To me, there was nothing more beautiful than being pregnant. Sure, pregnancy restricts your 
taste buds and activities such as kayaking have to be put aside for a while but who wouldn't want to make sacrifices to be a fertility goddess for 9 months! To me it was such an exhilarating experience that some woman can only dream of! It was such a God sent blessing to be pregnant that I was blinded from any reason to dislike being pregnant. I truly believe that others would have a completely different experience if only they had such an outlook; things are what we make of them are they not? If you want to be happy, tell yourself you are happy, look up-not down and strip yourself of negativity.
Every day felt entirely different even as the days got shorter. Baby grows when you sleep so I went to bed early and slept as late as possible(but I was still tired). My hair seemed to be much easier to maintain as it was growing powerfully luxurious, my eyelashes full & long and my nails were never better for a natural manicure done by myself none less. I took time to pamper myself at home with overflowing bubble baths, mani-pedis, and homemade smoothies while reading uplifting pregnancy books.The idea of shopping for Maternity clothes sounded so exciting but I had a hard time finding 
them! At one of the main maternity stores almost EVERYTHING was black which to me was very basic, plain and well just dull when what I desired were bright colors and feminine dresses;something with style, not flowered curtains or mourning dresses. Pricing on maternity clothes, forget it! It's all a marketing scheme really. Being a value shopper, $30 for a basic dull cheap material tee shirt with slightly larger belly space is such a wasted let down. Thankfully a few friends passed down some really great clothes and I did however find some great pieces that were wonderful at the maternity store. I do recommend the maternity bras, especially the sleep ones but do depend on the maternity store for those! Take my word and do not skimp in that department; with their new size and everything else your body has going on, you will feel better with the extra tender support they provide. Some of the large department store clerks looked at me funny when I asked for the nursing bra section as if breast feeding were something unheard of. What you can do is try them on in the store then google around for the best prices.
I did find rather cute inexpensive maternity styles as places such as Burlington Coat Factory, Ross and JCPenny. I also found that most of the bohemian style dresses(dresses that have stretch band waists)that are the fad now work great for expanding bellies especially paired with leggings and beautiful heels; just make sure you don't wear heels when you have to walk much and keep a compfy pair of shoes in the car for backup.
As easy as I may have made it seem, being pregnant is not always roses and high tea but very tollerable. My husband treated me to a dinner and movie one night and I had such horrible, uncontrollable gas which felt like knifes poking me making me tear up! I thought we should leave, but my husband unashamedly endured it telling me that these circumstances weren't for long and thanked me for doing a great job with everything. Now that is true love! Most women speak not of matters of such, but women need to relate as it happens to us all and if not, then feel relief knowing it wasn't you!
Sometimes, no matter how much you sleep, fatigue turns into a freight truck plowing you over while mother migraine keeps chiseling through your skull laughing as she knows you cannot have meds and mother nature's cold air electrifies your skin drying it so terribly that you believe the dream you had falling into poison oak really happened and your job so stressful enduring another minute of it seems so unbearable that you end up in the rest room fighting tears while looking down to see your ever growing tummy and think to yourself, "OMG I'm really pregnant-how is this going to come out!" Floating emotions do attack more than you would imagine; thank your changing hormones for that. The you cannot stop smiling after that sweet little baby jumps around in their comfy jaquzzi. Things such as these will happen, more so to others or yourself and it could be different with every pregnancy.
I had a great job with an Ecommerce but very stressful it was as the economic recession hit toll with us. We were being acquired by another company for the first 6 months of my pregnancy which felt like dangling on with a torn thread. Being short handed due to layoffs there was so much work, the little bit of us left could never seem to hit a successful stopping point which tends to be very overwhelming to someone who's used to finishing things completely. Thankfully just before Christmas we were bought out however that meant transferring over 10 years of lengthy work to a new everything in a hurried timespand while knowing our jobs were unsecured. I will never forget the Friday afternoon I opened my mailbox to find a letter from my health insurance provider stating my insurance had been cancelled I had already fought back tears on my drive from work. With my due date being close to home base and test scheduled for the following Monday I freaked; who wouldn't?! Apparently a mistake was made (none of my fault) and it was cleared up but I always had the scare of it being cancelled at the last moment, my job disintegrating or worse, being laid of after I had the baby!
You will tumble into a stump but you have to find your center to balance yourself so you can walk and see clearly again. Everything happens for a reason, even if there's no way possible you can imagine the present happenings could be meant to be. No matter how exhausted you are at the end of a stressful hard days of work, take time to read a little and get some exercise in for you will feel relieved. I slept much better after doing a little yoga or walking at the end of the day. I never liked going to gyms so I Netflixed some pregnancy yoga and Googled around for inexpensive yoga dvds and books. I watched every baby/pregnancy related movie I could get my hands on so I had something to relate to and the Twilight Series was my best friend for a while too, but stay away from stories with sad endings, your emotions are jumping around enough; spare them please.
The last month, Yoga became more difficult; the bigger belly situation led me to leave out some of the poses. The round face syndrome hit play during those last few weeks and water balloons welcomed there way into my ankles and my new wobble walk came to life and my belly button popped like a turkey timer; it was funny really but enlightening in the fact that delivery was not far away. Drinking lots of water and keeping my feet propped help the swelling go down a little and at least relieved the numbness. I kept high spirits through it. My baby love love LOVED to kick around, turn or shake in every direction possible which always brought a smile to my face. I still loved walks in Downtown Greenville by the waterfalls and watching the Greenville Drive! Those last two weeks became very difficult at work. No matter how much sleep I got I seemed to need more. I literally fought with myself to sit in my desk and work those final weeks. My body was SCREAMING "NO GO REST" but I wanted to make sure I had a job to go back to and I really wanted to work as long as possible; not to mention there was so much left to do for the new site. To keep myself going, I even worked some through my lunch break. I decided to work through up to my due date then I would take my paid 2 week vacation I impatiently saved then take a 8-10 week maternity leave. All this was confirmed but yet my gut feeling told me this plan wouldn't be so; however, I need not worry about it as I would soon have something far more important to concentrate of. My due date fell on a Sunday(May 30, 2010) and my last doctor's appointment was that Friday. Since Memorial day would be that Monday, I took my holiday on Friday.
My appointment was early in the morning and afterwards I wanted to shop a little for some odds and ends while I could still go out as I knew soon I would be confined to the house for a bit. I was more excited than ever as I stepped into the doctor's office. At my Gyno. there's about 12 doctors that rotate and I was seeing one that I didn't care too much for; I just didn't have a good 'gut' feeling about him. I had had my cervix checked before for dilation and it was no biggy but this guy did something that made me hurt all weekend. He told me I had no changes, that I had not dilated at all and that my cervix would not budge. He led me to believe that I would end up with a c-section; the baby was so big he estimated to be around 1o pounds and that I would not likely dilate at all within this next week. What he did was crush me. I was scared to death of a c-section and he made it seems as i should not wait for labor to happen. I was scheduled to come in the following week for an ultrasound and to make a decision.
Not only was i hurt mentally, that checking of my cervix hurt beyond belief. One of the nurses mentioned to not be alarmed that I might see a little blood but she warned with a concerned look and I understood afterwards; she knew which doctor I was to see. His objective was to help my labor start and he succeeded; however I knew not of this at the time. After the physical checkup I was to dress and move to another room to connect to a machine to monitor the baby's heart beat. When I stood up after they left the room, there seemed to be a good bit of blood. I was assured that this was completely natural and that it should stop by the evening.
The machine for the heartbeat seemed scary at first especially when the door of the tiny pale room closed secluding me to a room that seemed to get smaller. As I looked to my right I was the chair in which my husband normally sat. I thought of how nervous he always got; he would tap his feet faster and faster until I would have to ask him to stop. That chair was empty on this day as he was saving his time off for when the baby came, which we hoped to be that same week. The sweet nurse kept checking on me and the baby's heart beat was perfectly fine and he was kicking as normal, more of rolling or moving in every direction possible! The time in that tiny room allowed me to perk up. I decided I would try for natural but I would do what was best for the baby which was best of importance. So what if I had to have a C-section; it's still a birth and what would it matter if it brought my son safely into this world. I would endure whatever need be for him.
To be continued...
