Did you know that you can look and feel great during pregnancy? Did you know that it’s possible to look and feel even better pregnant than not pregnant? It tends to be a common belief that women are going to feel bad, feel worse, look worse, or struggle to continue to look thin in the face and hips during pregnancy. Right? That’s how it seems. And, for many women, that is the case. I’m not going to say that all women can look and feel better during their pregnancies. And, I now know that it’s possible for someone to look and feel better. I’d like to change the expectation that things have to get worse during pregnancy – that we all should expect to look and feel worse physically, in every way.
Laura has a tendency to put on weight easily and she thought that during her pregnancy she was going to be a little round balloon. She prepared herself for that. She was ready for it. And, hah, she became slim and elegant. All the hormones decided to work in a beautiful orchestrated manner. Her skin was great. She had expected the opposite. She thought hey, my ankles will get swollen and there will be this and that with which to contend, but it will all be okay. She knew she could handle heartburn. She had never had heartburn in her life, and she was going to finally learn what it is! Well she didn’t learn what it felt like to have heartburn. And she was slim – slim and elegant like she hadn’t been previously. She says that her body during pregnancy was such a gift. Laura has great stories about how her body thrived during pregnancy.
I can recall in this moment two physical aspects that felt better for me during pregnancy. During my third trimester people asked me about how my back felt. And I realized that it had never felt better! Prior to my pregnancy, I slept on my stomach quite frequently and that would cause some lower back discomfort. I tended to – in non pregnant times – have less than stellar posture. During that last trimester, you gotta sit up straight to have room for the belly! I’d never had better posture and it was the best that my back had ever felt up to that time in my life.
We took beach vacations during the 8th month of both of my pregnancies. And those were the times – unlike any other time in my life – that I felt pride and complete comfort about how I looked in my bikini.
Please join the conversation: What looked and felt better for you physically during pregnancy? How did you “debunk” the common paradigm that things are going to be physically more challenging or more challenging to accept during pregnancy?
