Chapter 5: Lets have a baby

Meet, flirt, date,fall in love, move in together, move countries together, get engaged, get married, have a baby. 

Is that how the story goes?

I guess that's how this story is going. Of course I just summarized 5.5 years of ups and downs, joys and sorrows, and many many moments into a sentence. I think we're much more than that, but sometimes its good to break it down. Sometimes its better to look at it for what it is. That's what happened. When I lived in Chile for three years, it felt like a lifetime, now I can some up that time of my life in a sentence or two.

"Why did you move to Australia? How did you meet your husband?"

"Oh, I lived in Chile for 3 years, we met there, Nico had residency in Australia and we decided to come over together for a while. That was three years ago...."

There goes 6 years of my life in an opening sentence. I know its more than that, but we condense days, weeks, years, decades of life into sentences to help others understand. Helps our brains work. No one wants me to tell them for hours about what really happened in the last 6 years, or maybe they do, but not after the first hello.

So we're having a baby.

AH.

I think it's interesting actually the things people tell you. The phrase the grass is always greener, when your single and you see people in love, you think they have the best relationship, when you're in a relationship and you want to get engaged, you dream of the perfect moment and what you're wedding day will look like. You picture being pregnant sometimes, you touch your belly, you look at other smiling cute babies and get baby fever. I've been there, done that.

What they don't tell you is what you don't see. I feel I've always been pretty honest in my life with my family and friends, I don't normally just talk about the good stuff, but I'll say today sucked, or Nico is driving me mad, or I couldn't stop crying yesterday. I think its important to be real, of course you need certain friends you can actually be real with.

I didn't know when I got engaged, that after the initial parties and celebrations and overwhelming feelings of happiness, that I would also feel scared, frightened, stressed and angry at times. Getting married is a MAJOR decision,its not something to be taken lightly and there have been some great articles written about what happens to some women after they say "Yes." Its not always elation. Its a sweeping feeling of losing your feet. I've always been fiercely independent, I've fallen in love and I wanted nothing but to spend the rest of my life with this person I am in love with, but there is just something about a MAJOR commitment like that that also scared the hell out of me. No one told me that might happen.

I worked through it, I was honest with some friends and I figured out my feelings and what I wanted and luckily I have the most supportive partner in the world who listened to me and helped through what I was feeling. I thought I was the first person to ever feel that way. I thought something was wrong with me.

Turns out there wasn't. Now I am happily married.

...and pregnant.

Before I knew I was definitely pregnant and the pee test showed two lines on it, but I thought I was pregnant. I felt terrified. Every emotion I've ever known came rushing in my body. I laid in bed one day just thinking. That's it. This is the end. No more Meg time. No more traveling, no more partying, no more running when I want. No more....

Then 5 days later I tested positive and I was happy. 2 weeks later I was overcome with joy. Why the change in moods? I think all things need adjusting to. I think I needed to grieve what I was letting go of so I could make room to be happy for what I was gaining. With every win comes a small loss. Change is constant and sometimes we need to give ourselves the freedom to understand our feelings and not feel guilty for them. In the end, they are a part of who are and there is a reason we feel that way, whether its a process to help you get somewhere or figure something out, in the end they're there for a reason, best not to ignore them.

A few more weeks after the elation of joy and feeling like I had the most amazing secret in the world, I woke up on a Saturday, went for a walk with my husband and was suddenly dizzy with hunger and flu like symptoms. I made him come home quickly with me and made breakfast, but even through the meal I felt a bit sick. I looked at Nico and said, maybe this is nausea? As in morning sickness? He looked back and said you just realized that? Well from that moment on, nausea hit and it hit hard, there were less and less moments in the day where I would feel OK, and more and more where I was fighting back vomit, the feeling of sea sickness, headaches, complete exhaustion, like I just finished a marathon. Then heartburn started, my face broke out, I started getting nosebleeds, it was just an amazing time. We have nicknamed those 8 weeks the joys of pregnancy. I lost complete sense of myself in those 2 months. I didn't feel happy to be pregnant, I missed my friends, my life, my running, I missed being healthy. I couldn't see an end to the misery, yet everyone kept saying you'll feel better in the 2nd trimester, I held on to that thought. No one ever said to me you could feel that sick. I thought I had to eat healthy and watch what I ate, I was creating life, but there were days in a row I ate dry crackers and tums. There were several wasted meals and I completely gave up cooking. If I couldn't open it and nuke it or order it from a restaurant, forget it. Crackers. I couldn't even eat toast, I couldn't swallow bread, it would just come up again. My throat ached and burned all the time. Then on top of having what feels like the stomach flu for 8 weeks, the hormones are in full swing. I would sob uncontrollably like my closest friend had just died for almost.no.reason.at.all. I once was so mad at my husband because I was sure he didn't love me anymore, I sat on the couch and sobbed rocking shoulder shaking sobs, snot everywhere. He sat there asking what was wrong and trying to contain the mess of a person in front of him and I couldn't even breath to tell the person that was rubbing my back and throwing tea and chocolate at me that I knew he was going to leave me. I knew it. I was crazy. I had become a certifiable crazy person. Why does this happen? Everything would make me cry, work made me cry, people at work, friends, family. I missed my parents more than anything, I was so homesick. All I could think about was how terrible everything would be in 9 months, I would be all alone in a foreign country with a tiny screaming crying baby, I would be fat and tired and poor. Everything was terrible.

Then first trimester ended.

Then we got to go to our 12 week scan and I got to see that all my worries and fears and doubts weren't real. This person was growing inside of me and even though I had convinced myself I had probably hurt the baby in yoga or I ate the wrong cheese or what if she has no legs, she was there, she was beautiful and perfect. Then the nausea started to fade, less and less each day until I felt like someone lifted the sheet between me and the world. I felt happy, I felt like myself, I felt excited again. I could eat.

After we got to tell everyone we were expecting a child, everything changed. I haven't been scared or sick or angry or even cried. I've just been enjoying each day as it comes and trying to balance my worried thoughts and my what ifs with my certainties and my happy thoughts. I know what I have in life and I know what I can rely on, the rest well is up to the future, that I have little control over. I wish someone had told me that the beginning of pregnancy might feel like you are drowning and you might not feel happy or in love, but that that will change. I wish I had known that things might feel really hard, but in the end its all part of a process. Its letting go, its trials and tribulations that brings us in the end to a different place to where we started. I know that any of my non pregnant friends will now know my feelings, but maybe in the end its better not to know. Maybe if someone had told me it would be hard I wouldn't have done it. Maybe that's the secret to motherhood I'm starting to figure out. Its your own journey and well no one else will be able to define it for you.