I’m Pregnant!
Yoni and I are over the moon to be expecting our first baby boy at the end of March!
Given the craziness of last year, being pregnant gave us hope and something to look forward to. The experience of being pregnant was not exactly what I expected. I realized that we are all so conditioned by what we see in movies that I really had low expectations about what it would be like. I know everyone’s experience is different, but I enjoyed my pregnancy much more than I anticipated.
“I felt free from diet culture and felt like I could let go of expectations of myself and really enjoy the experience. ”
The pandemic really forced me to slow down and take a break from traveling, so I got to bask in the extra time spent with my husband. The early days of my pregnancy were spent cooking all our meals, going on long walks with the family, doing yoga, and reading books on pregnancy. I was super hungry the first trimester, but by the second trimester my appetite returned to normal. The most discomfort I felt during the first two trimesters was lack of sleep. I was usually up in the middle of the night due to hunger and would wake up and have cottage cheese with crackers or toast.
“The entire experience has really challenged me to change the way I think about pregnancy and childbirth. I always saw it as something dreadful, painful, emotional, and hard, but my experience has turned out to be much different. ”
Through reading books like Ina May’s Guide To Childbirth, I realized that my experience of labor doesn’t have to be one that I look to with dreadful anticipation or pain. After researching more, my husband and I decided to do a home birth. Because I have a low risk pregnancy, wanting to avoid hospitals because of the pandemic, and the additional research I did, it seemed like the right choice for us; and I completely know that everyone’s reasons for the births they want to do are valid and amazing in their own way, this is just what we felt like was right for us.
I want to have the freedom to change positions, eat, drink, walk around, and be in a comfortable and familiar environment. I also didn’t like the idea of not being fully aware on drugs or having my baby on drugs when they first entered the world. This is truly a life changing experience and I want to fully experience what that means and welcome our baby into the world with as much love and support as I can. I’m grateful that with a home birth we can delay cord clamping, have immediate skin to skin contact, and are not pressured with interventions like episiotomy, forceps, or vacuum delivery, or pressured by the time constraints of the hospital staff.
