The Last 2 Weeks of Pregnancy

I’ve been fortunate enough to have an active and stable pregnancy. We went to Japan, I haven’t missed a single workout in 8 months, I was able to lift weights, train clients, kick and punch and well – for a portion of it (minus the once a week wine or the crazy martial art stuff) I’ve been myself.

Of course ‘myself’ is a relevant thing; we evolve and change every day with new experiences. Monthly we grow into new goals and every year we shift our perspectives and make room for new and exciting adventures. The hardships make us infinitely better and more ‘wise’ and the good times strengthen our connections to the things we love.

Writing this I am ready for change. (I THINK).

I have made peace with it. I have embraced the fact that there will be new and difficult things and all of them will also be rewarding and incredible in ways I could not yet picture or imagine.

But, despite my acceptance of the changes to come it has been my same routine; my same self lifting weights every Monday and Friday, kicking and punching for seven rounds every Tuesday and Thursday. Taking my husbands weapons class, staying up until 1 am watching movies and writing. It’s been me training my clients, doing seminars, meeting my friends for brunch and feeling the freedoms we all feel when we can just get up and go.

THE LAST 2 WEEKS

But, in the last two weeks things have SIGNIFICANTLY changed.

Physically I am suddenly out of breath more and more, I can’t even scream across the training floor to my husband without feeling the physical taxation. This is temporary, but what about the things that aren’t?

I am getting tired doing things that would otherwise be a small warm-up to a crazy day. That’s fine too, I am lucky to experience this in the very last leg of it all, some women go through this exhaustion far earlier, or like my mom with me, all the way through all nine months. But what about after?

I’m more protective of my belly, which is growing beyond what I could have ever envisioned in the mirror. That is temporary yes, but what about after? Will tiger marks grace my skin, will my core ever allow me to to the feats of strength I’ve worked so hard for? I am not scared of the hard work, I’m excited for it of course. But I am unsure of what that landscape will be.

I am mentally strained in odd ways- thinking tirelessly about ‘how I will know what to do’ and then feelings of odd self doubt take over my brain – a doubt I have not felt for so long. I have no question about being a good parent, but I do have questions about swaddling and breast feeding and making it all work without losing myself.

To be honest I feel like the time (this past 8 months) has gone too fast and that I am not prepared for anything. I’ve never held a newborn, changed a diaper or read a single post on how to put your baby to sleep. (Will they sleep?)

It’s unlike me, all of it. Generally I embrace challenges. I have closed business deals and worked on deadlines, filmed 36 workout DVDs under time constraints, started businesses, spoke in front of thousands of people. I have made serious decisions and I have tapped out men twice my size on the training floor. But this- it brings a part of me to my knees, and when I evaluate why I realize that it is for the simple fact that it is no longer just me backpacking through the Middle East at age 19 – I am responsible for something else. Something more valuable then bank accounts and passports and business deals.

Now, in the last two weeks things are somehow shifting and I feel like the ground beneath my feet is a combination of cotton candy and quicksand – none of it something I can control. Much of it something I am excited to embrace, much of it I am not very quick to say I fear.

#38weeks

I like to write on this blog with topics of advise, words of wisdom, sometimes (like in fitness with a level of expertise), but in this post I am writing with a sense of vulnerability.

You see hashtags of #38WeeksPregnant on instagram and think of moms reaching the end of this journey. To many of us that haven’t been here before it seems (at least it did to me) like they have ‘made it’ and they can now go back to drinking wine and wearing their pre-baby jeans. And sure, I have no doubt that I will enjoy a great glass of Burgundy with my husband and finally put those amazing vintage Levis I bought in Japan back on my hips. But, I know now that the nine months (or 38 weeks) that I have carried this baby thus far is nothing compared to the months ahead.

I have maintained myself by training and moving and working and doing the things I do, the things with which I have built myself to be the woman I am today.

But in the last weeks I am no longer the person that I have been, and yet I am not yet the person I will be after delivery. There is this odd limbo now, a small voice telling me to rest more and gather my strengths.

I am slower now, and fighting myself to conserve energy instead of give it as I usually do. Fighting with every last piece of will to stay still and wait.

To anyone reading this- wondering. Wondering about who they will be at 38 weeks, and after, the only things that I can say is the same thing I say to myself;

For once in your life, for this short time – BE EASY.