I am approaching 34 weeks with my boy/girl twins and though I am looking ahead to my very exciting future, I can't help but look back and reflect on what I have learned throughout the last 8 months. This pregnancy has been a blessing, it has been painful, and it has been a time for growth, in more ways than one. I know the most life changing part has yet to come, when I get to meet my babies for the first time, but I have already learned so much. I think these five lessons are particularly helpful for other new moms or first-time pregnant women, but I plan to apply them to other areas of my life.
Here goes:
1) Get over yourself. Someone always has it worse than you.
Okay. I'm putting this one first because it is the one I have struggled with the most and still am. I'll be honest and admit that I've used the twin card over and over again, much to my advantage, and I have also enjoyed several pitty parties for myself. Poor me-I have experienced more difficult pregnancy symptoms that are more intense and for longer periods of time because I have TWO babies. Let me first say, pregnancy is hard. Period. The End. No matter how wonderful and beautiful or amazing pregnancy can be, there are huge sacrifices women make right from the get go. Our bodies are no longer just ours. We are responsible for nurturing a little life, or for some--lives, inside of us. We are tired, we throw up, we gain weight, we swell, we cry, we are in pain, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on.
I remember back when I was just 5 weeks pregnant and the morning sickness began. I never planned on being sick and pregnant. I expected to love being pregnant and to take it like a champ. But right away I hated it. I hated every minute of it, from rushing to the toilet at 5 am to puke up bile, to laying on a cold bathroom floor with an enema bag hanging over my head, my intestines cramping from severe constipation, to the horrendous smell of any food being cooked anywhere. It was horrible. And everyone kept telling me: "It will get better soon. You're almost there. Just enjoy this time." Well it didn't get better, it got worse. And it kept getting worse. And I didn't enjoy it. Enjoy feeling like you are going to die? What kind of advice was that?
Looking back though, I have a somewhat better perspective. It is so hard duirng those early weeks of your pregnancy because you have yet to feel your babies move or hear their heart beat or really even comprehend that you have something so much more than what feels like a parasite taking over your body at the time. When you are struggling most, stop and think about what it would be like to be worse off than you are. Trouble imagining something worse? I thought so too. I told myself I was more sick and more uncomfortable than most other people because I had twins and I had twice the hormones. Well, what about the people who carry triplets or quadruplets? What about the women who are begging for nausea and morning sickness and would gladly take the worst of it, if only to get pregnant. What about the people who have miscarriages? Feeling like you are going to die? Well, what about the people who actual might? During this time of my pregnancy, I quickly became thankful that I have no chronic illnesses or diseases that require me to take medicine or be hospitalized or be sick off and on all the time. I recently have been getting iron infusions to help my anemia. I get them done on the oncology floor where everyone else is sitting there getting chemo. It sure puts things into perspective. I have even read about women who have a rare condition that makes them so sick during their pregnancy that their life is actually threatened. How about being on bed rest for the entire pregnancy and being fed through an IV and almost dying? Okay...your life surely isn't that bad or that hard. Get over it.
2) Count your blessings each day. We take the simplest things for granted until they are put into perspective for us.
This lesson is directly connected to number one. Once I stopped feeling like I had a disease, I started getting big. I never had that honeymoon phase of the second trimester. By 18 weeks the nausea was subsiding very slowly and gradually, but my belly was already making it's debut. Just a few weeks after that I became very large and uncomfortable and swollen. I realized how much I took for granted before. Now that my body wasn't my own and wasn't working the way it used to, I really appreciated what it had been capable of in the past and what how it is still functioning now.
At 33 weeks and on bed rest, I wish to be able to bend over, put on clothes without thinking about how painful it will be, take a shower without my back cramping, have feeling in the tips of my fingers, or be able to wear shoes. I didn't realize until now exactly how privildeged I was to have a body that not only functioned normally, but one that was strong and healthy. I have all my limbs and fingers and my nerves and muscles work. Before pregnancy I could run, jump, twist, skip, stand on my head if I wanted to.
I hated going on runs before, now I wish I could take a short walk just to the end of my street. I used to put my body down and never feel like I was thin enough or had the right muscle tone, but after gaining almost 60 pounds and getting stretch marks, I wish I could go back and tell my former self how amazing my body was. And in the future I will appreciate it so much more, because after all, this body has carried my children around for months and allowed me to have a family.
There are so many things that I appreciate now that I didn't before. And there are so many ways that I have been blessed. Enjoy your day because you don't have a stuffy nose, or because you can tie your own shoes, or because you slept through the night. You don't realize how big those little things are until they aren't there anymore.
3) Humor is a must! Rely on comic relief when you can.
If you can't laugh at yourself, everyone else will anyway and then you'll just be sad. Well, maybe everyone isn't going to laugh at you but when you're feeling miserable, if you can see some humor in the situation, you might feel a lot less miserable. Find a friend who shares your situation or read blogs that provide comic relief or laugh off a rude comment. I had one lady ask me if they "made clothes that would be big enough to fit my belly at the the end of my pregnancy." Rude? Yes. And she was asking when I was only around 22 or 23 weeks or so. My reply: "Well, I have actually worried about that, but my husband said he will help me sew together sheets to make some nice ponchos to get me through those last couple of months."
Most of the people I know who are strong and pull through the toughest times are those that are also very humorous. That is not to say you should just laugh it off and never deal with your emotions, but here and there being able to see things as funny even when they are not will help you get through some rough situations. I think one of my funniest moments during this pregnancy was when I was puking so hard in the bathroom that I peed all over the floor. My husband walked by and saw my legs apart with a puddle on the ground and ask, "Seriously, you puked on the floor?" I just started laughing and said, "No! I peed on the floor!" It was so sad and pathetic and I could have cried about it (trust me it happened more than once and sometimes I did cry) but laughing felt a lot better. I know when I am trying to take care of two babies in the near future, I am going to need a little humor to get through it. And eventually when I look back on those difficult nights, I might just find explosive poops or screaming babies truly funny.
4) Let it go.
I have had to do this over and over again and I am sure that being a parent will require even more practice. At first I wanted to get pregnant but thought it would take up to a year. I was pregnant within the first two months of trying. I wanted one baby, but I got two. I timed my pregnancy perfectly for one full term baby, but may have two early babies. I might have to go back to work sooner than I expected since I ended up on bed rest. I never thought I would get morning sickness or stretch marks. I wanted a natural birth in a beautiful birthing room, but I will be delivering in an OR "just in case" there are complications with the twins. As of now my babies are breech and may require a c-section. I wanted to be a cute, fashionable pregnant lady, but my legs are so swollen I can no longer wear fitted jeans or shoes. I wanted to continue my extremely healthy high-protein, all natural diet throughout my pregnancy but I couldn't do it.
So let some things go. Hold on to the things that you are passionate about--don't let others tell you that you can't have what you want or that you aren't going to be able to do something if you truly want to do it. I believe you should advocate for yourself and fight for the things that are truly important, but cut yourself some slack here and there. Give yourself some grace when you don't meet your original expectations and let things go that are not within your control. If something isn't in your control (such as my OR delivery), decide what you can control and go from there (visualization to block out the bright lights and extra people and earbuds with calm music). And if you truly have no control, change your attitude and let it go.
5) Take time to look back before you look ahead.
Lastly, stop and savor life's transitions. Look back on your experiences before you move ahead to the next. Self-reflection is important for growth. I learn so much when I take the time to think through my past and appreciate where I've been and how I got to "here." Journaling is a great way to document your experiences and be able to see the big picture. Often I don't learn the real lessons in life until I go back and read my journal entries and compare where I was then to where I am now. I previously wrote about this topic and how much things can change in a short amount of time. Looking back allows you to appreciate your struggles, your accomplishments, and how God has provided for you or protected you. What does Ferris Bueller say?
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
So true.
And those are the five biggest lessons from my BIG pregnancy. This blog post is long enough to be wrapped around my huge belly so I will close. For fun, I will leave you with before and after pictures...although I must admit the belly is much larger in person. I am going to just laugh about it for now and appreciate that my body has maintained and nourished two babies. Amazing stuff. (I'll get over it, eventually.)
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