It's a fleeting time in your life. During those weeks, it doesn't quite feel that way. If you're fortunate to have an easy pregnancy, time may pass quickly for you. If your little bun is giving you heartburn and round-the-clock sickness; if they're making the pregnancy glow a laughable myth and giving you acne and large ankles, then time may pass slowly.
Either way, when you look back on it, there's a good chance that you will wish that maybe it hadn't gone by so quickly. That first moment when you knew that there was a life growing inside you, and your hand immediately went to your belly; you'll remember it like it was yesterday. Maybe you were overjoyed. Maybe surprised. Perhaps a little of both.
Maybe you were terrified.
However you felt in those moments, was only the beginning; you would feel a thousand different emotions in those short weeks while your little one continued to grow.
It's not all unicorns and rainbows. Easy pregnancy or not, growing a person inside you is hard work. During those first few weeks when you're holding in this secret, you're feeling bloated and hoping no one will notice. You're seeing changes in your body and wondering if anyone else sees it, because you're not ready to share the secret yet. Not until you know for sure that all is well with your precious cargo.
Once the secret is out, people will want to touch your belly. Maybe you're okay with it, or maybe you want to break out the People's Elbow because NO ONE is touching your belly. People will ask questions. Personal questions. People will tell you stories you did not ask to hear that will scare the bejesus out of you. There will be advice.
So much advice.
The little peanut will continue to grow. There will be less room for all the somersaults and country line dancing that seems to be going on in there at four a.m. Sometimes you wonder if they've taken up permanent residence just under your ribcage, or if they already have size eleven feet. You still wear your Fitbit because the amount of times you go to the bathroom is giving you a record number of steps. The smell of strawberries, or perhaps the Tim Horton's bathroom, will make you want to toss your cookies.
To this day I cannot use strawberry-scented bodywash.
You will feel fat, often sweaty, and then your ankles will grow to the size of your great-aunt-Martha's who wore the orthopedic shoes and the flowered mu mu. You begin to understand said mu mu and declare that you are never wearing any underwear but maternity underwear, because they just get you.
They say that being pregnant is the most beautiful time in a woman's life. You see the glow of those other pregnant women and wonder when yours is coming, because right now, you don't feel beautiful. You waddle when you walk, and you hope that today, you're wearing matching shoes. You drop a pencil on the floor and you swear it's going to stay there until the child can pick it up for you. You wonder if anyone else sees that extra chin that has magically appeared somewhere between week twenty-seven and thirty-two. And what's up with your nose?
I can almost guarantee that you will miss this. You will miss those tiny little kicks reminding you of the reason for all of it, good and bad. You will miss that feeling of knowing that even when you're alone, you're not. You will miss knowing that at this time, this little bun in your oven was a part of you, and though there was someone else who helped create them, they are physically part of you and only you.
You'll even miss having a place to put your bowl of cheesies.
Document this journey. It lasts only a short time, and no one but you sees the sweaty, uncomfortable mess that you feel like. Believe me. When you look back, you'll see how beautiful you really were.
And one day, your little one will be grown, and will think the same thing.
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