I’m sitting here debating whether or not you can buy different kinds of chocolate in chocolate chip form. 

The answer? Absolutely. I’m going for 85% Cacao bitter sweet dark chocolate chips. 

Tonight, I am going to make these. Straight up, not nutritious, old school, homemade chocolate chip cookies. 

Because sometimes you need a little bit less. You need a little old school-emotional-butter filled-comfort food-chocolate chip cookies. If I’m being completely honest, my number one pick for a chocolate chip cookie are these ones from Tates. They knock my socks off. 

But when you need a little love, when you need to get your hands dirty, when you need to lick a spoon, these homemade ones are just right. 

This week we’re hitting the 8 month milestone. 8 months. 

My boss came around my desk today and told me how much I’ve grown. How huge my belly looks. (I’m pretty sure he meant it in the nicest way possible). 

I feel h u g e. I feel tight and constricted and round and full of baby. 

This shift has taken place over the past few weeks, starting slowly but in the past few days- the movement, the energy, the hugeness of it all, has taken over. 

There is something totally overwhelming and scary about sharing your body with someone that I just sort of recognized in the past 48 hours. We’re literally sharing space – physically and maybe even more accurately for me, emotionally.

Like I was honest about the first trimester, I feel like I need to be honest here.

I love being pregnant. I love everything about it. It is something I looked forward to for a really really long time. I don’t take it for granted, but it is, 100%, an experience unlike anything else. And if you’re anything like me, it has it’s ups and downs. 

At some point along the way I joined some forums where women talk about the things that are going on for them – stretch marks, varicose veins, haemorrhoids, heartburn – you name it, it’s up there to share. I will say that I have been extremely lucky to not have experienced any of these things thus far. I don’t know if it’s luck actually, or if it’s the way I take care of myself. Either way, I’m not taking that for granted either. 

What I have experienced are these 10 things.

I’m sharing them because I think it’s important for other woman who are currently pregnant or who are going to get pregnant very soon, to know that if they feel them as well, they are not alone. I found that when I was looking for support, there wasn’t a ton written online that shared thoughts without judgement or maybe more so with just plain honesty. So, if you’ve experienced any or all of these, just know that you’re not the only one. And like everything else, we have to remind ourselves that this too shall pass. 

1. Feeling overwhelmed
2. Feeling frustrated
3. Feeling like I don’t want to share my body anymore
4. Feeling like I want to feel like my ‘old’ body back – like I want to do a headstand and hold plank and get into bridge and stretch my belly in all the old familiar ways
5. Feeling like I want to be intimate in ways I used to be 
6. Wishing I could sleep on my stomach 
7. Feeling unfocused 
8. Wishing I could have two (or more) huge delicious cold pints of beer with Jeff 
9. Feeling sad and scared 
10. Second guessing myself about timing and all that is about to come 

Looking down right now, my belly is literally a roller coaster of movement up and down and all around. It’s enigmatic – you can’t stop looking at it or feeling it with your hand. Maybe that’s why this is all feels like too much sometimes. We’ve never done it before. We’ve read about it and heard about it but we’ve never personally physically experienced anything like it (or at least I haven’t).

There is a quote that reads “Trust the timing of your life”. Sometimes I feel that the timing and way I got pregnant was too magical, too unexpected, too impossible. 

And then I think about just that.

Each and every experience I’ve had could have gone a different way – but here we are. Like the timing of that Brazilian wish bracelet falling off, we are here, right now. It’s real and it’s happening.

And if we just go one step at a time, one 60 minute interval at a time, we’ll eventually get to a place where we are breathing and moving fluidly.

Where our head slows down.

Where we can accept that we are here and that without too much thought soon we will be there.

BE OPEN TO THE UNIVERSE
BE OPEN TO LIFE
BE OPEN TO THE EXPERIENCE
TRUST YOUR INTUITION
HAVE FAITH