a hurtling and unstoppable force
reading a diary entry from one year ago
I have kept a continuous document going from around December 2022 which turned into a pregnancy and then postpartum diary, or more it was me furiously typing incohesive thoughts most days. Things have changed and continue to change so much, even hour by hour, nothing feels certain anymore and although I am working hard to change that and lean into it, there is still an element of the past or the past me that I miss so much. Never before have I felt so out of my depth, and for a long time during pregnancy I settled into the rhythm, and felt a real deep sense of safety and comfort (not physically but mentally). It’s the comfort of knowing myself that I really miss.
Today I scrolled back and found that on the 18th December 2023 I had made an entry. It’s like hearing from an old ghost, someone familiar but that you don’t recognise anymore. I realise now how much I reference routine, control, the need for certainty and structure. All of the things that went crazy along with my hormones after birth and caused a huge tailspin. Reading this, it’s almost like you can see it coming for me. A year ago I said:
The future feels so huge and unknown. All the manifesting, reflecting and intention setting can hold no power over this truly hurtling and unstoppable force that will happen, and all the plans and consequences are already written, but each day I am fighting to make my peace, and trust that the future is on our side.
I want to give my old self a hug, being so confident, having a plan, even touring the hospital to see where the water births can take place. Then again, what good would have come from telling her about a five day induction, a baby that was huge and stuck, forceps, theatre, blood loss. He arrived safe and healthy either way.
It’s also really moving to remember what it was like to be so massive and pregnant, and have my son swishing around in my belly.
18th December 2023
Now in ‘term’ at 37 weeks and a day. Things are fluctuating most days, definitely feeling very big and very pregnant. Have some pressure in my ears again but this time trying to go about the day as normal and work through it. Feeling really fatigued and wanted to go back to bed again after only 90 minutes awake. Went to the gym for the first time in around a week and my hips and pelvis feel better than they have all week. Bought some raspberry leaf tea this week to hopefully bring on natural labour.
Enjoying trying to look after myself with some routine and control. I’m amazed at the capacity of my skin, although around and under my bellybutton feels numb to touch, like it’s stretched so far it has lost sensation. I’ve been listening to pregnancy affirmations like a mantra before bed some nights, trying lots of deep and slow breathing and practicing relaxing my jaw – I think I’m holding so much unconscious tension here. Loosening my face, jaw, hands, feet and pelvic floor and trying to be as open to the changes coming as I can. When I feel panic and fear set in, I’m hoping I will have enough built in like a mantra to take over and see me through. Movement, as ever, is a saviour and feels the most natural thing to do. Bouncing and rocking on the ball, being on all fours, rooted and grounded, swaying my hips, circling, rotating my hips internally and stretching out the calves and ankles.
Went for a tour of the hospital at the unit where I hope to give birth, I can’t stop now picturing us in the room, the largest one at the end with the bath and the bed. I really believe that it is here I will give birth, and this has been a constant picture in my mind, as soon as we walked in I had the instinctual feeling for the space. Like we belonged, like this is where we could do this.
Went for a swim earlier and the water felt so supportive, taking some of the pressure off this quickly growing watermelon.
We went for a final 4D scan earlier in the week too and just before 37 weeks you were weighing in a 6lb and 14oz which seems pretty big to me. I’m carrying your developing weight, the amniotic fluid and placenta. You were looking healthy and strong as always, but your little tummy is still measuring way up at the high end of all the charts, the size of your head and thigh bone brings the overall size down to below any percentile that causes worry, but back to seeing a big baby with a fat tummy does make me worry. We seen your face in 4D, hands and umbilical cord swishing around near your lips, all the room in there taken up now so you were hunched up with frog legs. Each time you move, which you seem to do all the time, it’s more of a swishing and rolling, I think I can feel the fluid move with you, in your own washing machine spin cycle. Sometimes you dig right under my ribs on the right hand side, where your feet sit, primed. We had some photos to take away, pursed lips, and your Dad’s nose, ridges of your brow bone and neat little chin forming. A whole person inside another person.
I went to visit a friend this week who has an 8 day old baby boy. I held him and for the first time in my life I felt a mothering instinct take over, his tiny face, how my friend made this whole other human, the small mouse noises he was making. It was love, from afar, he’s not mine, but still the absolute overriding wonder of love for this new human being. I can only imagine what it must be like to hold you once you are here.
Into the final week of work now for up to a year, things seem insignificant and important at the same time. Finish this report, these numbers, this spreadsheet. Call this person, leave instructions, have the same platitudes over and over. Enjoy your sleep now while you can, enjoy your year long holiday – never say this to me again. I already feel the need coming for another structure and routine once work is finished, maybe it will be the discipline of writing. I feel like I need a calendar to work from, a to do list and a purpose. Some of the purpose I realise is locked in what I can offer externally. How am I making a mark on the world or what is coming next. The connection element of everything is still so important to me, feeling valuable and valued – bringing people together. Maybe something out of this motherhood and pregnancy experience will bring a new idea forward. In any case I want to write throughout this whole thing, and to find an outlet or new project just for me.
More and more I fantasize about what I will be able to do again, while giving time and gratitude for the things I, or my body, is naturally doing for me right now. Deep breaths and movement in the morning before I get up, grateful to be here living in this moment in this body, and trying to find the grace to surrender each day. Still, the daydreams feel like a beautiful escape, it’s physically exciting to think of bending and moving in a new way, seeing toes again, the thought of running, jumping, burpees, of standing in front of the dance studio mirror again.
We went early morning to the shopping centre as it opened, a domestic blissful outing, adding years to our age. Breakfast in the café, a wander around the shops, treating ourselves to some ‘bits’ from the food shop. Total normality, but I had a little surge of pure happiness in the fruit aisle, just happy – to be here, with you, making you and buying the most delicious bread for toasting. The future feels so huge and unknown. All the manifesting, reflecting and intention setting can hold no power over this truly hurtling and unstoppable force that will happen, and all the plans and consequences are already written, but each day I am fighting to make my peace, and trust that the future is on our side.
So as all the hypnobirthing experts say (and do I really fully believe this or not?)
All is calm, all is fine.
You are safe and my belief in my body is unshakeable.
