**Warning - the message below deals with a woman's body - if you are uncomfortable with that, feel free to ignore skip to "The Second Part of the Post" - I promise not to be offended**
It's strange how quickly the body returns to "normal" after spending two whole months being radically different. When I was pregnant I was incredibly hungry a lot of the time, now that's gone. I couldn't sleep on my belly because I would feel uncomfortable very quickly, now I can. I was steadily gaining weight (right on track with everything..) unfortunately that one hasn't gone back so quickly :-). My breasts were much fuller than they were before, and now, in the span of a day, they are back to normal. I'm not tired anymore (other than a tearful exhaustion that sets in from time to time), I'm sleeping through the night, and can sleep in late in the morning. I don't have to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and the constipation is gone - it's so strange.
**The "Second Part of the Post" **
In so many ways, it's like I've gone right back to the way that I was before, and no one who didn't know would think anything had been any different. In some ways, our lives have changed radically, and in some ways, it's like nothing at all has changed. I think reconciling that sort of thing is the most difficult for Brad and me right now. I know I was pregnant - I know my body changed, I know Stretch was a part of our lives. Now a new journey of questions begins. How do we honour what has happened, and not slip right back into things like they've always been, but at the same time, how do we keep from wallowing in something that is in the past? It's a strange quandary, and one I don't think we've figured out yet.
Perhaps part of it comes in not denying Stretch was around. We aren't going to "delete" the first bunch of posts. We aren't going to throw out the few gifts we've gotten from people already, but we are going to pack away the maternity clothes (or the ONE maternity shirt), and pull out the old stuff again and continue on this journey. I'll go back to work tomorrow, and I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to be telling students about what's happened or not (they're not the most sensitive, some of them, I've discovered). Our colleagues will know, but I'm not going to want to talk about it - it makes for a very long day at work when that happens over and over, I know that from experience too! I guess what it comes down to is we don't have all the answers, but we have a lot of questions, and that's not uncommon - and it's definitely O.K.
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2 comments:
I must say that I really admire the questions, the honesty of your experience. You are such an example of... I don't know... grace, wisdom, strength? I am searching for the most appropriate expression. The balancing act of honoring Stretch and who this child is, while moving forward is really beyond me. You're right - people won't know unless you tell them, and they won't understand the impact of the grief, yet it's there. Anyway, all this rambling to say...thank you for your authenticity and congruence while holding some big questions of the universe.
Yeah. I do that too, sometimes.
P.S.
I respect your attitude about what happened in this post. I'm trying these days, to "own" what I've been through, too, to recognize that my choices change me, and that there's not really such thing as "being outside onesself" -- it's just that onesself is bigger and more encompassing than I thought it was. And a lot more complex. And full of contradictions and indeterminacies.
Anyway, keep at it. I love you a lot.
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