Whoa, less than one week to go until my due date. That is unbelievable. The closer I get, the more I think that date doesn't really mean as much as I thought it did. I am pretty darn sure the due date is as close as it can get to correct. My monthly cycle was like clockwork and I found out I was pregnant right away so I know the first day of my last period. This is not some guess from an ultrasound tech, although they did confirm they believed I would be due on 10/19, just 2 days later. Even still, this is just a guess. You are considered full term anywhere from 37-42 weeks. This can really happen any day now, or maybe not for another three weeks!
Did anyone ever stop and think about this and use their math skills? People say you are pregnant for nine months. They calculate you're due date 40 weeks out. There are 4 weeks in a month. 40 divided by 4 is 10. That means 40 weeks equals 10 months. Pregnant for TEN months. How is that?
Well I understand now, although it seems confusing. Week 1 is the week you had your last period. Week 2 is waiting for your egg to drop down from your ovarie. Somewhere in the end of week 2 or the beginning of week 3 is when your egg was fertilized and somewhere in week 4 that fertilized egg implanted itself into the uterus. A few days after implantation you will be able to get a positive home pregnancy test because of the hormones coursing through your body. All that 'work' in month one and you weren't carrying yet, still they count those weeks as 1 through 4.
Okay. So then you are tired and most likely nauseous. If you are like me you are extremely tired and a little nauseous. The next 12 weeks after implantation where exhausting. Hey, what can I say, I was building a new organ for gods sake. A placenta. This valuable piece of meat will convert my blood into usable food, blood and oxygen that my fetus needs to survive. Not to mention that during that time my body actually made more blood. That's right, I doubled the volume of blood I had in my body. That's pretty amazing too.
Then I have a placenta and a nice warm watery womb for a baby to grow up in. Things got a little easier after that. The placenta starting doing some of the heavy lifting. I wasn't so tired, the fog lifted. Looking at a ham steak or a raw piece of chicken didn't make me cry anymore and bedtime was no longer by 7pm. Maybe I'd survive the rest of this journey after all.
I have to say the rest of this pregnancy has been pretty easy compared to that first part. Other than the heartburn and sleepless nights. All of it is tolerable though. But wow, how my body has changed. I have a human living inside of me. A full term baby right now. My stomach is stretched beyond any imaginable limit, the number on the scale is at an all time high (although, not much more than my previous heaviest weight) and my hips feel like my legs may fall out of my pelvic sockets at any moment, leaving me dragging my torso across the floor with my arms. It's almost like walking on stilts.
So how will I recover from this? I'm sure every woman wonders this when she is pregnant. What will my body be like after this is all over? My body was not perfect, but it was familiar, it was mine. Now I can excuse any of it's strangeness because I am temporarily sharing it with another tenant, but what next?
I worry a little, because I've always been pretty hard on myself. This last nine months have very much been an exception to that rule. I've really learned to love my body as I learned about all the amazing achievements it was making on its own. I've just been along for the ride. Sure I've taken good care of this body, with food and some exercise, enough water and sleep. Really it did most of the work on it's own. Now what? Do I trust it still to make the proper changes. That my skin will be elastic enough to mostly shrink back. That my body will adjust and lose the weight I gained. Should I trust that this body can make enough food to sustain this new life it just expelled? I guess I should.
This body has given me no reason to doubt it in the last nine months. Come to think of it, it has given me no reason to doubt it in my entire life. I think I was just confused and distrusting before. I did not truly understand what health was and I was surely not helped by the governments BMI charts and their insistence of an obesity epidemic, the media's view of what a woman should look like or society's idea of what it must mean if you are overweight (lazy, boring, unintelligent). I think it's time I shred those preconceptions and junk science and try things differently this time.
I will not go on a diet. I will not restrict one certain kind of food. It will not be time for a juice fast, a raw vegan lifestyle or a meat and cheese forget the carbs binge. I will not buy the newest diet book, The Zone, South Beach, Paleo Diet, Atkins, Forks Over Knives, Engine 2, or Eat To Live. I will not shop the health food isle and buy overpriced processed products made from chemicals assembled to simulate food and nutrients. I will not join WeightWatchers, Jenny Craig, Nutrasystem or any gym or health club.
Well what will I do then? For those of you who know me, you may know I've tried most of those things. I've lost the same 50lbs about 4 times. I have read all of those diet books. I have religiously gone to WeightWatchers meetings once a week for a year at a time. I started to diet at about 12 years old. I was active, healthy, involved in sports, played outside and loved life. Why did I think my body was failing? It was not. Sometimes I look back and wonder if I wouldn't have started to diet then, would I have ever gained as much weight as I did? Dieting doesn't work. You might lose weight, but it is always temporary and usually its returned with a few more pounds then you had to begin with. Sometimes a diet can make you sick, make you weak and tired and really hurt you.
Does this mean I will sustain myself on frozen burritos and hamburger helper? Absolutely not. I like real food. It is what tastes good to me. I want a salad, or a half of an acorn squash. I want that chicken breast with rice and veggies. Not dieting doesn't have to mean shoving processed food into your face in front of a TV twelve hours a day. Actually, I think that is a form of dieting. That is not a natural way to eat either. It is not natural to override your body's signals telling you that you are full.
I will try instead to move forward and listen to my body. If I am hungry, I will eat. If I am thirsty, I will drink. When I am satisfied I will stop eating and when I am tired I will sleep. I will eat a wide variety of foods, always including my favorite veggies and fruits. I will walk places and enjoy the outside with my new baby and my dogs. Most of all, I want to continue being happy. I will not feel guilt if I eat some chips, ice cream or some meat. I am living. This is what it is to be human. What my body does with this is genetics. It is natural. I will not be Kate Moss or Laura Flynn Boyle, nor did I ever want to be. I will be healthy and happy and that is how I will be a good mom, a good wife, a good daughter, a good employee, a good friend and a good person.
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