Womb to Bloom - Maternity & Beyond

Everything is changing. Your body seems to belong to someone else – almost like you’re the one borrowing it. Your emotions sometimes feel out of control – not to mention your waist and these amazing-expanding ankles.  Pregnancy can often feel more like an act in the circus than the beautiful, loving experience you’d hoped for.  Here’s what I know for sure: the women who love pregnancy, who are vibrant and glowing and happy, are the ones who learn how to surrender totally – physically and emotionally.  The trick is in letting go.

The physical surrender that’s required can seem easy at first glance.  After all, you don’t have a choice.  Your body will do exactly what it needs to do to grow a healthy, beautiful baby.  There’s no point in fighting it, so we don’t, right?

Actually, there are two major ways we fight our bodies.  The first way is through our words.  “I’m so fat!”  “Look at the size of my ______ (fill in the blank).”  “Remember when I was skinny?”  These kinds of thoughts and words carry a terrible burden: self-defeat.  You can’t be criticizing yourself and your body constantly and be happy.

Pregnancy is a perfectly normal, healthy event.  You will gain weight and your body image will be affected.  This is where the surrender part comes in.  The sooner you are able to say to yourself, “I’m grateful for every single change going on in my body because it’s giving me my precious baby!” the sooner you’ll relax and be able to enjoy your pregnancy.  And remember, a certain amount of weight gain is critical to a healthy pregnancy.

The other way that we defeat ourselves physically is, believe it or not, through our diet.  Being pregnant really doesn’t give you license to eat everything you want (unfortunately).  The more junk food you eat, the more unhealthy weight you will gain and the worse you will feel about yourself.  This is a vicious cycle – one you want to have nothing to do with.

Surrender yourself to a healthy diet.  Get plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, good, lean proteins, and enough calcium for two.  Take your prenatal vitamin every day – and anything else your doctor or midwife prescribes.  Drink lots of water.  If you don’t usually eat this way, this is an awesome opportunity for you.  Get healthy now, so that your baby can grow up in a family that makes health a priority. 

I have a friend whose tastes completely changed during pregnancy.  My formerly “steak and potatoes” girl, who would eat anything at any hour, suddenly became so picky that she actually started to loose weight during her second trimester.  She felt like she just couldn’t force herself to eat what her body needed.  We sat down and had a long talk one day after a prenatal appointment that left her feeling upset and defeated.

“I can’t give my baby what she needs to survive – and she’s not even born yet!  What kind of a mother am I going to be?” she cried.  “What will I do?”

“I’ll tell you what you’ll do,” I said, putting my arm around her.  “You’ll do whatever it takes to have a healthy baby.  If that means that you have to take prenatal vitamins the size of small cars, you’ll take them.  If it means that your body needs protein, you’ll eat it.  If you can’t do it for yourself, I know you can do it for your baby girl.”

And she did.  Through fear and love for her baby, she surrendered to her body’s needs.  You don’t have to surrender out of fear – you can do it from a place of choice.  “Today, I’m choosing healthy foods for myself and my baby because we’re worth it!”

Every pregnancy is different.  With my first pregnancy, I was so excited about the whole process, that physical surrender was a simple matter of joy.  I felt in tune with my body and with my baby from day one.  With my second baby, however, even though I was just as excited, it felt different… almost like I was hosting an alien being inside my own body.  The physical surrender was more difficult and I looked forward to the end of the pregnancy more expectantly.

The interesting this is, that during my second pregnancy, I had more issues: I gained more weight and experienced more morning sickness.  I’m convinced that this happened because of my inability to surrender as fully.

But physical surrender isn’t the only piece of the puzzle.  You’ve got to surrender emotionally.  I believe that the emotional imbalance that’s created by your hormones is actually a great gift.  This is your opportunity to deal with every issue that you care to deal with before your baby is born.  This can be both a blessing and a curse, as your emotions seem to spin out of control.

The key to emotional health is to pay attention.  Watch your thoughts and your words for unhealthy patterns.  Where do you notice negativity?  Are you having excessive judgments about other people?  Or about yourself?  When you notice the patterns, think about why you’re spending so much time being negative.  Doesn’t you baby deserve to grow in a positive, loving environment?

Every thought you have, every word you say, actually physically affects your baby.  Your thoughts affect your hormones and your baby is experiencing every rush of hormone that you are.  If you’re thinking negative thoughts, you’re producing more stress-hormones.  When you’re relaxed and happy, so is your baby.  Get rid of the negativity whenever possible.

Also notice your triggers.  When I was pregnant, I noticed that I had a lot of triggers around body image: sexy lingerie commercials (you know the ones!) would set me off faster than anything – even if my husband wasn’t in the room!  I had to learn how to deal with my own thought patterns in a healthy way.  I also had to learn how to accept support.  My smart husband learned to say, “Somebody give that girl a milkshake!” whenever certain scantily-clad models came into view.  Laughter really is the best medicine.

Emotional surrender is a tricky thing.  Even when getting pregnant is the fulfillment of your heart’s dreams, letting go and trusting yourself and your body can be scary.  It’s like that moment a trapeze artist faces when she’s left one swinging bar behind her and she hasn’t yet reached the one coming toward her.  She’s in the gap, with no support – and the gap is freedom and flying and scary as hell.

There will be a lot of times in your pregnancy when you’ll face an emotional gap.  You’ll feel out of control, unsupported, fearful of the future and maybe the present, too.  That’s when your support structures come into play.  The trapeze artist knows that she has two structures keeping her safe: her skill and her safety net.  What’s your emotional safety net?  Do you have healthy relationships with people you trust to catch you when you fall? 

Pregnancy is a very vulnerable time.  For some of us independent types, learning to lean on the people around us is a big lesson.  For others, learning how to be available to all of the in-flooding emotions – and dealing with them in healthy ways – is the challenge.  I have one friend who was actually afraid of the rush of love she felt for the baby growing inside of her because of her fears that something could go wrong.

Surrender is knowing that your body, your mind, your community, your relationships… everything is working together for your good and the health of your baby.  Surrender is learning how to trust yourself, how to lean on those around you, how to become emotionally healthy.  It’s letting go of the fear and dropping your walls, and saying, “Yes!  I’m pregnant!  Today I feel scared happy elated sad glowing nauseous fearful joyful beautiful and very, very round.  And it’s all good!”

When you can do that, when you claim it all without judgment, you will shine.