Let’s just start with this, pregnancy is wild. You are growing a living human in your stomach that one day you will have to take care of. Your body changes, your mindset changes, and you know inevitably, your world will turn upside down in 9 months or less.
I never really appreciated what other moms went through or knew how life-altering it was until I started to go through it myself. It really is one of those things you can’t fathom or truly understand until you are experiencing it in real-time.
Throughout this pregnancy, I have had high highs, low lows, and there were times I completely forgot I was even pregnant. I have kept wanting to blog about my experience, but I couldn’t find a topic that felt right.
Then Sunday morning while still in bed, I was trying to move around my stomach to alleviate the pain in my ribs, thinking about what other women went through or didn’t experience, and I thought “Man, there is no such thing as one pregnancy fits all”. Then all of a sudden these other lessons I have learned rushed into my mind one after the other, and I knew that this was what I wanted to write about.
These are 4 lessons that I have learned, that I wish I knew in the beginning, hope you enjoy. 🙂
- There is no such thing as “one size pregnancy fits all”
I could probably write an entire blog about this alone. There is no “one size pregnancy fits all”, period. Every one of us will experience these 10 months of our lives incredibly different in every single way, and that’s the way it should be.
Some of us don’t get morning sickness, some of us are sick every single day. Some of us barely gain weight, some of us blow up like a balloon. Some of us have aches and pains and difficulty getting through the days, and some of us breeze through our pregnancy and never feel a thing.
It doesn’t matter which bucket you are in or what you are experiencing, because this is a unique journey that you are enduring to bring a beautiful child into this world.
Comparison is the thief of joy, and this is such a joyful time so don’t waste it comparing yourself or your experience to other women. We will all experience it differently, we will all go through different complications, and that’s okay, it’s just a part of the process. Just take it for what it is, and don’t compare your experience to another.
- Rest does not mean you are weak
I am a go-getter to my core. I am constantly on the move, and I cram a lot into my normal daily schedule. Rest was never a thing I did unless I was about to collapse and die. I would rather do something than lay down and “relax”.
Once I got pregnant, I got morning sickness, and dealing with that immediately halted my go-go schedule. I couldn’t physically do it anymore and I felt like a failure. I was so upset that I had to sleep in and take naps during the day, and that I would get physically and mentally wiped from a full weekend of activities.
It took me a while to get over myself and come to terms with the fact that I was pregnant and creating a human is pretty exhausting, even when it feels like nothing is happening.
This probably is not a surprising concept to anyone but myself, but if you do find yourself trying to do too much. Slow down and take a deep breath. Adjust your schedule to add in time or moments to rest and recoup. It’s so important for both you and your baby, and the sooner you do it the better you will feel.
- Asking for help is crucial to survival
Another thing I hate doing is asking for help. I have prided myself on being an independent woman, figuring shit out, and doing it on my own. Then the end of my 2nd trimester came, and I had a crippling back spasm and rib pains on my right side. Now when I say this pain knocked me out, I mean, down for the count on the couch with alternating ice packs and heat packs for hours on end while crying into pillows because of the pain.
I couldn’t physically do anything. I couldn’t cut vegetables, I couldn’t lift anything. I could barely wipe a counter down without having pain.
Luckily for me, my husband is an actual angel on earth, and my mom and sister are also close by so they were able to come and help me clean or prep meals for the week. At first, I was really upset I couldn’t just do it myself, but I knew that it was the only way I could get through this. Once I started to accept and welcome the help, it all just got easier. Being pregnant is not a walk in the park and people want to help you, so let them help you, it just makes everything so much easier.
- Try to enjoy the process
It’s easy to get caught up in worrying and wondering about all things pregnancy and becoming a parent. I found myself in this bucket thinking only about what was happening and what to expect as if it was a business transaction.
But then I read a book called, Beautiful, Bountiful, Blissful by Gurmukh, and it helped me stop the constant chatter in my brain, slow down and enjoy the process. It’s a book about pregnancy written by a yogi. She talks about a lot of things dealing with pregnancy, but the parts that resonated with me most were about letting go and enjoying the overall experience and how miraculous it was. I wasn’t focusing on the experience and the miracle that was happening inside my body. That switch of mindset helped me enjoy the process and get excited, grateful, and amazed for what my body was doing, rather than worrying about the unknown.
Being 30 weeks in, I can confidently say, it does go by so quickly, even though I would have never thought that before I got pregnant. I viewed pregnancy as giving up your life for a year, but it’s so not that. It’s a time where you get to experience an amazing miracle, and get excited for what’s ahead. So enjoy the rest. Appreciate the help. Listen to your body and love the unique pregnancy experience you are going through. It’s a short time, so try to enjoy it because it’ll be over before you know it.
