Embarrassing confession of the day

I have dreamed about being pregnant (and a mother) for years. Here’s the embarrassing part – more than once I have stuck out my stomach in the mirror to try to see what I would look like pregnant. OK fine, I’ve also stuck a small pillow in my shirt before. I’m not proud to admit it, but seriously who hasn’t at one point or another? :)

Don’t worry, there is a point to this story: I always thought I would be so excited to have a cute baby bump. In fact I couldn’t wait to have one. So it came as a shock to me that my reaction to my growing belly was less than enthusiastic.

At first I was horrified by it. I kept telling myself that it was too early to already have a little bump. And then it was too early to need a bella band. The bigger my tummy got, the worse I felt.

It’s hard to explain why this bothers me. I’m just now beginning to understand myself. The obvious reason is that I’m just insecure with my new body.

But I think there's more to it than that. I think the root of my insecurity is that I’ve been comparing myself to everyone else. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I’m reminded that so and so wasn’t this big at 15 weeks and I feel like there’s something wrong with me.

Of course this is ridiculous. First, I’m only remembering the people who didn’t show right away. I have plenty of friends who showed early. But most importantly, it shouldn’t matter if I’m bigger or smaller than someone else because every person and pregnancy is different.

I realized tonight that I need to stop comparing myself and just go with the flow. If I can do this, I think I will have a much happier pregnancy. And that’s the ultimate point of this post – to remind myself of this promise when I’m feeling low. And we all know admiting you have a problem is the first step :)