Sorry I've been away for so long: I'm pregnant with a baby and with possibilities.
Let’s take a moment to just breathe.
Take a deep breath in through the nose and allow your body to expand. Gently hold the breath…now slowly exhale the breath out through the nose and allow your body to relax.
Repeat again and again.
It has been a journey but I am back.
Just as I was finding a new rhythm with you, my body was also finding one. Honored by the news of my partner and I becoming pregnant for the first time, I was quickly humbled by how my body forced me to slow all the way down both mentally and physically. Carrying life is no joke y’all.
The first trimester was quite the extravaganza and I found myself devastatingly fatigued. I hadn't taken naps so regularly since I was an infant. I’d literally just pass out. And oh the hunger! And the food aversions. Things I hadn’t eaten since grade school became my go-to which I found frustrating yet absolutely fascinating. It’s wild how the body reprograms itself to grow life while I, the soul within the body simply obeys. I don’t know when I will be back in the driver’s seat again. Perhaps I never actually was.
My normal ocean swims, which had always felt like a privilege dropped from 3-4 times a week to zero. Just the smell of the ocean made me nauseous. Thankfully I never actually vomited during the first trimester although I came close many times (TMI?).
As my grocery store list expanded and shifted into buying what I could stomach, I couldn’t help but to recognize another privilege; I had access to whatever foods I needed while my body forged a path towards sustaining life within. While I found myself upset that I ate pizza for the millionth time because it was all that I could stomach (cue body dysmorphia), pregnant women in other places around the globe were and still are navigating systemized food deserts and literal war zones. This world is insane.
Also, the way women's bodies are policed is an entirely separate conversation I look forward to having. "Do not eat for two" as the articles would insist, haunted me. But I’m growing an entire human! I’d scream silently. My body was making a whole baby from the skin to the eyeballs to the heart and the gut to the nervous system, fingernails and placenta. I was always ravenously hungry yet the articles kept telling me to eat a balanced meal for one and to not to gain weight. I ignored all of this and ate whatever I could tolerate while thinking, would they do this if men carried life?
But alas, I am now into the second trimester. Although nothing will ever be the same ever again, I no longer feel like an infant in need of multiple daily naps while having snacks in ziploc baggies at the ready if I dare leave the house. I am back to swimming and getting on my mat and eating a more balanced diet, whatever that even means.
I have stopped asking myself and my loved ones, “am I really pregnant?!?” and have instead embraced being pregnant with both a baby and with possibilities. Ultimately this entails no longer hiding or dimming my own light let alone the amazing career that I was blessed with. As a now pregnant woman, I am realizing that I am not just showing up for myself but for my future child. No more excuses.
This space will shift and expand just as my body is. I read someone's Note recently here on Substack saying something like; writing on Substack is an opportunity to show up for myself.
And so it is.
Have you heard of Ho'oponopono? It translates to:
I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. I thank you.
Ho'oponopono is an ancient, pre-Western Hawaiian prayer of forgiveness said to, if practiced daily deeply cleanse the mind, body and soul.
These were also the first words I thought of as I started writing this message to you. Thank you, my Substack community for your patience and for still being here.
Tell me:
What would you like me to share as I am on this new journey into motherhood?
Are my meditations serving you?
What about yoga and journaling? Are you practicing?
Would you like more or less of something?
I will obviously be writing more through the lens of pregnancy, motherhood and how I am navigating my emotional and physical body that is growing more sensitive and intuitively aware of this world. I hope you’re down for that.
xoxoxoxo
Sara
Happy to see your message. Time passes so quickly. Enjoy your journey.