To be a parent is to sacrifice.

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I was born when electricity was still a luxury, two-story houses were rare, and computers were unthinkable.  My dad was away on business when I was only 2 months old, and mom took care of everything back home. Things were not easy for a first-time mom to raise a kid without her husband being nearby. Mom could not breastfeed me, so she had to feed me with “ porridge water” and formula milk, which kept her even busier especially during the night. My friend told me that since her daughter was born, she has never had a good night sleep. I suppose that was also true for my mom. It is said that to be  born a girl is already a suffering. I try to look on the bright side, but I know it can never be easy to be a mother.

Last week, I visited one of my college friends who had a six-month-old baby. Though I have some nieces and nephews, I did not stay close to them when they were little, so my knowledge about infants and toddlers was almost zero. It was new to me that an electric breast pump could cost as much as 6 million or 8 million VND, and with that machine, the painful process still took up to 20 minutes per pump, and was supposed to be repeated 3 or 4 times  a day. Unimaginable!

Two days ago, I visited my cousin who had just given birth to a baby. I have always been allergic to hospitals, so going there even for a tooth extraction feels like the end of the world to me. Actually it was what happened when I was a primary school girl. Now that I have grown up so much, going to the hospital should not scare me a great deal. Still, I felt like vomiting when I passed the wards, smelling the medicine and iodoform. When I walked along the corridor, I saw many expectant mothers walking with difficulty, their hands on their belly, their faces full of worries. My cousin and her baby stayed in a big ward with five more families. When I opened the door to that room, it took me a few seconds to locate where they were because of the babies, their families and the visitors. How suffocating!

My cousin’s baby was being taken care of by her grandma while her mom was recovering from a caesarian birth. It would take months for the mother  to completely recuperate from the discomforts of childbearing.  I took a deep breath to swallow that fact.

Childbearing is hard enough, yet it is just the start of everything because raising and educating  a child can even  be a life-long battle.