When I think back to my first pregnancy, I’m reminded of a feeling of supreme excitement. Nervousness, for sure, but mostly just a sensation of anticipation and being at peace with what my body was doing and what was to come.
This time though time, all I can think of when I look back over the last thirty weeks is guilt and oppressive impatience. Today, we went for a walk with lovely friends of ours who are due their first baby any day. While I felt in pain, clumsy and tired, she looked radiant. I’m not saying that she wasn’t feeling all those uncomfortable aches and pains that come with imminent delivery, but it was a reminder that I felt like crap and have done since Day Dot.
I don’t like it.
I feel like I’m betraying my growing baby girl by wishing her due date closer and closer; for not embracing each stage, like I did with my first.
In the beginning I said to myself this time I know the pure joy of welcoming my baby into the world so I’m ready for it, whereas last time I needed time to mentally prepare for my son’s arrival. But I don’t think it’s that anymore. If it was, I don’t think I’d feel guilty. Would I?
Is this something that all second, third, fourth time around Mum’s experience?
What’s different this time?
I came home today and cried. Cried from exhaustion, from guilt and from frustration. I confided in my husband who doesn’t sugarcoat the truth, and he said quite plainly, ‘you don’t look after yourself’. He’s right. In my first pregnancy, I would put time aside for my daily yoga practice. I would nourish myself with the right foods and take time to rest. I would make space for me and my baby during my day and I wouldn’t feel guilty to doing so.
This time, I’m just trying to survive.
Between balancing full time work, a curious and typically busy preschooler, family and being the wife my husband needs in his own hectic week, where is the time for me and our budding new life?
I know I’m not the only person in the world that thinks unless they are channelling their inner ‘Wonder Woman’, they are failing their children, partners, hell...the universe! I see inspirational posts pop up on my Instagram daily centring on the idea that who you are today is enough. I see them. I think, ‘oh that’s nice, I’ll remember that today’ and then I go back to my self-imposed punishing list of what I need to get done. But, does it actually?
Right now, I’m obviously writing which means taking myself away from the family chaos and ignoring the million and one things I should be doing. It feels good! Yes, my son is watching goodness know what on T.V and has probably raided the cupboard in my absence. Yes, shock horror, my husband is having to make his own cup of tea.
I’ve stopped and nothing awful has happened. The house is still standing, the world is still turning and (unfortunately) the mental ‘to-do-list’ will still be there when I’ve had time to recharge.
So, as I’m writing I realise something I’ve known in my heart from the start. My husband is right. I know that I’m the only one to blame for my survival mode. The only one who is not giving me the space to enjoy this pregnancy. Knowing that doesn’t make it easier to accept. I’d rather say it was work or a demanding family, something external that I could pin this feeling onto. Knowing I’m the reason, makes it all the harder to change.
So what do I do to turn things around?
I have ten more weeks until the official D-Day! I don’t want to get to the end of what could possibly be my last pregnancy and have regrets about how I moved through it.
Most importantly, I have to believe is that in making the same space I gave my new baby in my first pregnancy, I’m not by default putting my son second or neglecting hearth and home. I have to be selfish and carve time to switch off the world. If that means getting up at an hour most would consider humanly unacceptable, just to get some quiet, then so be it! I need to not make excuses about being tired or that the washing needs doing because I am about to have two children. This will be the default position for the next eighteen years!
Just writing this down, I feel less burdened. Less weighed down by negativity. That’s why I started writing actually, almost three years ago. This needs to be something I do more often too. Not for other people, but for myself. Everyone says it, now to believe it...Happy Mum, Happy Baby.
Here’s to turning it around for these last ten weeks…