Am I Glowing Yet? Maternity Reality

By Lindsey Borchard

2013 has officially begun and so has the buying season for Autumn/Winter collections in the Intimate Apparel world. For me personally, this will mark the first season I have not modeled for Claudette Lingerie. All due to a little man who will make his debut into this world in May. That’s right I am pregnant!

I am taking Curvy to a whole new level right now and let me tell you its not cute. Ever since I was younger and could start imagining my life it has always involved being a mom. I dreamed about what it would be like to be pregnant, feeling the baby kick, what name I would pick and how I would decorate the nursery. I imagined myself in cute pregnant clothes with my hair long and extra thick and a radiant glow I couldn’t wash off my face if I tried. All thanks to the prenatal vitamins that of course would never make me sick. Well a girl could dream right?

Everything above was what I was imagining the second I found out I was pregnant at 4 weeks, and as soon as I hit 6 weeks the pregnant gods popped that bubble and a dark grey cloud replaced it.

Before I go any further, I am not here to scare anybody off pregnancy or the joys that it brings. I am simply telling you my experience with it thus far and hopefully make someone else who is going through the same thing maybe feel not so alone.

Like I said above, it all started going down hill at 6 weeks. Morning sickness kicked in and it was all morning, all afternoon and all night. I remember a very vivid night hugging the toilet bowl, crying and telling my husband that I don’t think I could do this any longer. More bad news followed, I have the rarest blood type known to man and the biggest one, my blood sugars are high. Which means I was on the road to Gestational Diabetes.

The second I heard that I felt I had already failed my unborn child. The guilt rushed over me. That’s a lot to handle in the first trimester when my hormones are racing and I feel like barfing every second. I didn’t know who to turn to, I felt like I had to hide this and keep telling everyone the pregnancy is perfect and I am so happy and glowing from the inside out. When all I really wanted was for the pregnancy to already be over. I wasn’t enjoying any of it.

By week 16 I was still feeling sick but I was finding out the baby’s sex and that excitement (yes, actual excitement for once) kept me moving along. With both our parents present, my husband by my side and the voice inside my head screaming “Girl, Girl, Girl”, I was ready to be told we would be having a daughter. We already had a name picked out, I dreamed about her, and picturing her and I getting mani/pedi’s someday kept me sane through the tough weeks. It was time… the technician turned to me and said “It’s a boy”! Tears started flowing down my eyes immediately without me even realizing. I was crushed. Later that day when I was alone I cried so hard that you might have thought somebody died. And to me I was mourning a little girl that I had already grown to love. I could cry again right now just writing this. The next day the crying continued but now because of the guilt for not being excited about having a boy, I felt I let my baby down again. I for sure thought he knew I wasn’t excited about him. All I could picture was this little boy inside me saying “Please love me, please love me”. Aghhh it killed me.

How come none of the baby books prepare you for this stuff? I needed answers and I couldn’t find them. I have never felt so unconnected to something in my life. Something that I am SUPPOSED to and have been told I needed to feel connected too. I am happy to say now I am thrilled to have this boy inside of me. And even though I wasn’t in love with him the second I found out about him I know I will fall in love with him the second I see him.

I am learning that being pregnant means surrendering yourself and your body to the experience. You have to just let it be, let go of the dream you had and start enjoying the experience you got. It might not be the one you planned, you might not feel beautiful during it, you may get sick (and stay sick), you may feel guilty or unconnected but in the end it’s yours to experience and only yours. It’s the greatest thing a woman can go through and hopefully in the process you can discover things about yourself you never knew. I know now I am stronger then I realized and that I am capable of loving someone I have never even met. I have learned to accept and love the changes happening in my body and I now know its okay to feel guilt and worry and be sad if I want because its all a part of this beautiful process. And I wouldn’t change any of it.