MY BELLY…AND THE COMMENTS ABOUT IT.

The conversation always starts the same, “when are you due?” I’ll respond that my EDD is the 25th of January and the gasp of shock follows accompanied with the, “you’re so big!” line and a few others will throw in an, “you look like you’re due tomorrow!” It doesn’t offend me, in all honesty, mostly because the people that will make these comments aren’t trying to be hurtful but merely making an observation. It does, however, cause me a bit of worry. So much so that I spoke to my mom about it sometime back and she reassured me in that way that only a mother can. I’ve read about it on the internet too with most women on baby forums mentioning that with each progressive pregnancy, their bellies were significantly larger. I spoke to my OBGYN about it on Friday and he had a pretty logical-sounding explanation about it. He mentioned that it’s an issue about muscle tone saying that strong muscles will tend to hold better against gravity as opposed to muscles that are already weak/not as strong. This, he said, is the reason why most women have smaller babies during their first pregnancies than in later pregnancies.

My greatest fear, in truth, is undergoing a Caesarian section. I suppose it really is just a thing that I have allowed to grow in my mind as lots of women have been through it and are fine- my mother and sisters included. I’ve just always thought that I would rather go through the pain during the delivery than worry about a new born and healing a wound after. My elder sister tells me I’m making it a bigger deal than it actually is, but I think for me it’s really the fear of the unknown. I feel like I am better prepared for a normal birth (as prepared as one can be, anyway) than I am for a C-section. I am trying not to get so obsessive about how heavy the baby is and what her ideal weight at this point (29 weeks) should be. I told Dr. Kinyua, during my appointment, that I’d began worrying that the size of my bump meant that the baby was getting really big. He dismissed this as a fallacy citing that some women that look really small will deliver three-point babies and vice versa.

I have eleven weeks to go. We’re in the final stretch and I am beyond grateful that we have come this far and I am praying that God sees us through til the end. I am trying not to stress about delivery. Funny, I thought I wouldn’t still be worrying about it this being my second time. I feel like I need my Lamaze teacher again just so she can reassure me in that calm way that she did during my first pregnancy. Eleven weeks of looking like I am ready to pop any minute 🙂 I am also looking at it as eleven weeks to prepare myself mentally so that when the time comes, and with God’s blessing, I can bring this little miracle into the world.

xoxo!