Body Image During Pregnancy

This has been a tough topic for me. Things are about to get real here people.

I'm not going to lie -- I've always been extremely conscience of my body from as far back as I can remember. Honestly, I half blame it on growing up dancing for 10 years. We had to be aware of our bodies, that's part of being a dancer. Not necessarily in the sense of being vain (at least not at the studio I studied at), but in order to connect with the music and your movement. And when you are aware of your body at that age, you can't help but start comparing yourself to other dancers. So ever since then, I've always been conscience of what I eat and how much exercise I got in order to keep fit and healthy (which isn't a bad thing). The down side is that when I did gain weight, I would always be extremely hard on myself -- and still am.

I originally thought that gaining weight during pregnancy wouldn't bother me. Mostly because I told myself that I would never be that woman that ate whatever the hell she wanted just because she was pregnant. That I would never use pregnancy as an "excuse" to over-indulge. I would only let myself gain the required 25-30 lbs that comes with growing a little human to make sure baby was healthy, and that was that.

But I have a confession.

I completely threw that out the window. Basically all my cravings were sweets and greasy foods -- the two things that I usually avoid in my everyday life. Nothing else seemed appealing to me though.

My first trimester was hard for me. The hardest part was the fact that I had gained 10 lbs the month prior to getting pregnant. The week I found out we were expecting was the week that I had planned to get back at the gym and start running again in order to lose those 10 lbs. Unfortunately for me though, nausea hit me like a tonne of bricks pretty much the moment I found out and it has stuck with me until just recently. Not to mention I was in bed the moment I got home from work almost every day. I felt like I was exhausted 24/7. Needless to say, working out didn't happen at all for the last 3 months. I haven't gone this long without working out in years.

I've gained about 5 lbs in my first trimester. I could handle that, but add that to the 10 lbs I gained right before pregnancy, and I feel like a whale. I hated it when Ryan touched me and I wouldn't even let him look at me naked. Of course he thinks I was being ridiculous, but I couldn't help it. I knew in the back of my mind that most of the grossness of my stomach was bloating (which is normal in early pregnancy), but I had convinced myself that I wasn't bloated, I was just fat.

I'm now 4 months and I am FINALLY starting to accept my "new" body. I'm not fully there yet, but I'm a hell of a lot closer than I was even a week ago. I've been wanting to start taking belly pictures but the ones I would take didn't even look like a bump, it just looked like I ate one too many donuts. Not to mention that it seemed like all the pregnant ladies in blogland are freaks of nature and are skinny minnie's even with a huge bump. It sounds silly, but it all goes back to being a dancer and comparing myself in my leotard to other dancers. I had to step aside and talk myself into the fact that everyone is different and that I just needed to get back into my healthy routine. For me AND the baby.

Monday night, I started getting pains and soreness in my lower abdomen that felt like I had just did a marathon of lower ab workouts. Wednesday night, I looked at Ryan and told him I think I finally "popped" which he agreed (and hasn't stopped rubbing my belly since). You can finally see and feel a little bump and now I don't feel so much fat anymore -- I just feel more pregnant instead.

Now that I am starting to feel "normal" again and my energy seems to be making it's return, I'm making an effort to be healthy and active again. It's been a trying 3 months for me; I've had to do a lot of soul searching in order to accept my current body, but I think I am finally at a happy place. Who knew there would be other life lessons to
learn while pregnant (other than bring a child into the world!)