I’m a few days away from entering the most important, valuable, loving, expansive chapter of my life. However I’ve discovered some early realizations that motherhood already has to offer. Some realizations I’ve had within myself and some are mirrors of my outside reality. Whether that be a negative or positive.
If you know me, I’m all ears, I’m willing to hear you out, but I can’t promise I’ll always agree with you. Nor should you be forced to agree with me. If you’d like to step into my world and hear where I’m at with things, keep reading. If not, completely understandable. Let’s keep it pushing and lead with love. I’ll be honest. It was a rollercoaster of emotions (still is). Scary as hell. Yes, I said scary. I was terrified. I understand this is the most responsible task you can take on, but the way I felt was a tidal wave of fear, and couldn’t even explain where it was coming from. The narrative and connotation that pregnancy and motherhood have are so whimsical, joyous, desirable, fluffy, magical, the list goes on. But nobody warns you of the emotions that come up along with that. “Will I be good enough?” “Am I prepared?” “How the heck am I going to make this work?” “What will my new life look like?” I was flooded with emotions. Some really real, and some so far fetched that a Disney movie couldn’t even recreate. But once I realized the fears I had were not even my own fears per say, they were stories that people have fed to me for years. I began to chip away at my “fears” that came up with pregnancy. People make comments and jokes in passing but I cannot tell you how often I heard the remark of “your life is over”. Hellloooo, how inviting, so supportive, exactlyyy what I need right now. Not. Now I could have chose to genuinely believe this. Or run in the polar opposite direction and choose to believe my life is just beginning. (I know everyones circumstances aren’t black and white. There’s a whole world of unknown. If you’re faced with having to weigh your options, just know. You’re the strongest woman on this planet and everything is always working for you, in your favor, whichever direction that may be <3*) As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I chose to run full speed forward trusting my intuition and burning feeling in my heart that I knew I’d be okay. In doing so, I had to wrap my head around a few edits that I’d be making as I sailed off into this endeavor. Thank goodness for this loading time. I’m still not entirely sure if 10 months was enough, but it allowed me to grow, grieve and process for what’s up ahead. We associate grieving as a sad emotion, but allowing myself to feel those feelings before Gemmas arrival allowed me to get clear on my personal goals, financial goals, and how I envisioned myself as a mother. In order to step into this expansive unknown chapter I knew there would be a few things about myself I’d have to leave behind to make room for the abundance of what’s to come. I kept hearing, “are you ready?!” which is such a loaded question. I found myself wondering, “how in the world do you prepare for a version of yourself that you’ve never known before?” Whether you’re a woman who has dreamt of being a mom your entire life, or you’re welcoming this surprise with open arms, or if you’ve never had a vision of being a mom, or if a completely different version of motherhood has wound up at your doorstep. I feel for you, I feel for us. This world hasn’t made it the easiest to process emotions. What I’ve gathered during my growth is, from this point forward I will be scared shitless from here on out. Scared in the best way possible. Scared and lit up for what’s ahead. Scared but with butterflies. The type of scared you get right before the adrenaline rush of a rollercoaster. I just spent 10 months growing a beautiful baby with love, that will now live outside my body. I can’t even wrap my head around the feelings that are about to grow from here. Every moment, every decision will now have her in the utmost consideration. Living for yourself, and someone else. What an exhilarating, special role to have. Now what if I told you and you chose to believe- “You’re more than enough” “You’re overly prepared and will grow as you go” “You will always make this work” “Your new life is just beginning and it will be perfect” Grieving my old self and my old life, has allowed me to make space for all the blessings to come. There is no doubt in my mind that once Gemma is earthbound I cannot imagine a life before her. If you’ve found yourself projecting onto friends all the loom and gloom that pregnancy has behind it, I ask you. Please be mindful of each persons path, they might be in the middle of the greatest internal battle they’ve faced thus far. What if as women we could collectively support one another and just know we will always be okay. What if we turned our fears into power? If you’re scared- let’s hold hands and get through this together, mama.
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TW- body/ food topics.
During my call the other day with my coach Jamie I had told her there’s been a few passive aggressive comments that have been made about my pregnant body. I told her I didn’t feel overly comfortable sharing this on social media because you never know who you’re gonna trigger or piss off. But I guess… after chatting & her reminding me to always stay authentic and speak my truth- here I am. Clearly I’ve been poked a few times & at 9 months I’ve hit the point of sharing my standpoint lol. I understand growing a whole human is a shock in its own, or the shock of not seeing a woman for a few months then being surprised at how small or how much they’ve grown can come across as a bit of a wow moment, but this isn’t necessarily the focus of the conversation that needs to be spoken about. Hellooo, I’m fully aware of my ever changing and growing body. But as women we have such a standard to be held up to. Before getting pregnant, I deep dove into working on myself. I switched to a non toxic lifestyle and became sober, all with the intention of being the best person I could physically be. With doing so, surprise! I got pregnant. There’s definitely no coincidence that in all my years, my body was finally the healthiest it had ever been and was ready to house a beautiful baby. I had shown up, nurtured myself, did the work, and chose the healthier lifestyle. In the past 9 months I’ve heard comments like- “Don’t gain too much weight or it’ll be hard to get off” “Omg what fast food/ bad food have you been craving” “Your chichis and your belly have gotten HUGE” “My friend didn’t look like you at X amount of months” “Wow! I’m smaller than you now!” The list goes on. But what I’ve experienced and processed during these months is- It’s the only time it’s “socially acceptable” to call a woman huge, humongous, or say things like omg look at your belly. Which thinking of saying those comments to a non pregnant, curvier healthy woman makes me cringe and want to come out of my soul. What I have to say after my coaching call/ truth bomb conversation is- We shouldn’t be comparing women with other women. We’re all individuals and secondly I have grown this baby with the utmost consideration of my health. Being pregnant wasn’t my opportunity to fall off the wagon and eat like a dumpster fire, it was a moment to nourish and take care of myself and my daughter. Society has used this opportunity of pregnancy as a hall pass to eat whatever you want, binge on whatever you dreamt of, and gain weight that we'd normally try and "avoid". In this day and age we’re constantly bombarded with body positivity this, body positivity that. However 90% of the time it’s someone being blatantly unhealthy. Media has it so mixed up that we’ve confused mistreating our health for confidence. So for the people who glorify/ defend self love and body positivity towards non pregnant women, please be mindful of the comments you make on a woman who is literally nurturing a baby and bringing life into this world. Literally food for thought. |
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