The Biggest Lesson I Learned From Pregnancy

In going through old blog posts, I wrote this back in February 2018 before the birth of my baby in March 2018. I’m trying to rack my brain as to why I never published it. I love the emotions and raw feeling I put into this piece.

So, while I already DID have my baby (and spoiler alert, it wasn’t the natural birth I had wanted. Read: 48 Hours of Labor), I still 100% believe in this post.

One of the biggest lessons I learned throughout pregnancy, is something that I think all chronic illness patients should learn. We need to learn to TRUST our bodies.

 

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Do you trust your body?

I mean really, fully trust your body?

Chronic illness can bring upon a distrust that many of us wouldn’t willingly take on. But, in the face of chronic illness, it almost seems too easy to begin to accept.

Back between 2012 – 2014, trust issues with my body were a serious problem I had. (READ: I Have Trust Issues. . . . )

And honestly, looking back on it, I can’t blame myself.

Having spent 2 years watching my body deteriorate and have problem after problem, it was hard to trust my body. Just like it’s hard to trust my brother from using all the data in our families phone plan every month (because God damn it, that kid makes it an art), it was hard to expect anything more from my body than what it consistently showed me.

BUT, over time working on my inner self and healing, I realized that I needed to focus on trusting in my body. I needed to reign in my distrust and bring back the love for my body.

Over the past few years, it’s something that I’ve really tried to embrace. Sure, there are times when distrust starts to creep back in, but we always have to have our sights focused on the end goal.

One big way to bring back the trust into life is celebrating all the victories that we can encounter – however small or big they are. I’ve talked about big ones like attending yoga conferences, getting back to walking and being able to overcome challenges – but there are small ones too. Like being able to brush my teeth without my hands hurting, being able to get out of bed and walk and being able to eat certain foods.

BUT – Pregnancy brought a whole new sense of trust for my body.

What I trust:

I trust the pain.

I trust my body.

I trust the process.

I TRUST THE PAIN

I’m not scared for labor. I’m not nervous about the pain. I’m not worried about handling it.

Why?

Because I’ve been through pain. I’ve been through constant, burning, stinging, ridiculous pain for YEARS. YEARS UPON YEARS where the pain was never-ending. Always there. Never a moment off.

Am I saying that labor won’t be painful? Oh hell no – I’m not saying that at ALL. I’m assuming it’s going to be painful. I’m assuming it’s going to be all-consuming, all-encompassing. I expect it to be.

I know I have tools to help TRY to make me as comfortable as I can be. And, at the end of the day, although an epidural isn’t the path that I WANT to take, the option is there to take.

But the biggest difference between childbirth pain and chronic pain is that I know it won’t last forever (even if it seems in the moment it is lasting forever).

Whenever I would lay in bed with my avascular necrosis pain, I never knew if it would stop. And you may laugh and say, “Julie, come on. At some point, you had to think you’d find a solution”. But honestly, back then I went to more than 29 providers and no one was giving me solutions to my pain problem. So no, I didn’t think there was an end in sight of pain back then.

But with childbirth. . . that’s different.

The pain of childbirth WILL eventually end. And it’s not dependent upon finding the right doctor, medication or person to help me. I know it’s not going to take 3.5 years of wondering if I’ll ever be able to live a normal life again.

Nope.

The pain of childbirth will end with birthing my baby either vaginally or through a c-section.

 

I TRUST MY BODY

I’ve never grown a baby before. I’ve never produced another human being onto this earth. But, miraculously, without me even trying, my body’s been building a little human for the last 9 months. The thought of it is mind-blowing.

With psoriatic arthritis, avascular necrosis and melanoma I can’t say I ever looked at my body to know 100% what to do at first. I know I needed to guide it and give it the tools to focus on healing.

Yes, my body knows exactly how to grow a human being (like what? that’s crazy to me), but we also need to support our bodies to do what they’re supposed to do. Just like in chronic illness. I truly believe that given half a chance our bodies will heal themselves, by themselves. We just have to give them half a chance to do so. And that’s the same with pregnancy. Giving my body the tools and resources it needs to be able to grow and birth a baby like a champ is something I’ve been focused on for the past 9 months.

So by supporting my body the best I can, I know that it will do it’s job. It’ll know when the right time to eject my precious little one out is. I know it’ll know how to go about the whole process. And if it runs into a hiccup, I know my body will be sure to let me know. I just need to listen!

During my pregnancy, I took a hypnobirthing class. I really feel like this was an essential class for me to take because tuning into our bodies is one of the BEST BEST BEST things we can do. Things don’t just happen for “no” reason. There’s always a reason. So if there’s pain, discomfort, etc there’s a reason.

By listening in, supporting, loving and trusting my body, I know that it will take me through the journey the best it can.

 

I TRUST THE PROCESS

And no matter how my process ends – in the natural birth I would love or with an intervention, I have to trust that my journey is playing out exactly as it’s supposed to be. Because at the end of the day, I’m just a small piece of this life puzzle. God is the one pulling the strings up there.

No matter how much I’d love to control how and when my baby is born, she’s going to come in her perfect timing. Not mine.

 

Pregnancy has absolutely brought out a new sense of body trust for me and I have to say I love it. I think as pregnant women with chronic illnesses we need to EMBRACE That body trust. Hold on to it. And don’t let it go after our babies are earthside.

 

Wishing You A Pain Free Day!