Personal Truths and Reflections is a monthly series by me. My goal is to learn more about who I am and what defines me, through this series I will talk about truths and lessons I have learned about myself through various things in my life.
It is officially my due date month! Scary and exciting. As this will be the last Personal Truths and Reflections post before I have the baby, I thought I would write some things I’ve learned about myself from being pregnant.
30 weeks pregnant
-My nerves take over when there’s a big event going on, even when I’m super excited.
It’s probably at least in part due to my anxiety disorder but either way…I’ve learned that no matter how excited I am to be a mother, to be starting a family, to hold my beautiful little boy…my nervous always get the better of me when big changes and events are happening in my life. Having a baby is the biggest thing to ever happen to me but looking back, I’ve encountered this before with other changes like moving to Boston and then to Pittsburgh.
Both events where exciting, new and so life changing that I was nervous and scared about them more than I was excited. Perhaps this is a common reaction really, but I don’t know. I’ve joked this whole pregnancy that Scott, my fiance, has all the excitement and I have all the scared. And most of the time it’s not a joke because not only having a baby but everything in our lives has already changed in the past 2 months and it will change even more drastically soon. I’m scared for so many reasons, but still…deep down I know I’m excited and that makes it all worth it.
-I’m not as selfish as I think I am.
I don’t know if I’ve talked much about it but I think I’m a pretty selfish person. Scott would probably beg to differ but, while I’m not whiny about it, I think I like to have things my way and things done just for me/attention on me and my own time and space for what I want. I know some part of me cares about others, hell that’s one of the whole reasons of my blog and where I want to go in life (to help others), but I know in my day to day life I feel mighty selfish. But I’ve been reminded of not only how selfless I can be but also that my maternal instinct has already kicked in.
If I don’t feel the baby moving for about a half hour, I worry and try to prod him to action until he does something inside of there. I’m always worrying about if he’s happy in there (I don’t know if babies can be unhappy in the womb unless their in distress but still…) and if he’s going to be happy when he gets here. My focus in life has already shifted from, “I want to all of these amazing things in my life, for me.” to, “I hope we can accomplish some of our goals and do and see the amazing things we want so our child(ren) have a happy life.” Also, I love shopping for baby more than myself now.
-I’m lazy, but I hate to be idle.
I learned this one because of all of our moving going on this past month. I’m probably one of the laziest people around but when people are cleaning, organizing, moving…doing things around me and I’m being told to sit and relax I hate it. I know I’m pregnant and can’t move very fast, I can’t walk up and down the stairs very many times (or barely at all anymore) and that I’m not supposed to lift more than 30lbs max…but with just Scott and my parents doing all the moving, I’ve felt very frustrated.
I’ll admit, I like to be pampered like any other girl, but when there’s work to be done, I want to be helping in some way. Thinking about it and writing this out I’m feeling like part of it is that I like things done my own way and another part is I don’t want those that are actually doing the work to judge me, thinking I’m lazy while they do all the heavy lifting. Which is silly because the people doing the work are the ones worried about me and want me to relax and not over-extend while pregnant.
It’s kind of weird how fast things change when pregnant. Not just the extreme changes to my body, but also to my mind and the way I perceive the world. I think more about how things will effect my child than myself, about how my actions now will play a part in his development and what I can do later to make it so he doesn’t suffer through some of the things I do on a daily basis with my depression and anxiety. It’s really true how they say you become a mother the moment you see those 2 lines on the stick. It’s instant, and probably hormonal but it’s fast and sudden and lovely.
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Check out the past posts in this series to follow me on my journey: Personal Truths and Reflections.
Don’t forget to check out the guest post series companion to my series, called “Defining Me:Moments and Events that Shaped Who I Am.” and contact me if you are interesting in contributing.
