“how are you?” on a deeper level (8 months pregnant)

chapters:

• the mental struggle

• the comments

• girl things

• comeback?

If you were to ask me “how are you doing with your pregnancy?”, I would most likely answer:

“Yeah good, I thankfully have had a good pregnancy and no rough symptoms as some women have”.

On a deeper level, I would say a lot more…

the mental struggle

I am 8 months pregnant, and pregnancy is taking a toll on me…

Or shall I say: people’s reaction to my pregnancy is WHAT is taking a toll on me.

Pregnancy has been a struggle in the usual ways of the heavier weight, discomfort, sleepless nights and fear of the unknown with an unplanned pregnancy.

However, what I was not prepared for was how much of a mental struggle pregnancy was going to be because of other people.

Not my perception of other people.

BUT what other people feel like they are entitled to tell me.

And in all honesty, most of the things are not said with a malicious intent (I would hope), but being the pregnant girl hearing the recurring and repetitive comments, I find myself flooding with sadness, self-comparison and just feeling at an all-time low so far in pregnancy.

You don’t even really realise it.

You get one comment, and then the next day, you get another one that’s quite similar, and then another, and then next minute, I am walking out the door and starting to pay more attention to certain things that I wasn’t before.

These comments start to slowly condition the way you feel, and the way you view the world and yourself.

And yeah, I mean, I can try fight it with logic and self-empowering affirmations but honestly, pregnancy has me tired and mentally weak to have the strength to fight that battle, specially with all the brain fog.

Most days like this will end up with me holding it together until I get to bed, have a moment to myself, and let it stream all out in tears.

I try to comfort myself, but I also feel like I am so fragile to sufficiently support myself emotionally.

I think to speak to someone, a loved one, but how can I explain the depth of which I am feeling? The depth of which i am experiencing? The accumulative toll these very miniscule interactions have on me and my wellbeing?

Even if I tried, the way I am here, they just wouldn’t get it.

I, then find myself in this ongoing cycle, and I wonder how much longer will I feel this way.

If not pregnancy, postpartum will give people something else to say or comment on.

the comments

You might be wondering what EXACTLY are people saying or HOW exactly are people reacting to my pregnancy, to have me feeling so low?

Well, I would say it is mostly within the workplace, which is where I spend most of my time, for now. (Soon enough, I will be a full-time blogger and quit my 9-to-5!).

But they are quite literally ALL to do with how “big” I am…

8 months pregnant and still 2 months to go, and I will admit - yes, my bump is bigger than average.

You might have seen my previous blog post on:

coping with weight gain during pregnancy: 4 months pregnant

or

scared to have a big belly pregnant: former childfree

Which is quite ironic because that is EXACTLY what I ended up having (a HUGE bump and A LOT of weight gained), and nothing ever prepared me for how vulnerable it would make me feel.

The comments exactly? Well, they all merge around the following:

• Wow you’re so big!

• Oh…you’re huge

ALMOST always followed by the:

• How many months are you?

Expecting me to say that I am almost about to give birth, when in truth, I still have 2 months to go (8 weeks left) - (because pregnancy is ACTUALLY 40 weeks / 10 months long, I know - we got SCAMMED growing up).

Which follows by the glare of shock.

I laugh it off and say “yeah I know haha”.

In the last 3 days alone, I had this interaction with 4 different people at my workplace, and even though each one of them seem to be innocently doing so, they have no idea the emotional damage it’s having on me…

On the second day, I went for a walk on my lunch break and for some reason, I started noticing other girls' appearances and comparing myself to them.

NON-PREGNANT girls, gorgeous girls, carefree girls.

I wanted to feel that way…

It could be just spring bringing out the cool fashion in the London girlies, but no, it had been warm for the past few weeks.

I had simply been conditioned by these ongoing comments, to start noticing appearance and body-image A LOT MORE, than what I was, which spiralled into me self-comparing and reducing my positive body image.

It was breaking me, and I was letting it out of not knowing where to find the energy to combat it from within.

Now, external validation is not what I seek to feel good.

BUT, likewise, when feeling as emotional and weakened as I do in my third trimester, external commentaries as such do have the power to make me a feel a certain way.

I am more vulnerable to it.

NOW, I know I will be going on maternity leave soon and will not be around these people, and can therefore have more control over protecting my peace, in this kind of way.

HOWEVER, what’s done is done, and the damage has been done.

Not to say I cannot build myself back up, but it does leave a residue behind that is hard to ignore or erase.

I am doing the best I know how, but I never expected pregnancy struggles to be so heavily influenced by the PEOPLE around me, rather than the pregnancy itself.

Despite the pregnancy making me bigger and heavier, it is the PEOPLE that had me feeling as low as ever in pregnancy.

girls things

At the end of the day, I’m just a girl who loves to feel herself, to feel good, to feel aesthetic, to feel fashionable.

Being pregnant has made it harder to feel as in-touch with my feminine side, since:

• I don’t fit into all clothes types; mostly living in leggings and the same pair of flowy, stretchy trousers

• I don’t feel comfortable in tight clothing anymore, I need breathable clothes even though I love figure-hugging pieces

• I don’t have endless money to invest in a whole new wardrobe; I can only buy a piece or another at the moment

• I can’t wear leggings to work since it wouldn’t fit with my workplace dress-code policy, so I’m stuck wearing these flowy pants that make me look EVEN bigger

• Seeing my face and body swell-up makes it harder to move, harder to recognise myself, and harder to adapt to how I style and dress myself-up in a way that still makes me feel good

• I feel more easily flustered, warm and sweaty from all the additional weight (and since my pregnancy covers spring) which makes me feel a lot less attractive, dealing with sweating in ways I never have before

This doesn’t help when it comes to feeling better about my body image, since even the outfit I do like, will become like a uniform, when used over and over again.

After all, I really am just a girl trying to figure it all out as any other.

And I don’t want to lose on all the girly things that bring me the joy of being a woman, feeling confident and amazing in my skin, and giving into all the feminine beauty things (as vain as that may sound, it’s fun to me!).

However, I have come to terms with something I saw the other day about “seasons”…

This girl online said something along the lines of:

“For everything there is a season, and when you are pregnant, feeling your best and most sexiest self may not be frequent or even familiar to you, and that’s okay.

You are growing a human inside of you, and you are doing and becoming what is needed for it.

This season of pregnancy is one for you to focus on rest, and growing that human. After that, there will be a season for you to feel a lot more yourself (and better!) again.”

As mixed as this made me feel, since abdicating of the feeling of feeling good about myself for a whole 280 days (pretty much 1 year or more, including postpartum) felt already very sacrificial as it was. It also did make me detach a little bit from the control I so much desired to have over this feeling of having ti altogether and feeling the self-expectation of feeling confidence and empowered.

I guess, it was like a permission being communicated to me that it was okay to not always feel like your most confident, gorgeous self.

You and your body are already doing more than enough during pregnancy, don’t try to self-inflict yet another thing like this on top of it all.

…

Regardless, I still have my moments where I crave that feeling and sense of self, but I try to keep reminding myself that “ this is temporary”, and in all honesty, after experiencing something as brutal as pregnancy, I can say I will be taking another level of appreciation towards being able to feel as beautiful and take action towards how I feel a bit more proactively.

comeback?

A comeback is well overdue.

The feeling of coming back STRONGER, better and more empowered from the hardship in these pregnancy experiences.

But if I’m being honest, I don’t know if that is exactly how it would work.

I think I will grow through the hardship, and that will make me more mentally resilient, but more empowered with my body image and self-confidence?

I think there will still be quite a journey to go through postpartum…

I may find myself super beautiful inside-and-out (as we all should), but when your body is everchanging and not fully in your control, it does cap the extent to how good you can feel about yourself and your body.

Just my personal opinion of my unique pregnancy experience.

Shoutout to all the pregnant girlies who are owning their growing bodies with pride, and are unapologetically feeling empowered and sexy nonetheless, but that hasn’t been my experience, and that’s okay I guess.

It is what it is.

For most things, I am all for our brand mission here which is to:

Take control of our own narrative.

But taking control on this one might have a different timing; one that occurs after giving birth, where I have the CAPABILITY to take control.

Because mentally, and emotionally, I don’t have the strength.

Pregnancy is challenging me in ways I never expected.

And so, for this one, it’s about simply getting through, KNOWING when we are finally able to regain our bodies back, we can go for it, and rebuild our self-confidence again.

If you are currently pregnant, or have been, leave some tips in the comments for anything that helped you through similar self-confidence or body image struggles!

Maybe not the most inspirational of blog posts I have, but I want to keep it real with you all.

Even if you have that fire in you, as I do, to always try take control of our narrative and make it happen for ourselves the way we TRULY DESIRE…

We are also human, we sometimes need to just give ourselves grace until the time comes where we can go for it again.

<3

Own your Womanhood. Own your Time.

♡

I’ll be logging updates throughout this whole journey as a mother-to-be, working to be an entrepreneur, but to also still preserve the girlhood within, to try and be her best self, and live her happiest life, so keep-up with me through the blog!

I release a new blog post every Friday at 1pm! (UK-time)

Let me know if you’re in a similar headspace (pregnant or not), being in our 20s is confusing, and taking control of our story is the only way we can take ownership of our happiness and live out our dream life.

I document my unwanted pregnancy journey at 25, taking control of my narrative, figuring out being a girl in my 20s, chasing my dream life, and conquering my boss babe dream of becoming a self-employed, entrepreneur / Blogger!