Another pregnancy blog post?! Yep! We’re at 40 weeks pregnant and a few centimeters dilated (YIKES) and so I’m in the waiting game. Which means finding new ways to expend my energy that aren’t toooo exhausting (like cleaning my entire house).
And what better way to expend energy, particularly brain energy, with writing! So here we are, answering a few of the pregnancy questions I’ve gotten over the last 8 months (oops) in the last days of pregnancy 🙂
For questions about what it’s been like to be pregnant in COVID, see this post.
For questions about how I’ve experienced pregnancy and being pregnant, see this post (warning, it’s not the most joyous of posts, but it is honest).
For the other questions, read along (including the most exciting name/nursery question!):
How has it been running Kindred & Co. and doing ministry while pregnant?
A balancing act! But also not very different from what it was like before I was pregnant. I’m a Type A person and so most of my week was already structured and scheduled with blocks of business work and blocks of ministry work. The biggest shift that pregnancy added was during the first trimester when I was feeling quite ill and had to figure out which tasks needed to be priority tasks when I randomly had good energy.
Another way to look at it was learning to adjust expectations. I had so many plans from this past summer for Kindred & Co., but my energy and capacity with being pregnant just didn’t allow for some of that to happen. I was hugely bummed and disappointed, but also learned to accept that that was just going to be a posture I would need to adopt more with an unpredictable little on her way.
Let’s talk pregnancy style.
Actually the question was originally phrased as “How are you still stylin’?” and I very much appreciate the way that was phrased, even if I don’t totally agree with it 😉
If you’ve read my post about being honestly pregnant, you’ll know that my personal style is quite important to me and that as my body began to change, I had a couple of meltdowns over this. Not because of how my body was changing, but because it felt that I was losing my style and a part of me.
Some of that might have been true (some of it was me being over dramatic). I did need to find new clothes that would match the changing weather and accommodate my changing body. But it didn’t mean I was losing my style completely, it was just learning to express it in a new way.
So I took to Instagram and Pinterest and looked up all the different ways I could dress myself with a bump. I ordered a lot of new clothes and returned a fair amount more. As I started building a new style and wardrobe, I 1) committed to not buying anything I did not forsee myself wearing again after postpartum and 2) realized I did not love some of the maternity styles out there. Which meant that I really only bought a few maternity specific items (like these amazing Zella leggings and these great maternity jeans -linked similar, not exact ones as they sold out) and the rest were just “bump friendly” purchases. AKA lots of flowy, babydoll, elastic band, oversized items.
I will say I’ve had a sweet number of friends offer and loan me their maternity clothes which has helped immensely with supplementing the bump friendly purchases, and especially in these last few weeks where surprise, nothing actually fits anymore except for my husben’s large sweatshirts.
What about the name and the nursery?!
The name we are keeping secret for now. We are back and forth between two names as of today, with one of us leaning towards one and the other leaning towards the other. It might be a last minute call of what we feel she looks like when see her 🙂
The nursery has been a Pinterest dream coming true. As I’ve shared in my post about being pregnant in COVID, not having a lot of social things to attend or places to travel to has allowed my husben and I more time to dream and create a nursery we love. We were lucky that the previous owner had already painted the room a light lavender/lilac color and so we went with that! Most of what we found to fill the room was registry items, Facebook marketplace finds and lots of Target.
My only goal was that it would not turn into an Easter basket looking room. What do you think? Did we accomplish our goal?
Final reflections about pregnancy now that you’re almost there!?
Overall, my pregnancy has not been bad. Save for that first trimester, I have been fortunate to have good energy (I’ve taken minimal naps throughout the pregnancy), feel well overall, stay healthy, and feel mostly myself throughout. I haven’t peed my pants in these last few weeks (something I’ve been told can happen because baby pushes hard against your bladder), and my sleep hasn’t been too awful.
I’m not entirely sure I would say I am all for repeating pregnancy, nor am I totally ready to say that I’m going to miss it. I’m not sure I’ll miss my basketball of a belly or my swollen feet and ankles. I’m not sure I’ll miss taking 20 seconds to get up off the floor or that I sound like I’ve just come from a run when I talk. I’m not sure I’ll miss the feelings of anxiety and uncertainty between doctor’s appointments or when baby girl just happens to be less active one day.
But maybe I’ll miss the feeling and sight of her kicking inside of me. Maybe I’ll miss that bond between her and I that no one else will get to have (including my husben). Maybe I’ll miss the extra pampering and the ability to get away with just another Shake Shack run. Maybe I’ll miss getting to observe up close and personal the miracle of the human body.
I’m not sure. What I do know is I am ready for Baby ________ Pierce to arrive and to get to meet all the personality to come.