So here I am at 24 weeks.
Belly has grown quite a bit since two weeks ago. In fact I have actually been feeling myself grow these last few days and have been feeling really tired so I'm having to rethink my packed days. And just a few days ago I had a scary dizzy spell and nearly fainted but was luckily sitting down at the time while lovely TCM lady was working on me and she caught me as I managed to say "I'm not feeling too well...." before slumping over. She lay me down and put pillows under my head and legs and made me do calming breathing exercises while she checked my pulses. She told me to take the rest of the day off, do you have much to do? She asked. Ummm... well this is my day off from teaching but after this I have to go to the building site, then to the supermarket, then I have a (extremely necessary) waxing appointment, then I have Arabic class and then I have a dinner. She gave me one of her you should know better looks. Come on Clare. You are nearly 6 months pregnant. Slow down. Those two words were a massive lightning bolt of realization...
Shit. I am nearly 6 months pregnant. Really I am. I need to slow down, what have I been thinking??? So I cancelled everything for the day (except the dinner with friends I haven't seen in ages, more to come below) and then for the next day also. All my classes cancelled, all my appointments rescheduled, time for some sleep and relaxation. I have since been feeling so so much better and no more dizziness.
So on to the dinner... it was a great dinner the kind where so many people you adore are there and everyone hasn't seen each other in a while and we all just wanted to catch up and have a good laugh. Except this time I was the one with the pregnant belly. It was like an out of body experience as everyone reached for the bump, commented on how 'glowing' I looked, how fabulous it all was etc. I felt so happy and proud inside, but I also felt unease with accepting it. Like it wasn't really happening to me. Like it was meant to be happening to someone else and that everyone would soon discover that I'm an impostor.
Again I had another dinner last week this time with a friend who has two children under 5 (she got pregnant with her youngest while we were TTC as well, she of course got pg straight away) and another (shock!) pregnant woman.... now normally this dinner would have had me running to the door. I would have been so uncomfortable and would have been watching the clock waiting until it was polite to leave. And at first that thought did occur to me. But. The little voice inside my head said: You're pregnant now too and so you can relax and enjoy yourself, no need to feel the pain and anguish because everyone around you is having babies and you're not. You are having a baby too.
But all this going to dinners, chatting with pregnant ladies, talking to my midwife, shopping for baby, sometimes it seems as though I don't really belong. Well that's often my first reaction anyway. Then I read Adele's blog and she put it perfectly: "I feel like I have suddenly slipped the space-time continuum and stumbled into somebody else's reality. I am suffering from a wee case of impostor's syndrome.... My impostor's syndrome did not ease when, after my doctor's appointment, I wandered several blocks southward to a duplex maternity store. It was my first foray into this particular milieu and I felt like a space alien sent to gather information about earthlings."
This is exactly how I feel a lot of the time. Baby and child development is something I am quite familiar with having previously worked as a nanny and as a kindergarten/primary teacher for the last 6 years. But pregnancy? My own pregnancy? The last few years I have made such an effort to avoid anything to do with pregnancy, birth and babies that it feels weird to let it suddenly be okay to venture into that world, not only to venture into it, but to embrace it. And I do. Wholeheartedly. But this impostor's syndrome is always there, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot.
Has infertility put such a marker on me that perhaps it claimed some of my identity? Or perhaps I let it define me in part.... But is this necessarily a bad thing? My experiences over the last three years have caused me to grow, to reach new levels of empathy, love and respect that perhaps I wouldn't otherwise have. I never will forget what it feels like to be on the "other side" and that's a good thing. The night of the friend reunion dinner there was another lady there who has been TTC for some time, just like me. She knows my story and I know hers. I didn't say anything at the dinner but it weighed on me - I have never been in a position where my pregnancy might make someone else uncomfortable. The next day I wanted to tell her I was thinking of her. That I know all too well the pain and that if she still wanted to talk about things then I am here - but at the same time if it's too difficult to be around me, I get that too. In fact I have done it to so many pg friends than I'd like to admit. So I sent her message. She sent me such a sweet reply.
So while I may at times feel like an impostor - or to use Adele's words like an alien sent to gather information about earthlings - I am grateful for the lessons infertility taught me, yes it was painful and traumatic, but it was my path that I had to walk. AND F@*K AM I GLAD TO BE ON THE 'OTHER SIDE', HELL YEAH! Even if it has affected the way I view my pregnancy and the rest of my journey to motherhood.
