It’s a sea of incredible emotions that ranges from joy to despair, but, above all, it entails effort, dedication and such pure love for that baby, who in this world deserves to be happy, respected, and loved.

We can talk about maternity for hours. Tales to laugh and others to cry. My case, a 30-year-old first-time mother, married and with a 10-month-old baby. There are plenty of experiences and there’s much to tell, but the story begins long before, when the test was happily positive, and even for others it was cause for concern because when these tests are discussed, the first thing that comes to mind is covid-19.

In Cuba, pregnancy is highly guarded and controlled by the program of the family doctor and nurse. If you had just seen them pass by before, in the middle of pregnancy you get to know them from the inside, also all the polyclinic specialists who in one way or another will attend to you depending on the consultations and the tests to be carried out to check the state of the pregnant woman and the fetus.

It’s that even if at the time of the pregnancy you do not reside at the address on your ID card, the doctors in your area of residence have the duty and commitment to care for you, because pregnant women are a priority here. That's what happened to me, I began to see myself at the 1ro de enero polyclinic in Playa and then they sent me my pregnancy medical history to another polyclinic in Plaza de la Revolución.

Back in the months of February, March,and April 2022, everything was cause for curiosity. A child on the way, the responsibility of how to be a father, if I will do it right, not knowing about care, expenses, the baby’s clothes and, on the other hand, the boiling hormones that ended up in the senses of smell and taste altered. I, for example, could not have cheese, bacon, vinegar, or the smell of the kitchen when it was cooking nearby.

Luckily I never got to the end of my tethers, but I confess that dizziness after meals gave me a hard time. Those discomforts were passing and even changing with the passing of weeks. The still small belly was beginning to show and I started to take pregnancy more seriously and real. We had the privilege of knowing the sex since week 12, that was surprising because we never imagined knowing it with so little time.

So it was time to think more clearly about the name, and the color choice for teh clothes, shoes, car, crib sheets. You begin to imagine how the features and physical characteristics of the mother and father will be fused into the puzzle of that little body in formation. Whether he will inherit the shape of his grandfather's ears, aunt's eyes. An emotion that makes you imagine and enjoy your baby being in there.

But at week 18, just when another important ultrasound test, where the four heart chambers are visualized and through a Doppler ultrasound the route of all the blood vessels of the baby's body is appreciated, I was diagnosed with a disorder that occurs in the pregnancy when the placenta covers the opening of the cervix totally or partially, my case, marginal occlusive placenta, a risk that many underestimate and that we will delve into soon.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff