34-weeks Pregnant and All The Feels

I’m now 34-weeks pregnant and I cannot wait for the due date to arrive! We are so excited to meet our sweet little man come September. The pregnancy has flown by so far and I’m hoping the next handful of weeks fly by as well.

This is my first pregnancy so there’s a lot of unknowns and a lot of nerves that have hit me the closer I get to the due date. Which I understand is completely normal and expected. I know most, if not all, new parents experience these feelings at some point throughout pregnancy, but that doesn’t mean a lot of people talk about it. And if they are talking about it, why don’t we hear about it? The only people I’ve heard talk about some of the new mom scaries openly are the moms that I’m close with, otherwise women always only talk about how amazing it is to be a mom. When I first started feeling some of these unknowns and nerves, I was worried I was the only one or my feelings were unreasonable. Which is absolutely ridiculous, of course they aren’t unreasonable!

Some of the unknowns:

• Am I asking the right questions at the doctor’s office?
• Is this pain normal?
• How do I know when contractions actually start?
  • This might seem like a silly question, but my OB’s nurse asked me if I had experienced any contractions at my last visit and I was like… “Uh… I don’t have a clue!”
• What’s a baby movement verse a cramp or Braxton Hicks?
  • My little dude does not do very much kicking, he rolls around mostly. Which makes it a little harder to distinguish between my uterus cramping or him moving around.
• What’s right for me? Medication free birth or an epidural?

These unknowns are completely normal and probably completely expected for someone in my position. Which deep down I knew to be true. But once I first started feeling some of these unknowns, I was worried I was the only one. You see all of these new moms post all of these cute photos on social media or when you ask how they’re doing they say they’re great and everything is perfect… they make it seem like they just naturally have it all together and everything just falls into place once the baby is born.

Am I scared to be a mom?

I have a lot of people ask me if I’m starting to get really nervous and scared to be a new mom. My response is not really. Because if I’m being honest, I’m not scared to be a new mom. What scares me or makes me nervous is some of the other stuff that comes along with being a mom, but I’m actually extremely excited to be a mom to this sweet little boy (DUH!).

What makes me the most nervous is breast feeding/pumping. I find this to be truly terrifying. Which might seem a little silly, but it’s the truth. There are so many things that are out of your control when you consider breastfeeding… Will my milk come in? Will the baby latch and enjoy breastfeeding? Will I produce too little or too much? How bad is it going to hurt those first few weeks? All of these things make me really nervous once that time comes because no one really knows what will happen until my body starts to produce the milk. So, when people try to tell me it’ll all be fine, everything will fall into place I get a little annoyed – you don’t know if that’s what will happen or not. There are plenty of women who struggle with breastfeeding and all of it is out of their control, that could or could not be me. Plus, your nipples get so sore and beat up those first few weeks, who wouldn’t be nervous about that?

I’m also nervous for labor and delivery – aren’t most women though?! Ha! I’ve been contemplating trying to do the whole labor without medication. I think with all of the abdominal trauma that I’ve had a medication free birth might be something I’d be able to do. I don’t want to jump the gun on the epidural and be bedbound for most of the labor; nor do I want it to take longer than it has too. Supposedly getting an epidural can slow down labor because you can’t feel as much, and your body isn’t naturally pushing the baby down the birth canal like it would without an epidural. With this being said, I am very much pro epidural and would like to keep it as an option in case I cannot handle the contractions and truly need one. The other aspect of delivery that makes me nervous is the tearing. Completely out of my control, but it happens so often and seems like it would be such a painful/uncomfortable recovery.

And finally, I’m nervous that we will not have everything that we need or not enough of what we do have. Which also seems silly to me. We have basically everything off of every checklist. According to my sister-in-law who has an almost 1-year old we have everything we should need for those first few weeks. But for some reason I can’t help but wonder if there’s something we are missing. When I am up at 2am this is what I’m thinking about – go figure!

So, why am I telling you all of this?

I’m writing about all of this because it’s normal to feel these things. It’s normal to not have all of the answers and it’s normal to be nervous or scared. Once our little boy arrives, we will have a newborn who is 110% dependent on us and the choices we make for him. If that doesn’t make you a little nervous then I’d be surprised! It should be okay to talk about these nerves and more people should be open to having these conversations. To the moms that say everything is great and perfect, I hope that’s true for you. But, if you are struggling with feeling nervous, not good enough, or like you don’t have the answers I encourage you to say that to whoever asks how you’re holding up. Get it off your chest, seek advice and help, and know that you are not battling those feelings by yourself. It takes a village; you are not alone.

The Bon

#FindBeautyInEverything