Fabulous Friday

Happy Fabulous Friday all. What’s fabulous about today is releasing expectations and baby classes!

I came back from lunch yesterday and had to walk up a hill to get back to the office. I knew I was waddling and my back was hurting a bit. The lady at security looked at me and asked “Have you hurt your back love?” I replied “It’s struggling a bit with being 28 weeks pregnant.” She looked at me with this puzzled look on her face, scanned me up and down and said “28 weeks? Are you sure? You don’t look pregnant?” To which I replied “Yes, I’m quite sure.” “Well, you’re wearing it well,” she said.

I know the obviousness of my pregnancy changes depending on what I’m wearing. Funnily enough, maternity clothes make me look more pregnant than normal clothes. I guess that’s because they’re more fitted where my normal clothes are probably a bit baggier. Anyway, it demonstrates why no one bothered getting up on the train the other morning when I had to stand the whole way in.

It’s funny how I had a picture in my head about the way I would look pregnant. I realised that picture had been there since this time last year when I finally saw myself pregnant for the first time. I saw a woman at the train station this morning and said to my husband “That’s how I thought I would look at this stage.” He looked at the pregnant woman and back at me and said “Yep, that’s quite a difference.”

Sometimes in life, things just don’t play out the way we thought they would. I always thought that at this stage of my pregnancy, I would have chocked on a lot of weight and have a burgeoning belly – that is not the case. It doesn’t mean anything other than my pregnancy is developing and looking differently to others and that’s ok.

As motherhood gets closer and closer every day, it’s a good reminder to release expectations. Don’t have pre-conceived ideas and pictures in your head about what your pregnancy will be like, what you’re going to look like, how things are going to be, how you’ll feel etc. Never in a million years did I expect to have the problems, feelings, emotions, learnings and overall experiences I have. Not once did I ever expect that a difficult pregnancy would impact my decision to have another child but it will be a significant factor when we come to make that decision later down the track. You cannot possibly know what you’ll experience, or prepare yourself for it. It’s simply a case of finding it out when you get there and not labeling things as good or bad. I think that is an enormously valuable lesson I will apply to my life once Sticky arrives.

I realised I need to release the expectations I’ve been carrying about dealing with a new born baby. I’ve been telling people that I’m confident I’ll be fine. I worked in child care for 8 years. I use to deal with 8 children aged between 6 weeks and 1.5 years at a time. One will be easy! I think I’ve been saying that as a way to prepare and convince myself it will all be fine.

I realise now that I have no idea what life with Sticky will be like. I have no idea of what pressures, stress and experiences I will have. I have no idea what kind of baby Sticky will be or how she will respond to us. All I know is that I’ll find out when she arrives and whatever happens, I’ll cope. I feel enormous peace with that because trying to convince myself I was brave kept a level of anxiety in the background. Accepting I have no idea and telling myself I will cope, has relieved that anxiety.

In a bid to help that, we start our baby classes tomorrow. There are some things that I know my child care experience will help me with – changing nappies, preparing bottles etc. But things like labour, breastfeeding and child birth will be a whole new ball game. So I’m looking forward to it. I’m particularly looking forward to watching my husband try to put a nappy on a doll! I’ve changed thousands of nappies but he’s a newbie so I must remember to support and encourage him. Although  I will make sure I take a photo of him doing it!