Armenian Pregnancy chronicles #4

It has been a hectic month with the holidays and the many projects going on at the Women’s Center, I became lazy and ended up not blogging at all.

I am now 35 weeks pregnant and starting to feel heavy and exhausted. To keep myself active and healthy I am going to prenatal yoga classes at Shoonch. It is helping me a lot physically and morally, and giving me some quiet time away from home and work.

Just before the session (I arrive early, most of the time) I sit quietly in one corner and wait for the other participants to arrive. It is actually an interesting time, where Armenian pregnant women gather in one space, sit comfortably, caressing their bellies exchanging information, comparing pregnancy symptoms, doctors and mother-in-laws’ unnecessary (and sometimes scary) advices. In Armenia, it is very common that mother-in-laws will take care of everything once the bride is pregnant; choosing the doctor and escorting her to prenatal visits, deciding what she can do and what she can't, what to wear and what not. The husband becomes secondary and a little detached from the whole process. On the other hand and mostly in the city center, i am seeing more and more couples trying to do this together as much as possible but still the majority thinks that this is a woman's business and most of the time, husbands are kept away. One of my local pregnant friends told me that when you go to the polyclinic, women's consultation department for your monthly prenatal visits, men are not allowed inside, so future fathers should wait outside while women handle this all alone.  It will take some time until things change, i assume. 

Another activity that I am able to do is swimming and I found that Ani hotel has a nice indoor pool. So I am trying to go there once a week.

I am planning to work until the end, I don’t see what I would be able to do if I stay home. There is also a lot going on at the Women’s Center with the Sexual Violence Law and Zaruhi Petrosyan’s case that I don’t want to miss and can’t afford it either since we are understaffed. This is also keeping me busy for the last stretch of the pregnancy when the wait becomes difficult. The only thing that I am limiting is my travels outside the country, and going only to the regions of Armenia to start-up new projects with local women’s NGOs.