I’m not sure if anyone else can relate to this topic but it is completely lady centred and mainly for my prego or soon to be prego friends. I notice more and more as my bump grows people are naturally drawn to this magical bump, they just love to reach out and touch it! Halt…stop right there. Touching my bump is off limits unless I tell you its okay. I’m personally not a big fan of people making unwelcome contact with my belly it makes me uncomfortable and even more so when I don’t know you. Now I know women who are totally cool with this but for me I’m just not that into it. I think a simple ask to make sure its okay with the mama is an amazingly thoughtful gesture.
I also notice how interested folks are in seeing the growth of the belly bump wanting picture updates because its nice to see this little baby growing – I totally get it. I find myself watching beautiful images on Instagram and Facebook of wonderfully round basketball type bellies but my friends this does not look that same on my voluptuous figure. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to post images because for some reason I assumed I would start looking like these basketball bearing mamas too. Yeah-no, its starting to dawn on me that this isn’t happening and I’m realizing this is my one shot to capture these moments. I can also recognize that I will regret not relishing in this moment and what’s transforming in my body as I write this. I’m spending far too much time feeling self conscious, worrying about how I look and waiting for the day my body morphs into prego barbie lol. Not all that realistic, mind you I’ve never really been a realistic person and I’ve seen other miracles happen.
I’m sharing these personal thoughts with you because I know someone else out there right now is feeling the same way. Hiding behind the illusion that we must be perfect before we can share. That we are so use to sharing only the moments that feel fabulous and if we start sharing the struggles, we might come across weak and less powerful. It takes courage to stop being filled with fear every time we want to be honest. Challenging our thought patterns and discerning where these judgement actually come from, that is the key to freeing ourselves. What’s the worst case scenario people unfollow or post a shitty comment. Who really cares anyways? We do because we want to be heard and seen, not judged.
A word of advice to people who call pregnant women whales or comment that they got really big in their pregnancies. You should mind your business, growing a human can be hard work and not only that it’s just a very ignorant thing to say.
