And all through the house….

I kid, I kid, but no really….

its been a long last few weeks for me. I have several personal reasons why I haven’t posted much about my pregnancy… I will explain some of them because I can’t be the only person feeling this way…

While on the surface, I am a pretty public and outspoken person, when it comes to what I consider to be deeply personal things, I tend to shy away and only discuss w close friends, family and people who I feel close with.

I see all of these bloggers letting it all hang out and don’t get me wrong, in my mind I have written about 7 posts about the things people don’t tell you about pregnancy because they are 1) too disgusting 2) so uncomfortable that they forget 3) other…

But….with that being said, I find it hard to discuss with those outside of family and close friends and even harder to discuss with those I don’t know well who ask awkward questions or seem to take a vested interest for reasons I can’t imagine or the ones I can (loving all things baby). It makes for some REALLY awkward discussions. At work, at the mall, during service calls with technicians…. Awkward. I can’t say that enough. And hell, I’m convinced even some of my closest friends who haven’t been through pregnancy and birth don’t want to hear about it because they haven’t been through it and so I don’t mention it and then struggle when I’m asked. Pregnancy has def been a growing period for me as a human being. 

It has been a growing experience because in some ways, I have gotten closer w people I didn’t anticipate getting closer with and part of that was me pushing aside my fears of letting others in and talking w them about their experiences and similar discomforts and joys w the process of pregnancy. Some of that was also standing up for myself and saying no when people asked me questions or asked if they could rub my belly (I’m not a genie). 

Fortunately for me, my resting bitch face has kept most strangers from coming up and rubbing my belly…or it could be because I live on the east coast and people are generally not touchy feely here, either way I’m grateful. My family has been about the same, thank god for me, knowing I don’t like to be touched randomly and not being a super touchy touchy family.

And hey, honestly I think my child kicking is a private moment between those of us who share dna (me, my husband and my child, and maybe blood relatives but my mother and brother weren’t interested and frankly I wasn’t pushing the topic). I know others are like OMG IS THE BABY KICKING? LET ME FEEL! And before you can get a word in edgewise their hand is on your belly. 

Im probably being overly sensitive. but then I think, I’m not because it’s my body and I have a right to my opinion about my body and whom I discuss it with and just because you’re asking doesn’t mean I want to share…. I think many women who feel even remotely similar to me struggle to speak up for themselves because society has trained us to make excuses for others insensitivities and over stepping. And hell, it took me 40+ weeks to say anything in the broad public round. One of the reasons I avoided blogging during my pregnancy wasn’t because I didn’t have ideas or thoughts, but it was because I had a few people asking questions constantly that made me feel less like wanting to share and more like wanting to keep it all to myself, if that makes sense. Creeped me out a little so I kept it to myself. Dunno hard to explain. 

Anyway, I wrote everything above this on the night before my induction while sitting in the hospital. I am going to publish it anyway because it might help SOMEone at SOME point. The next posts will be a 2015 wrap up and birth story. I am a little behind on the birth story (I will give you plenty of warning so that if you want to skip this, you can), but the kid had an extended stay in the hospital and so I was extremely distracted and with her home now, I have struggled to get on anything more than facebook, twitter or instagram.