If you know me, what I post most about on my socials or anything then you probably know writing has been one of the most important things in my life. Writing has been such a big part of my life since my teen years. No matter what happens I always find myself back to a journal & pen & they always give me exactly what I need!
Opening Up About Pregnancy
Today (October 30th) I am 33 weeks pregnant & I can probably count on 2 hands the number of times I’ve journaled during this pregnancy. This is my first child, an extremely pivotal moment in my life’s journey so to NOT be writing about it for so long didn’t seem to sit right in my spirit. It is only recently through some deep reflection, just sitting with myself in silence & really guiding myself back to peace that I’ve come to some kind of understanding of why I wasn’t writing about this experience. I was hiding, running away & honestly just ignoring the feelings that were coming up.
Honestly, this pregnancy was NOT something I saw in my near future. I had no plans to have a child at this point in my life. The general experiences that you see shared about having a child are ones of excitement & joy & a part of me felt ashamed for not feeling this way about having a baby. I allowed those feelings of guilt & shame to overpower me & keep me in depressive moods for so long throughout this pregnancy. As I look back now it all makes sense … there was little to no room in me for laughter, joy, excitement, & ease throughout this pregnancy because I allowed guilt & shame to control me.
A Journey In Progress
To be quite honest I’m not sure what I can say about motherhood just yet. What I can confirm is that I am scared out of my fucking mind! My closest role models for motherhood, what I grew up seeing & experiencing were “worrisome” mothers. My own mother worried immensely, my sisters are mothers who worry, my aunts are mothers who worry & many of the friends I’ve had before now are mothers who worry.
From the moment I received the results of that pregnancy test, it felt like everything I had been learning for the past few years about self-awareness & using my energy to manifest the things I want in life took a back seat. It’s as though I fell back into a place where I was barely finding the strength & courage to step out of day by day. Worry started to settle in & oftentimes it felt as though the more I tried to stop, the more it seemed to want to swallow me whole.
The fear of the unknown of pregnancy & motherhood took me over.
... fear of whether I was making the right decision to keep this child.
… fear of if I was able to carry this child full-term.
… fear of what happens during birth & being able to survive it.
… fear of if I would be able to provide for this child & take care of him/her when I wasn’t even taking very good care of myself.
… fear of getting excited or joyful about this pregnancy & then something bad happening.
I could list fears to fill a dozen pages & probably still have more!
For the majority of this pregnancy, I’ve been challenged with depression as this was something I was already dealing with before getting pregnant. Even though physical symptoms like nausea, heartburn, etc were minimal to almost non-existent after the first trimester the emotional toll that pregnancy has taken on me has been extremely unexpected. I worry myself to insomnia countless nights — as I just lay in bed ruminating on every single thing happening in my life & all the things I need to get done & take care of before the little one gets here. I have been so undisciplined & inconsistent with exercising & sometimes I don’t even remember to eat for several hours.
It is now in the final few weeks that I feel some kind of change in my energy field. I feel the excitement & joy of meeting this little angel that the universe saw fit to bless us with. Even though I don’t feel anywhere near ready with so much still to do & get for the arrival of this baby I am grateful that I get to be the portal for his/her arrival into this world. I am grateful that I am now processing the things I am feeling in a more healthy way. I believe having an ultrasound & hearing his/her heartbeat for the first time last week has really put things into perspective for me — that this is really happening & I can’t hide from it anymore!
