37 Weeks

I am not so sure who I am anymore, caught up in another like this.

The right colors, the right softness, a ready nest. That is what I am consumed with. It’s weird and cliché, and all too real at once. I get it now, this deafening urge to make a safe space for my child in a chaotic world. Safe is relative, as is space size, but I am think I am doing pretty good.

My mind feels so lost and unaware of trying to control any of this, it’s like I am going on autopilot and making decisions.

Small decisions like the color of her diaper changing pad cover.

Big decisions like listening to a doctor’s report or following my gut.

It’s scary sometimes, losing control like this. Grasping at the things I can control, but realizing nothing is certain.

I will be a mom soon, her mom. A mother to a new being that is part of me and part of my husband.

What?!

We made a person…

I know it’s a “rite of passage” or at least usually considered one for women, except those that can’t or don’t want to bring new life in the world. I know it’s ordinary, if you define ordinary as common, happening often, but that word just shouldn’t be paired with this.

If it’s ordinary, it’s the most miraculous ordinary event in the world,

one we smile or shed a tear at, but don’t feel its full weight and meaning until it is so close to home. As close as our own body.

It takes a lot, to fit two souls into one body.

It’s so weird, this sharing of my body. For 28 years I had my body to myself. I didn’t treat it as good as it deserved. It’s not that I abused it, it’s just that I never liked it really much.

For a long time it felt like something separate from me, another strange thing in my life that I just wanted to be different, to be “normal.” I got angry  at it for not being the shape I wanted it. I was one of those annoying girls that was always so skinny, but still hated myself anyways. I never exercised because I thought I didn’t have to.

I didn’t hold enough regard for it, or myself, so I gave it away too easy. I picked at it, and picked it apart, thinking, “If only___________ I’ll be happy with it.”

We didn’t have the best relationship.

Slowly, I grew up and let God love me and learned to love myself. I took care of it better and wasn’t so quick to despise the things about me I always saw as negative. In fact, I began to see those things as positive.  Not to say things are completely mended, but I grew to appreciate this house I live in, and feel more connected to it.

Now, my body is no longer just mine. I’ve already given it to my husband for life, and I am now I am sharing it with her.  I have a new appreciation for all it can do, despite the wear and tear of having another being living inside.

It’s stretched out, to what feels like the limit at 37 weeks.

This barely 115 pound teenager is now an almost 200 pound pregnant woman pushing 30. This embarrassed underdeveloped preteen, now fully bloomed, beyond what I ever thought possible, so much more than something sexual, a source of sustenance for my child. My once skinny legs are swollen and red, from the summer heat, water retention, and lack of circulation. My back is killing me and my breath is short. But I wouldn’t trade a skinny, fully functioning body in for this. She’s so worth it.

And now, at 37 weeks I know she will soon be her own. Her body is changing and growing too, preparing to live fully functional, outside of me.

In a few weeks she will separate from me, and our journey will begin.

Our messy, gorgeous, heartbreaking  journey of beauty, learning  and growth.

I will love her more and more, and she will become more and more independent from me as each day passes, and her dad and I will watch with overwhelming joy and a twinge of sadness.

It takes a lot, to fit two souls into one body.

Tags: babies, body image, loving yourself, pregnancy, self-esteem