Reflections…

Things have been so crazy busy in life of late, that I’ve had little time for anything else other than work and getting Clam’s nursery completed all the while trying my best to bank as much sleep as I now…

The other day my sister asked me a question that I’ve been thinking a lot about, and the reflections it caused in me have kept my mind busy and full of emotion.

She asked me if pregnancy has been everything I thought it would be.

I can honestly say that pregnancy has been everything I thought it would be and MORE.  More in so many ways – not all of them seen thru rose tinted glasses.

Infertility taught me to dislike my body intensely.  I mistrusted my body, I felt like it was useless and good for nothing but punishment in any way possible.  Too often this body (this intricate work of art) had let me down, it had failed in every way that it was *supposed* to have been able to succeed.  As a result my body and I had an extremely toxic relationship.  It would “fail” me and I would hit back – with tequila, wine, overindulgence of food – things that whilst I was doing them made me “feel better” but things that I knew were ultimately punishing my failure of a body…

In the first 3 months of my pregnancy, the distrust I had of my body prevailed every sense of mine.  Whilst I wanted so badly to trust that this body was doing what it needed to do, I could would not trust that it was – mostly because of the bleeding I was experiencing but also because it’s track record was not so great up until that point.  I kept on expecting my body to fail me.  To fail the life that was growing inside me.  Obviously I hoped that it would keep proving me wrong along the way and thankfully at each scan after each big bleed it would stick it’s tongue out at me and shout “see, I’m not so bad after all.  I’m not such a failure after all.  This life IS growing and doing well inside me”…

At 12 weeks I gave myself permission to start healing my trust relationship with my body.  And how awesome that healing has been for me.

I started noticing the changes my body was making (all on its own) to ensure that it helped sustain the life that was growing within it.  I looked at my fuller breasts and noticed the dark blue veins that lined them.  I looked at my thickening waistline and appreciated the fact that this was going to help support a burgeoning bump.  As we reached each milestone, I found that I could look at my body in the mirror and accept that it was good for something.  That it was not the utter disappointment I had believed it to be for so long.  In fact, this body, the one that I had hated for so long was doing a pretty fantastic job of nuturing my son growing within it.

It *could* and was doing what it was *meant* to be doing – and all at the right times as well.  I’m amazed every day at how truly awesome my body is.  How it just seems to know what to do every step of the way. 

Even the not so nice parts of this pregnancy have amazed me.  The heartburn which attacks me practically non stop of late reminds me that my boy and the place of safety he’s in is growing as it should squashing my stomache and limiting the amount of good food I’m eating at one sitting.  The relaxin is certainly doing it’s job in my joints and whilst the pain can almost double me over at times, I marvel at how even now my body is preparing me for labour.

I’ve loved falling in love with my body again. 

I’ve loved seeing the amazement on my husbands face the first time he felt his son move within my uterus.  I’ve loved seeing how my whole torso shakes at times now that he’s running out of space to move without restriction inside me.  I’ve loved knowing that he seems to know that it’s my hand that’s soothing him when he’s got a case of the hiccups (so very recent has this love blossomed).  I’ve loved how he responds to my pokes and prods and I’ve loved playing my own version of “blind mans bluff” trying to figure out what body part of my son’s is pushing against my ribs or rubbing against my skin…

This pregancy has taught me that my body is worth loving, warts and all.  

And it’s because of this, that yes, I can say that pregnancy has been everything I could have imagined… and MORE.