As I write this, I’m 27 weeks pregnant with my second baby. Truth is, even though I’ve been through this before, it didn’t get any easier emotionally.
Pregnancy. It’s beautiful, exciting, and quite frankly an absolutely incredible showcase of what the woman’s body is capable of. But it’s also exhausting, and physically and emotionally draining. With my first pregnancy, I not only gained a lot of weight, but I was very puffy and swollen. I carried everywhere and you could just look at my face and know I was pregnant. It caused me to feel very self conscious and I never really felt pretty. I had such a hard time watching the weight pack on that I felt like I wasn’t fully enjoying the pregnancy.
Fast forward to now, my second pregnancy. I told myself from the get-go that I was going to enjoy this pregnancy and really soak in all the moments because reality is, will I ever get this chance again?
Truth? It’s still hard. I am so conflicted every single day and although this time around I haven’t gained near as much weight and I’m not carrying the same way as I did the first time, I still have emotionally hard days adjusting to all the changes.
This pregnancy I am so much more emotional than I was with my first. On one hand, I love being pregnant. Not every woman gets to experience growing and carrying a baby in her body. I know how lucky I am to be able to experience this not once, but now twice and to have two healthy babies that I’ve grown in my own body. It doesn’t mean that I am not allowed to have struggles though. My body is changing every day and my belly only getting bigger and sometimes it’s just hard not to be a little emotional about the changes I have no control over.
In my head, it makes no sense. I’m looking in the mirror like, “who is that?” But at the same time, I also love my body and what it’s able to do right now. This is such a beautiful time in my life. I do love being pregnant but I’m still completely sacrificing my body and the way that I look and sometimes feel about myself to be pregnant. It’s an everyday struggle that I know sometimes comes with the journey of pregnancy and I’m learning every day how to better deal with it.
Some women gain no weight, get no stretch marks, and have the healthiest, most beautiful glow during pregnancy. And some women get stretch marks everywhere and have regular breakouts. Some women love pregnancy and feel the prettiest while pregnant, and some hate pregnancy. Everyone’s pregnancy journey is different and every women faces their own struggles during pregnancy.
Bottom line- weight gain during pregnancy is normal. All of the hormonal breakouts and mood swings are normal. Hair loss is normal. All the small aches and pains from a growing belly are normal. And guess what? Stretch marks are also normal.
Thoughout my struggles, I remind myself every single day how crazy lucky I am to be able to grow healthy babies because while I’m sitting here complaining about my changing body, other women are struggling with infertility.
I’m trying my best to live in and love all the moments, even the difficult ones. One day, I know I’ll look back at these days and miss them. The scale numbers and body changes aren’t what’ll matter in the long run, but heathy babies are! Even though some days are harder than others, I wouldn’t trade feeling the baby kicks and hiccups for the first time or even the labor and delivery for anything in the world.
Cierra says
I’m currently 28 weeks with my first and I can relate to this so hard. I’m so happy to have this baby, and so looking forward to her arrival but to put it bluntly, pregnancy sucks. Some people are lucky to have unicorn pregnancies and feel great the whole time, but I’ve been sick almost this entire pregnancy. It’s so hard watching my body grow and change, and I know it’s for a good cause but in a society that’s so focused on thinness and beauty in thinness it’s definitely hard to shift into being happy about gaining weight! Thanks for sharing this with us, I think it’s so important that we open up the conversations around pregnancy and all the different feelings we experience during it and not only talk about the good parts but also the tumultuous!