The most amazing thing I have ever done!

I feel like I have done some pretty amazing things in my life so far – I have traveled to many places around the world; I have gone sky diving twice and saw the world from above; I saw the world from below when scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef, got my diving certification in the frigid waters of Alaska in February, and dove a wreck along side huge groupers, a bull shark and poisonous sea snakes curling around my arms; I have married the love of my life on the coast of the Mediterranean in Italy; I have hunted, fished, camped and have gotten to experience so much of the incredible outdoor world; I have paraglided over the Alps in Switzerland; I was able to study abroad in Australia for 5 months; I have opened up my own business – twice!  These are just some of the things that really stick out to me, but I truly feel blessed with my experiences and my support system of family and friends that have allowed me to complete such ventures!
I woke up the other morning, looked at my husband and said “this is the most amazing thing that I have ever done in my life.“  And if you know me well, you would not believe in a million years what I was referring to —- the miracle of life.  I never knew if I wanted to have children, it was never something I thought much about as a child and then as an adult I fully accepted the fact that I did not have a maternal drive to have children and told everyone, including my mother that I would never have kids.  Well, guess who’s over 6 months pregnant at 36 years old?  =)  And it’s seriously the coolest thing I’ve ever done!  Part of my feelings about this may be due to the fact that I’m in the medical field and have always been fascinated by the way the body works.  The other part of this is that feeling my baby kick, stretch, move and roll is the most awe-inspiring sensation that I’ve ever known.  I’m a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, but I have to say that the knowledge that I am growing a human life inside of my body and that she is moving and dancing in my belly overtakes all of my previous adrenaline-filled adventures.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel during this pregnancy, and I’m now positive that no one can really anticipate this journey.  I have been very pleasantly surprised!  I will say that the first trimester was a bit of a doozy.  I was nauseated 24/7, slept A LOT, fell asleep at completely random times, and sometimes barely made it through my work day.  But just as it happens with most pregnancies, at 14 weeks the clouds parted and my energy returned, the nausea was completely gone and my little baby belly started to grow!  I was able to return to my daily walks, actually keep up the house and cooked a little bit (this was hard for me to stomach for a while).  Then as spring emerged I was able to do yard work, help my husband install floors, cabinets and paint our entire new basement, and am still going strong with our never-ending landscaping escapades!  I’m still seeing my normal number of patients at work and the only thing that I’ve changed is that I now start my days a little bit later so that I can make sure and get my walks in when the air is cooler.

Up until now, if you would have told me that I would have enjoyed pregnancy this much, I would have just laughed.  The thought of carrying a child always just seemed so foreign to me and just wasn’t something that I looked forward to.  Well, things have definitely changed!  The other thing that’s very odd is that I’m starting to connect with other people’s children much better than I ever did in the past and I’m actually enjoying seeing and hearing children playing (this used to make me very uncomfortable).  I am in awe of how much life and perspectives can change so quickly.  I love this baby more than I ever thought was possible, and I haven’t even met her yet!  As I write this, she is rolling around and kicking and it is just pure bliss!  This has been a great learning experience for me – expectations are not the same as reality.  I’ve learned that analyzing how things “might“  happen or how I “might” feel is fruitless, there is really no way to know until you’re actually on the journey.  In some ways it’s sad that it’s taken me this long to learn this lesson, but at the same time, I feel like it’s perfect and completely meant to be!