To Just Be Me Again

I don’t have much to write about these days. When I was still trying to conceive I was anxious and I felt like I wanted to talk/write about it all the time. Now that I am pregnant, I realize I am going back to my old self. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about all the other things I love and am interested in outside of having children. Of course I still talk and think about my pregnancy and becoming a Mom, but it doesn’t consume me. Not that infertility consumed me either, but it definitely took up more space in my head than being pregnant does. Now that I don’t have to worry about when and how I am going to have a family, I can finally just relax and let things unfold as they will.  It’s something I constantly tried to remind myself to do while I was still trying to conceive, but it comes much easier now.

At the very beginning of my pregnancy I was excited to talk about labour & delivery, breastfeeding and diaper changes, but I don’t want that to be all I talk and think about. Last week I met my best friend (who I call my sister) at Chapters for a coffee and a girl chat. We busted our guts laughing about things you can only laugh about with your girlfriends. We talked Christmas recipes, good documentaries on Netflix and our travel plans. It was great. Andino and I love to talk about travelling, his music and our big dreams for the future. Now that we don’t have to stress about how much of our savings will be poured into how we will create our family, we can be excited about other things the future may hold. I used to say things like “we might be able to go to Hard Rock next year…  depending on how the adoption expenses go…” now we don’t have to worry about that!

Don’t get me wrong. I still had lots of fun over the past couple years. I still spent lots of time thinking about and doing things I enjoy, but it’s different now. There’s not an underlying river of stress. The girls at work have noticed the change in me, and it makes me happy. I always felt like I was doing a good job dealing with the stress, and I suppose I was. But dealing with it and getting rid of it are two completely different things.

I’ve been so relaxed about being pregnant and preparing for the baby. It has been a very pleasant surprise. If you had asked me a couple years ago what I thought I would be like once I became pregnant, I would have told you that I’d be spending hours looking at nursery designs on Pinterest (which I did in the beginning, but quickly lost interest). I thought I’d be buying lots of baby stuff and reading every baby book I could get my hands on. But it’s not been that way. I am not consumed by all things baby. Now that a baby is finally on the way, my stress levels are at the lowest they have been in years. It is so much easier to live in the now.

To just be me again.