I cannot believe I am writing this (and I equally can’t believe I’m posting bump photos taken with my iphone – I promised myself I would never do that! But oh well.), but this week marks the beginning of my THIRD trimester of preggo-ness. I can’t accurately convey how quickly it is all going. But people tell me time doesn’t get any slower once the nugget is out of the womb, so best to get used to this whole “time-flying” thing now.
But the Second Trimester proved to have some really beautiful parts to it. Here are a few highlights I have been looking forward to sharing:
1. WEIRD BODY THINGS: The weird things happening to my body list is endless, and possibly gross, so I’ll spare you ALL the details. I have muscle pains in weird spots “down below”, hip flexer spasms as my stomach stretches can wake me up in the middle of the night, and my gums bleed every time I brush my teeth. This is guaranteed to be different for every woman, but my advice would be that for WHATEVER weird body thing happens, don’t even google it. Just know that SOME WOMAN out there in the world has had that happen to her while pregnant, and it’s just your body changing.
2. FEELING THE BABE: I feel my baby all the time, and this has brought a beautiful calmness to my life. I have to admit, in my first trimester I was super nervous. I was so nervous I actually felt it impeding the enjoyment of being pregnant. Because I couldn’t really feel or see the baby, I was constantly scared that something was going to go wrong, and I would count the seconds down till I got to hear the heartbeat at the doctor’s office. Second trimester though that all shifted once I started to feel my babe, and I’ve stopped worrying.
3. TAKING MOMENTS: I really cherish taking moments to be mindful of being pregnant. For instance I love taking extra long showers just to look down at my pregnant belly (I even tend to laugh as I soap it up). Or when I flop down on the couch after work and take a moment to be silent and just acknowledge being pregnant. It’s when the baby tends to move around and go crazy, and it goes from being just a normal day where I woke up, went to work, and came home, to a day where I remember that this really big life thing is happening and I get insanely excited for what is to come.
4. APPRECIATIVE OF COMMUNITY: I’ve never had such a deep appreciation of my chosen family. I like to think I’ve always appreciated the community we’ve built in Vancouver, but being pregnant has magnified this by a million. I remember buying our house and how the thought of staying in Vancouver made me kind of nervous (like would this be the ONLY city we ever live in?!), and now I literally can’t even fathom moving away from the support system we have here and someone would have to drag me away kicking and screaming for it to ever happen.
I’m sure the third trimester will bring more weird and wonderful things, but for now I can say I am in total awe of this whole pregnancy thing and loving it more than I even expected I could. And please share your own observations/take-aways/crazy-existential-thoughts-about-life you may have had while pregnant!
