Dear baby,
Well, this pregnancy thing isn’t getting easier. To be honest, I always knew I was going to struggle being pregnant. Though I want you, I don’t want all the things that come in the nine months leading up to it. The nausea is horrendous. I’ve never dealt with getting fat, my diet is shot, I can’t exercise the way I like, seeing babies kick in stomachs has always freaked me out and it ends in horrific pain. I’m sorry, I know it’s meant to be magical, but it’s hard to see after weeks of feeling unwell. Weekends of making plans, only to have to resign yourself to sitting on the couch and nibbling at whatever your father has cooked and wishing I was feeling well enough to do the dishes, vacuum the floor. It’s exhausting.
So, I guess you can tell that things haven’t got much easier for me. This week is meant to be the magic week. Your Gran says that one day you just wake up and all of a sudden you feel fine. I hope she’s right. My friend is something like 25 weeks pregnant, and she still gets sick. I don’t think I can cope with that, least of all because it makes me feel like a shell of my former self, and I’m not quite ready to lose that yet.
One thing you need to know about your Mum is I’m a strong personality. I’m strong-willed, I’m opinionated. I am a lefty who believes that everyone is equal, man, woman, black, white, gay, straight … and I’m not afraid to shout from the rooftops at anyone who disagrees with that (unless, I have to be honest, they look like they just might hurt me). Anyway, I want you to know that about me. I want you to know that I went to political rallies when I was at uni. I want you to know that at high school I launched a fundraising campaign for a little girl who had cancer. And why do I want you to know that? I guess it’s because I’m a little frightened I might lose myself. When I lived in London my friends and I joked that as you become older, you become more right-wing, more likely to read The Daily Mail. I have come to wonder whether it’s because you’re getting older, or because you no longer have the fight in you. If life just becomes full of other worries that fill your head, and you don’t have time to think about the injustice in the world – and there’s a lot of it. So, I want you to know a little about who I am now. Who I am before I spent every single day worrying about you, how you’re doing, what you’re doing, who you’re with, where you are, if you’re going to be safe. Because one thing I do know is I will worry about you now every day for the rest of my life.
musingmummablog 