To write this I planned on reminiscing, but in a surprising twist of fate I’ve found myself reliving some of the first trimester feelings as I sit down to write; the overwhelming nausea that makes it difficult to get up, the feeling of wanting to run to be sick only to know that it’s eating something that will really make you feel better. I count back how long it’s been since I’ve eaten… three hours? I’ve learned through trial and error I need something every four hours to stay afloat. I’ve also learned that I need LITRES of water (really, who can drink as much as I seem to need?!).
That, my friends, is a snapshot of how I can describe this experience so far; mind-blowingly incredible and at the same time stomach-rackingly uncomfortable. Learning to share my body with another little human is… humbling.
I was never a teenager or a young adult who used to dream of children. I wanted to be an artist, travel the world and live in the world. I dreamed of big love first and foremost, and that may or may not have meant a family… Then I met my (now) husband – my biggest, heart expanding love – and the growing feeling of longing began. The feeling of wanting to rediscover the world through child-like minds, of wanting to expand our sense of love into caring for another human being, of wanting the experience of being pregnant and growing a baby inside myself.
We were blessed. It wasn’t a snap-my-fingers-and-I’m-pregnant situation, nor was it as heartbreakingly difficult as it is for some deserving women out there. I knew before I knew. I had the month on my lips, and even though it should have been too early to tell, there was a faint blue line on that pregnancy test. For the next two weeks I walked around with this sense that I was bigger than I was, like my stomach was exploding with this light and this energy and it gradually diminished as the physical life began to grow. Weeks four and five I could feel my uterus expanding, strange stretching sensations as I grew without visibly growing.
Since, it’s been a roller coaster. For weeks on end I never imagined I could feel so unwell. I dragged myself through a work day, forced myself to eat, and when not at work I slept and laid on the couch watching Grey’s Anatomy (aside: If our child ends up being a doctor, this, my friends would be why). I remember getting off the couch to go to the kitchen, and just the act of moving would send me into a stomach-churning spiral. I was a bloodhound. Smells everywhere were too strong, movement was too much; this little life inside me was so sensitive to the world and it felt like my body couldn’t contain it. I was told I should exercise; I’d gone from running three times a week and doing yoga every day to not being able to even think of walking. I felt lazy and guilty and completely not myself.
Previous body issues were resurfacing. I didn’t feel pregnant, I felt fat. And why, why, do we do this to ourselves? I’d look at other pregnant women; Instagram filtered and all and feel worse about myself. Here I was just a gassy bloated eating-ALL-the-time human who couldn’t yet tell people she was pregnant. I’d expected to love being pregnant, and these few months felt like a slap in the face.
Then week eleven happened and I felt a reprieve. The storm had passed. Don’t get me wrong, the rough seas come back every now and then, but on the whole… I can see through to the other side. Hearing bub’s heartbeat, seeing him/her move at the twelve week scan changed everything. Prior to the scan I imagined baby getting everything I threw at it; my love, my excitement, my stress and anxiety… seeing bub yawning, doing backflips and just so… content, regardless of how I was feeling, lifted a weight off my shoulders I didn’t know I was carrying.
I get it. I get the blissful pregnancy bubble. This is what they talk about. Nausea I can handle, growth I can start to see. Now that the second trimester has started… let the bump begin… xx