The ladies over at Ingrid and Isabel reached out a few months ago and were kind enough to send me a few pieces to wear throughout my pregnancy. I really loved their activewear and would highly recommend it if you’re looking for stretchy things to cover your growing body! A few weeks ago they asked me to write a blog post for them about how it’s felt to wait for the tiny persons arrival. You can find it here but I also included it below. Thanks to everyone at I + I for all their love throughout the pregnancy!

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When I first found out I was pregnant I couldn’t wait for the weeks to start passing by. Three weeks to twelve weeks felt like an eternity. A week didn’t go by when I would actively scratch out a date and excitedly look to see that I was one week further along. There is something to say for that initial excitement, that initial anticipation. Each day creeps by and you’re desperately looking for a visual change – a tiny shift in your body that allows you to see the teeniest of bumps starting to show. 

At 36 weeks the same feelings started to return for me. Days passing slowly, week milestones feeling like they were month long stretches. Except this time it isn’t to reach a new number, it is to meet the human that I’ve been growing for 9, now almost 10 months. It’s unbelievable to me how much your body changes and grows over the course of this experience. Not only from month to month but especially in these last few weeks. It seems as though every day brings a new physical and mental change.

Instead of wishing these days to fly by like I did at the beginning though, I’m embracing something new. A slower pace of life, noticing the little things and embracing all of the things I can do right now. Not because I’m afraid of what I’ll lose when the baby arrives, but so that I can really slow my own self down. So that I can really breathe and relish in the fact that I actually did this. That because of my efforts, a new tiny person will be entering the world any day now. 

It’s so easy to wish for what we don’t have, to wish for things to move faster, to want to move from here to there at lightening speed. It’s rare to recognize in our own minds that sometimes doing things the slow way, the old school way, is actually more nourishing for ourselves than anything else. Sometimes taking the time to walk the long route, to pick up the phone in stead of texting someone, to sit down and eat a meal slowly with friends, is the best way to send a message to your body that you are present and that you are fully aware of all that you’re feeling and thinking. That, in and of itself, is what will nourish us and allow us to get through these moments of wild change and mysterious unknowns. 

From what I’ve heard that is what is coming my way. Change. A lot of it. So, instead of pushing my body and mind to rush towards it, I am happily waiting for my body to tell me when it’s ready, for the baby to send it’s own subtle messages telling us that it’s time. For once, I’m allowing nature to take it’s course and I am trying my best to embrace everything that goes with that.