There are so many in this world that will tell you want you can’t do, especially when you’re pregnant.  I was recently filling out my maternity leave paperwork through my job, and I hate how everything I read pertaining to my having a child was referred to as a disability.

We pregnant women and post-partum mothers are looked at like we’re invalids a lot of the time, incapable of doing anything in our current physical state.  I just had someone remark to me the other day that they didn’t think I’d want to do a particular activity because of the ‘condition’ I was in.

So I remarked back something along the lines of, “What am I suppose to be doing?  Sitting at home just waiting for contractions to start?”

Yes, we all have different levels of fortitude and abilities depending on our own individual circumstances.  But who says you can’t do what you want to do?  At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who says what.  Your pregnancy and maternity leave shouldn’t be a catch-all reason to hold you back from anything that you feel like doing, want to do, or should do for that matter.

You Can Have It All

I know, there are a few things that you shouldn’t be eating during pregnancy, and a few activities to avoid as well.  But it’s not carved into stone what society feels is best and even our own doctors suggest that we don’t do.

After my bout of false labor this week, I went to church and a few ladies I was sitting with were a bit shocked that I was in church after having such a morning. I just kind of laughed and remembered that they were from the generation when everyone received epidurals and birthed on their backs, if they were ‘lucky.’

I wasn’t in labor, sick or gushing fluids.  So why shouldn’t I be in the right place that I knew I should be?  In church with my family, worshipping as we regularly do.  It’s not the end of the world when a pregnant woman decides to participate in something a single entity would find not appropriate.

I am living proof that when you are exercising to keep yourself, your body, and your baby strong, there’s nothing that should get in your way.  We are WOMEN, capable of defying almost all of the odds against us, and we still don’t know how we do it all ourselves.  We should be proud of that.

So you CAN have it ALL.  Yes, you have to add into the picture all of the annoying and even joyful symptoms with pregnancy and giving birth.  But don’t let them define you because you are so much more than that as well.  If you want it, make a way to be able to do it.

How My Pregnancy Hasn’t Held Me Back

I started participating in Winter Guard after eight years of not even picking up my flag, let alone learn a new weapon, the saber I grew to love.

I would head to a two-hour practice each week for months on end, and then perform in shows almost every Saturday night for a few months-all while in my first trimester.  I had young teenage and college girls come up to me and comment on how they felt they could never do such a thing if they were pregnant.  I’d always respond with, “You can do more than you think you can.”

Sure I had times when I REALLY didn’t want to go to practice.  I even battled one of my colds and stomach flu, nearly not showing up to a performance because I was so weak the day before.  But I still went and felt better than ever for doing so because it helped to give me energy, even though I was very nearly spent afterward as well.  Who says you can’t dance when you’re pregnant?

Here’s a video of one of our best shows.  I’m the one starting in the upper right corner. 

We hiked a bit in the spring to overlook the city, trying to keep up our tradition of hiking each summer.  It didn’t last though because we have been working on putting in a brand new yard this entire summer.  With it came gardening and planting trees.  Who says you can’t work in your yard when you’re pregnant?

I had a stupid headlight in my car quit working the day a policeman conveniently noticed and gave me a fix it ticket.  It’s always fun to go into an auto parts store with children and tell the man behind the counter exactly what part you need without any hesitation.  I always seem to impress the mechanics when I can take in my car and tell them exactly what’s wrong.  Who says you can’t fix your own car when you’re pregnant?

It does become a bit harder to care for yourself as your body changes so much, especially your skin changes and knowing what to eat all of the time in order to curb your morning sickness-let alone take care of your children.  But you can easily increase your squat strength on a daily basis by just still playing with them on the floor and changing how you maneuver while they’re in the tub.

Taking care of the regular household duties can certainly be taxing.  But still enjoying a home cooked meal or simply doing the laundry is every bit as important in preparing for your baby’s birth as it ever was.  Same with reaching the things you still want to grab on the bottom shelf at the grocery store.  Just because someone thinks that you shouldn’t be squatting down a bit to smell something you like, or use the correct pot for a favorite dish doesn’t mean you can’t rule it out.  Your muscles will thank you.

Who says you can’t get up and down, let alone roll over the right way without anyone’s help either?  If you can do that, you can certainly reach and bend a little in a flexible manner to give yourself a pedicure or help your kids and loved ones ride adorable little ponies through the yard.

One of my favorite rat-pack era songs is Jump In The Line.  Whenever it comes on my pandora station, I grab a child and dance around the kitchen.  Here I am, ready to pop and I’m still choosing to dance, be active, funny and play with my kids. (What happens when you don’t play with your kids?)  I wasn’t regretting it, it didn’t hurt, and we made a memory.

You can still have great memory making moments when you’re pregnant, it’s just your choice what you do with yourself.

The other day at work, I had a fellow co-worker share how he’d probably accidentally made another pregnant co-worker feel bad.  I exercise regularly in our employee gym with him and he’s always been complimentary about how I’ve tried keeping myself fit while pregnant.  Anyway, he said how he’d been chatting with another 9 months preggo co-worker of ours, and she had commented that she couldn’t wait to be done with pregnancy so that she could exercise again.  Then he had used me as an example of how a pregnant woman can still exercise.  She was a bit surprised as he told her that I was there multiple days in the week, doing my best to work out alongside the rest of them.  

We’re nerdy in our family and visit the local comic con extravaganza every year, and being on my feet nearly all day while expecting has never been an issue.  We do things we enjoy, letting our growing babies learn from our joys and experiences too.  Even spending the two seconds for a cheesy pregnant belly pic is worth the cringe of looking at it later, then smiling because you took the time.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve had huge nesting instincts, but I did get our room ready for the baby to come home, cleaned a bit the basics that I’m always behind on anyway.  But I sure hope that my midwife’s assessment yesterday of being 3 cm dilated amounts to something this weekend.  We’ll see.  But that didn’t stop us from going on one last minute date to the movies last night, even though my babysitter thought I was, quote, “living on the edge” by not taking my hospital bag with me, just in case there was an emergency.

In Conclusion

As a caveat to this perspective, let me also say this:  having it all doesn’t mean every single little perfect thing that we desire for ourselves.  It’s not healthy to wish for accomplishing everything in our pregnancy bucket list, or staying with the same measurement of beauty and livelihood we’ve developed for ourselves.  It means that you need not discount things simply because your world is changing.

I don’t tell you about all that I’ve done this year to boast either.  I’m telling you this (and you’ve kept reading) because you need to know that after all the opinions and quips of advice that people throw at you (even mine) it comes down to YOU choosing what is going to hold you back.

Are you going to let your pregnancy or your desire for a natural baby birth make all of your decisions, good or bad?  It depends on your perspective doesn’t it?  And there’s ALWAYS going to be someone that thinks they know better, because they’ve been there before, or they’ve already had 10 children and know ‘everything.’

Your experiences are only unique to YOU and your baby.  There’s no reason that what worked for someone else is always going to work for everyone else.  You are a clean slate, a new chapter, a fresh bloom that has not had your destiny determined just yet.  If you want something, go get it.

I really like this quote from the movie Pursuit Of Happyness.  It sums everything up.

I know that there are times when interventions happen, life throws curve balls that knock us down and our journeys aren’t what we wanted them to be.  But that doesn’t mean your efforts were in vain.  No good effort from a genuinely righteous desire is EVER in vain.

You Can Have Pampering Too With This Little Kit

I hope you have a great weekend.  Please share your comments with the rest of us.  What are things that you refuse to not let go of as a woman and mother?