Normally winter is my favorite time of year, I thrive on cold, I love the glint of snow, the bite in the air, the fire inside and the wintery foods.
But we just got the start of wintery weather, and I’m depressed.
It’s not the kind where I can just take a bit more CLO than usual and pull out of it, that usually works magic if I get moody.
It's snowing tonight. That renders our road basically impassable. My blessingway is supposed to be on Saturday, and photos are supposed to be Sunday. I’m just incredibly sad to think that I might not get what I’ve been looking forward to since—oh, 2 months pregnant?- because of a snowstorm that wasn’t *supposed!* to come until after this weekend. But if no one can drive a car up our road, no one can come.
So…. Depressed. I just need a good cry and some hope that the weather and roads will cooperate enough, just until after Sunday. After this Sunday, I would like nothing better than to be snowed in and cozy at home by ourselves, there is a freedom that comes with being isolated like that, and I could SO give birth snowed in! Just not yet!
I'm not looking forward to labor and birth yet, I'm hoping the blessingway will help me get over the hump.
I know with Gracie I looked forward to it, I felt connected with her. John was so aware of my being pregnant, and treated me like he was afraid I would break, and pampered me so much. I was going to school full-time during my pregnancy with her, also, and was receiving constant acknowledgement of being with child and moving toward birth. It wasn’t always supportive, but I was very much recognized as woman with all the creative blessings. And I thrived on it, every few minutes a look, or a comment, or a touch- becoming a mother became part of my identity and I saw myself as special and set apart, just as I was treated.
This time, it’s not so much that I don’t look forward to birthing, because I have such wonderful memories of birthing Gracie and how powerful and pleasurable and intimate and amazing it was, and I have been wanting to do it again since just a few minutes after her birth. But I just don’t feel like it would be right to birth without anyone having really acknowledged that I was even pregnant. At church the closest thing is a raised eyebrow, the ILs steer clear of the subject because they don’t agree with homebirthing- which is thoughtful of them. My family is all 600+ miles away, all they see of me is any photos John takes. Shoot, I’m UPing, so I don’t even have prenatal appointments to have any attention given to me and baby as a unit. John says he knows I’m pregnant, he can see the belly, but it just doesn’t feel real at all. And life proceeds on here as if nothing were different. As if I weren’t pregnant, as if there were no new human being living in me waiting to appear, as if there were nothing special or worth paying attention to at all. Even to the point where trying to hoist myself up from sitting on the floor, rather than getting an offer of a hand up, gets a whimsical look. And it spills over to me, I don’t really feel connected to baby, almost as if I were in denial about even being pregnant.
While I love not having the worries of others put on me, I do also feel a huge desire to just have something be special about this pregnancy also, even if it’s only for one day. I know the first is the exciting one that prompts the showers and the comments and the meddling and attention, but I am just as much a birthing woman with the second, and this baby is just as deserving of being acknowledged as Gracie was.
The best I can come up with to meet that need for something to be special is to throw myself a blessingway, paint my belly, and have myself photographed in all my “large with child” splendour.
I just can’t see myself birthing, and completing a journey that doesn’t feel like it’s even begun.
But we just got the start of wintery weather, and I’m depressed.
It’s not the kind where I can just take a bit more CLO than usual and pull out of it, that usually works magic if I get moody.
It's snowing tonight. That renders our road basically impassable. My blessingway is supposed to be on Saturday, and photos are supposed to be Sunday. I’m just incredibly sad to think that I might not get what I’ve been looking forward to since—oh, 2 months pregnant?- because of a snowstorm that wasn’t *supposed!* to come until after this weekend. But if no one can drive a car up our road, no one can come.
So…. Depressed. I just need a good cry and some hope that the weather and roads will cooperate enough, just until after Sunday. After this Sunday, I would like nothing better than to be snowed in and cozy at home by ourselves, there is a freedom that comes with being isolated like that, and I could SO give birth snowed in! Just not yet!
I'm not looking forward to labor and birth yet, I'm hoping the blessingway will help me get over the hump.
I know with Gracie I looked forward to it, I felt connected with her. John was so aware of my being pregnant, and treated me like he was afraid I would break, and pampered me so much. I was going to school full-time during my pregnancy with her, also, and was receiving constant acknowledgement of being with child and moving toward birth. It wasn’t always supportive, but I was very much recognized as woman with all the creative blessings. And I thrived on it, every few minutes a look, or a comment, or a touch- becoming a mother became part of my identity and I saw myself as special and set apart, just as I was treated.
This time, it’s not so much that I don’t look forward to birthing, because I have such wonderful memories of birthing Gracie and how powerful and pleasurable and intimate and amazing it was, and I have been wanting to do it again since just a few minutes after her birth. But I just don’t feel like it would be right to birth without anyone having really acknowledged that I was even pregnant. At church the closest thing is a raised eyebrow, the ILs steer clear of the subject because they don’t agree with homebirthing- which is thoughtful of them. My family is all 600+ miles away, all they see of me is any photos John takes. Shoot, I’m UPing, so I don’t even have prenatal appointments to have any attention given to me and baby as a unit. John says he knows I’m pregnant, he can see the belly, but it just doesn’t feel real at all. And life proceeds on here as if nothing were different. As if I weren’t pregnant, as if there were no new human being living in me waiting to appear, as if there were nothing special or worth paying attention to at all. Even to the point where trying to hoist myself up from sitting on the floor, rather than getting an offer of a hand up, gets a whimsical look. And it spills over to me, I don’t really feel connected to baby, almost as if I were in denial about even being pregnant.
While I love not having the worries of others put on me, I do also feel a huge desire to just have something be special about this pregnancy also, even if it’s only for one day. I know the first is the exciting one that prompts the showers and the comments and the meddling and attention, but I am just as much a birthing woman with the second, and this baby is just as deserving of being acknowledged as Gracie was.
The best I can come up with to meet that need for something to be special is to throw myself a blessingway, paint my belly, and have myself photographed in all my “large with child” splendour.
I just can’t see myself birthing, and completing a journey that doesn’t feel like it’s even begun.
: to what babybugmama said!
