on being pregnant

i debated a lot about whether i wanted to share my experience being pregnant online, & if i did, how much of it i wanted to share. after all, while this is in many ways mine & dave's personal space online to share our experiences, it's also the face of our wedding photo business. & let me be the first to say that i don't have any desires to transform into a 'mommy blogger' or inundate the online world with a million photos of our little one when he/she comes!but, this is also a space where people are coming who are planning to be married to their soulmate, and perhaps are also planning to one day carry a child of their own. it's been an experience like no other, something i didn't expect, and the more i thought about it, the more i did feel compelled to share. i wanted to add my voice, because as i've found over the past few months there aren't always many positive stories of pregnancy out there.so, i've written a bit about my experience below. of course, everyone's experience is different. these are things that have helped me & things i think would be helpful to share. i've hidden the rest of this post from our home page, just because it will be lengthy & not everyone will be interested -- so if you are, click through to read more :)when dave & i were married we were young, hadn't yet found our footing career-wise, & didn't have any aspirations to start a family right away. i was never the girl who dreamed of being pregnant, having a baby, or being a mom. on the subject of having kids, we were both on the same page -- maybe, but not yet. we could see ourselves as older, wiser, more 'put together' people with a family of our own -- one day. but we could never quite picture the first little part of the journey -- actually having a little babe, and what that would mean for our life as artists living in the city, supporting ourselves & traveling a lot.we were totally over the moon when the pregnancy test turned up positive one morning last summer. it was such a surreal moment. but without even realizing it, that early excitement gradually gave way to a lot of fear & anxiety on my part about everything that was to come.never really having pictured myself pregnant, the first form my anxiety took was how vastly under prepared i felt. those early weeks were filled with doctor's appointments & long trips to the hospital, urine samples & blood tests that took up a lot of time & i never quite felt sure what they were for. i'd wake up every night & scroll through endless articles online -- what can i eat? what can't i eat? what vitamins do i need? how much caffeine is ok? what about those beers i drank before i knew? is this pain normal? and on and on. i felt like i didn't know how to do this.amidst the genuine congrats were a few 'are you really ready for how your life is going to change' comments. say goodbye to your traveling, to your money. there was even one directed at dave about how he may have thought he was my one true love but he should really prepare himself to be replaced (wtf). there were articles online & very well known books that put pregnancy in terms of a form of torture to be endured for nine months. one article i found when i caught a cold put it this way: "what you might not have realized (what's what you get for skipping the fine print!) is that pregnant women aren't just susceptible to pregnancy symptoms. they're also susceptible to every bug in the book, from colds to stomach viruses to the flu. in fact, it may not seem fair (but c'mon -- since when is anything about pregnancy fair)..." that's from the what to expect website.i also distinctly remember thinking during these early days: 'ok jenn. you've got the next 8 or so months to learn everything there is to know about being as healthy as possible AND how labour & birthing a child works AND how to breastfeed. AND change diapers. oh and HOW THE HECK TO RAISE A CHILD.'  i thought becoming pregnant meant i needed to turn my life around, learn everything there was to know, basically become a different, better person, and that sacrificing everything i had liked about myself, my marriage, the life we had made was just part of the package.i want to write about my experience coming out of that fear. i want to write about the little things i started to notice that our culture tells us about how to view being pregnant, giving birth & becoming a parent. the views that i didn't even know i held over a lifetime of real life interactions & every form of media that quietly forms your perceptions of things.i didn't realize it until it was pointed out to me. and then it hits me like a ton of bricks:there's a pretty negative underlying tone to a lot of the ways we talk about having a child in our culture. and that's really a shame.we were accepted into a midwife clinic just before i reached halfway/around twenty weeks after being on several wait lists. dave & i have spent the past six years putting together a really personal business, one that we love because we get to build relationships with people -- to be entrusted into couples' very personal marriage vows & celebrations is not something we take lightly. it didn't come as a surprise when looking at the options we had that we were both drawn to a midwifery approach when thinking about the very personal event of giving birth. where we live (toronto, canada) your options (all covered by our province's health insurance plan) are to have a family doctor who specializes in births (mine doesn't, in which case you are referred on), have a team of OBGYNs (where you'll be randomly assigned for each appointment & the birth) or apply to a midwifery clinic, in which you're paired up with two dedicated midwives in the case of our clinic. we walked in to our first appointment & the waiting room was set up like a living room with couches & kids toys. the offices felt like bedrooms, with desks & beds and hundreds of photos of their clients' new babies pinned to the walls. our appointments last between 30-45 minutes & feel personal, calm, and positive. they let us see every medical report when we have an ultrasound & explain each routine procedure and what it's for. nothing felt medical about it & it instantly made me feel normal, like being pregnant is normal (of course it is!).this will sound silly but we were given a really great book. we had a long drive we had to make around the holidays, so as dave drove i read aloud to him. now the book is by no means perfect & we did not blindly agree with every point, but the overall tone was one of the things that made us realize how steeped in negativity we'd become. it's about an american who becomes pregnant & gives birth in france, and like us, how she didn't even realize her own perceptions until she was surrounded by something different in a new country. beyond the practical, it gave us a sense that we had the power to open our eyes & determine for ourselves how we were going to view this change in our lives.there were also specific people who helped me immensely in overcoming this negativity & fear. you know when a friend starts crying & tells you simply how excited they are for you when you tell them your news that they're going to be someone to go to & that was one of my best friends who lives in shanghai with her husband & two year old. they were one of those 'maybe' couples when it came to having kids & we share a lot of the same outlooks. while there have been so many kind friends with kids that we've been able to chat with, i think finding a few who's outlooks really match with yours to have those heart to hearts with makes all the difference. so although it's hard because of the distance, we had one great chat in particular about her experience giving birth naturally, including all the bits no one ever tells you about. we all need a friend like this who can just tell it like it is but with the intention of supporting & encouraging you (not scaring you). in our prenatal class our instructor asked us who had heard a positive birth story, and no one but me put up their hand. she said this is a common thing -- that the positive stories are out there, but many feel a bit silenced because of the prevalence of negativity. she then proceeded to share with us a variety of positive stories, all different, not all going 'as expected', and it was so helpful.i'm also lucky with my family. my mom has spent her life as a nanny, then day care worker, then early years educator, and of course a mom. she's been the ultimate source of calming support & insight into my questions & debunking of misconceptions. both she & my grandma were able to tell me their experiences giving birth -- my grandma at home for all four of her kids with a midwife, and my mom with the experience of having pain medication for one birth and a natural birth for the other. both really helped build my confidence & helped to bring this previously mysterious thing of childbirth more into the light.this last thing i have to share is maybe the thing that helped my attitude adjustment the most.our cat cleo died when i was around 4 months pregnant. we had her for six years, and she had cancer for the last year which was being treated excellently by our vets. losing her, however, was a pretty sudden thing. having such a constant in your life taken away (and what is more constant than a kitty who is there as you work every day from home, who sits on your lap every night, who runs to the door when you get home) is devastating. i didn't realize it but she was such a calm force in my life. when she was gone i felt that life had changed drastically, and it had changed for the worse. life was less because i had lost from it something i loved.and then i started to realize -- bringing a little one into our life was not something we should be seeing as a loss... it was a great gain! it was someone to love, someone to help grow, someone to show things to & watch discover everything for the first time! it was someone who would be joining our family -- not overtaking it. (of course!) i'm in no way saying that a cat is equivalent to a baby, but the immeasurable joy we gained from her far outweighed anything that could be seen as a negative (those vet bills were not cheap) & i never felt that i missed our 'life before cleo'. from day one "our" baby would be on the journey to becoming more and more their own person, just like i am, just like you are. i realized dave & i could still be ourselves. we should still pursue our own dreams. that we could love baby without having baby become the center around which we now orbited our lives. we started to view each new stage as taking one step at a time. i realized that things would change for sure, but that we would take it as it came, like we always have.dave said a really brilliant thing that has stuck with me. in my worst moments of fear & panic over being pregnant, probably at 3am one night, he said 'jenn. women have been doing this since... since... well, since the beginning. aardvarks and cows and elephants do it. you can do this. your body was made for this.'like i said at the beginning, everyone of us is different and everyone will have a different experience. i think i've had a relatively smooth go of it but these past months have not been without bad days, hormones & being uncomfortable. but i don't think there's much that's more powerful than a positive frame of mind. i wanted to share this because of how much freedom & peacefulness i've felt in letting go of fear and seeing my pregnancy as a unique, strange and wonderful experience that's only around for a limited time! i'm finding myself savouring it. i mean, i still can't get over the weirdness of having a human that no one's ever met squirming around in my belly. what! i can't believe it's almost the end of this chapter.if you've made it to the end, i owe you a drink. wishing all you expectant mamas & dads (& those who one day hope to be) a positive & calm nine months and beyond :)here's that book i mentioned / & a great birth story that really inspired me.