You've heard me say this before on this blog: I keep waiting for the next big milestone to come before I will 'feel' pregnant. Well, I'm 5 months in tomorrow and am now convinced there's no milestone that is coming that is going to work on that front.
It's just not real.
Not even seeing the baby wriggle around on the ultrasound screen on Monday made a significant impact on me. It was like it was in someone else's belly, even though I knew, rationally, that the ultrasound was sliding around on me. Even my bump, despite being evidently 'there' both from a visual and sensory perspective, just seems like the result of too many Chinese take-outs.
I guess I'm having trouble emotionally connecting with the experience right now. It's just not what I expected and maybe that's the problem. I may have had a set idea in my head about what it felt like to be pregnant and its matching up to reality. Maybe the birth is just too far away for me to get excited about right now? Maybe I'm trying not to think about the birth so I don't hyperventilate and faint? Who knows? That's a little too much psychonalysis at this point. All I know is what I'm feeling or, to be more specific, not feeling.
In reality, I shouldn't be all that surprised. It's not like am an overly emotional person to begin with. Aparently even the notorious pregnancy hormones have little effect on that for me - I'm not crying at ads, movies, or news reports (at least not yet).
Yet, it seems that I was somehow expecting something major to change that would sort of smack me upside the head and all of a sudden I would wake up one day and feel this deep, emotional connection to this process. Instead, it's 9-10 months of small changes and adjustments that easily slip by without much notice on my part.
Don't worry, however. It's not like I don't care or am, somehow, emotionally bereft. I'm not feeling negative about my pregnancy or the baby (although its hard not to feel a little doomy and gloomy with all the economic news lately and hearing how the hard times are affecting friends and family) and am genuinely looking forward to meeting Baby Vixen. I guess it's just different to how I imagined and maybe that just is how its going to be for me. So, I'm going to enjoy it for what is (or isn't) and (as, I think, Ray Charles said) accept that "It's gonna do what it's gonna do, baby."
2 comments:
It hit both Yogi and I the very first time we saw her on the ultrasound monitor. It felt so unreal seeing her move and hearing her heartbeat. Then once she was born, I can't stop staring at her, sometimes for minutes at a time not realizing I've been staring at her for that long. If all else fails, he/she will definitely hit you when it arrives.
I wouldn't worry about it. I think people get overly emotional about kids anyway (of course, I don't have any, so I might be the worst offender if I did). Not being sappy doesn't mean you don't care, or won't love your kids like crazy. It just means you're not overly sappy. Rock on!
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