Becoming Mum!

It’s decided, you’ve done it, you’ve had all the conversations, worked everything out, considered all angles and actually managed to conceive – you are doing it!

Or, you skipped all the pre-planning, discovered you’re pregnant and in the headiness of it all thought – yep, I want to Become a Mum!

You embrace those beautiful wistfully exciting weeks, maybe even sharing the news with a few treasured and trusted others and then things start to change, and it hits you physically & emotionally ‘Oh Shit! I really am Becoming a Mum!

Or was this just me? Although this was a good few years back now for myself, I can still vividly recall the moment the panic set in. the following list of concerns rang out loudly in my head for weeks

1)      Can I do this – I knew by body was pretty fit but did it work properly for this

2)      How painful will it be – can I handle it?

3)      Do I have to stop going out now? I did like to party, dance & drink, girls holidays etc

4)      When should I tell work – what will they think of me?

5)      Will I cope financially, where will I live ( I lived in a shared flat at the time – not ideal)

6)      Will I be able to name the baby what I want? random but I recall genuinely thinking this I have no idea why but I recall the midwife laughing.

It is fair to say Becoming a Mum is fraught with big emotions, I careered between fairly average concerns to high speed thoughts like a runaway rollercoaster and on a daily basis and all this ends up so tightly held within this new pregnant body – which remarkable seems to just know what its doing. I remember thinking my body appeared so certain of all the changes but my head just couldn’t keep up, I wasn’t ready.

This time of joy and excitement was quite frankly hijacked in the beginning for me and I needed to retreat to my ‘safe space’ which just happened to be fitness. I was living a great lifestyle, teaching at events, hosting 25 classes a week (I can barely do 2 these days) but I decided to step back from all the pregnancy hype and take one step at a time, one of my kind of steps – small and measured until I felt ready, and yes I kept on teaching (although reduced timetable) up till 2weeks before my birth! I needed the normality still.

However, I walked in to that first midwifery appointment with a list as long as your arm – that poor nurse. Over the next months the same list remained in the front of my little red book. Questions were added and scribbled out as the answers appeared to me. I became expert in asking things, in fact I just didn’t care, I needed the information. It didn't feel forth coming enough for me so I learnt quickly to ask. I remember thinking this is what mums do isn’t it, they sort things out and make things happen. I thought this is me Becoming Mum.

Did you experience the ‘It Just Hit Me’ moment, that moment of wow this is really happening type thought.

Let me know your experience and how you handled it.