Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Pregnancy becomes a way of life

I'm pregnant, starting my second trimester, and I feel like I am starting a new lifestyle (which I guess is true). It's a little like when I started wearing glasses or after we got a dog. I'm now a member of the people-who-have-been-pregnant club. At first I was really excited to be pregnant, and I relished my body's changes. Now I'm not as excited about it and it feels more like a semi-chronic condition that I have to work around.

None of my jeans fit anymore. In some ways I feel like "yay!" but I also feel like my own body image has to shift. I never felt like the ads revolving around being skinny affected me, probably because I was/kind of am skinny. I haven't even gained that much actual weight yet, but my uterus is ballooning up. When I was looking at sweat pants the other day I almost felt like explaining why I wasn't buying a small, and then I was like, seriously? Who gives a crap! I used to wear pants that were a bit too big because I liked baggy pants, but then I went through this "my clothes should fit me" phase but the downside is that I grew used to my body looking a certain way, and now that I know it's changing, I just have to get used to it again. I feel like I can't buy anything that fits anymore though, because I'm just going to grow out of it.

I'm still worried that I could miscarry again. I guess I feel like I'm trying to be a little detached so that just in case things don't work out, I won't be devastated. I do feel like I have put a significant amount of effort into this fetus though, even if it is in the form of extra hours of sleep, throwing up, and sitting around not feeling great. I don't want to buy any baby stuff too soon though, even though I'm probably most fit for putting a crib together now rather than later. If I miscarry, all that stuff I bought for the baby will just hang around reminding me of my loss (I haven't actually bought anything yet). I'm kind of excited for when the fetus is developed enough to hear though :-).

I don't want to end like this because I'm not actually feeling sad and body dysmorphic all day; it's just something I've been thinking about from time to time. I've been doing this prenatal yoga routine 3-5 times a week and I love it. I love the part where the narrator says "let your inner goddess shine." That's part of my religion too! There's also a Bollywood song where one of the lines is "I see my god in you." We're spirit children of our Heavenly Father and Mother, so I think seeing spiritual parents in another person is within LDS doctrine, and a good way to try to love others.

2 comments:

Andrea Landaker said...

It's worth buying a few regular clothes in this inbetween size, because you may also be that size for a while after you have the baby! But, yeah, it's awkward being too big for regular clothes and too small for maternity clothes... :-/

Also, I love this song with similar themes of divinity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PV4KyGcu34

Tangerine said...

I agree that it is pretty annoying to buy clothes that you will only fit in for a few months (or weeks!). I must admit I spent most of my pregnant time in t-shirts and my husband's basketball shorts. But it is fun once you start to get big enough to look cute in maternity clothes.