While window shopping yesterday, I found a pregnancy journal and decided to thumb through it.
I found myself getting rather excited. The book was both refreshing and comforting at the same time. Instead of being told about how magical this time is and asking me to document all of the wonderful picturesque things I imagine when thinking about the baby I am carrying, I was instead being encouraged to document and reflect on the changes that are happening as they come up, and with equal attention paid to the positive and negative aspects of it all.
It was almost as though this book was giving me permission to openly have a few mixed feelings about the astronomical changes that are happening to my body, and my life. Like it was telling me that it was ok, that I could be unhappy with my symptoms, or worried about the future while still being ecstatic about having a baby.
As well as asking for the gory details of my morning porcelain prayers, and how I will really feel about strangers touching my belly, the book also asks me to recount how I came to important decisions about which doctor I chose, my birth plan, and whether or not to find out the sex of the baby.
So naturally I bought the book. . . And filling it out has been both rewarding and time consuming.
For anyone interested, it's called 'The Belly Book' and I am assuming it can be bought wherever books are sold.
2.22.2009
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2 comments:
I remember when your mother was pregnant with you - and how bizarre she thought it that perfect strangers should feel they had permission to come up to her an lay their hands on her belly.
Love you, sweetie.
I am so glad you found something useful. I remember having these moments of absolute terror that I would never be just "me" again. I would always be myself and the "mother". Another auntie of mine told me that in order to maintain my personal identity I had every right to refuse people access to my belly and every right to demand that they call me by name not funtion. I love my auntie.
To this day my grandkids call me dk, and we've even talked about it, so they understand that I am more than just a single relationship or as you put it so well, a generational incubater.
You will always be Jules and if you need a screaming wall - give me call!
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