our beautiful journey
fate- if it was meant to happen,
it will and if not then it won’t.
Growing up, I was the kid who skipped the sex education class that showed us the video of someone giving birth, and as I got older I was the one who would cringe and cover my ears when my friends told me their birth stories.
For as long as I can remember I was always terrified of pregnancy, labour, being a mother, and having another human solely relying on me to live. I never felt like I had a natural maternal instinct, I was always a little rough around the edges, and can easily be emotionally detached if I wanted to be. My fear of the whole process even played a huge part of me convincing myself for years that I did not want to have kids. When I reflect back it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be a mother or have children because I always said I had a desire to adopt a child one day and still do or at least foster.
Pregnancy scared me because of the uncontrollable changes my body would go through and the expectation that my body would never go back to the way it was pre-pregnancy and having to live with a body that didn’t feel like it was mine for the rest of my life. I could barely accept my body when I gained a few pounds and felt a little fat roll over my pants, how would I ever be okay with a big old pregnancy belly? and accepting my body after pregnancy. For years I use to secretly obsess over how uncomfortable I felt in my body and it led to some pretty dark years of overexercising, excessive diet restrictions, an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise, and body image dysmorphia.
Labour scared me because of the stories I heard and the movies I had watched. I didn’t believe that my body would know how to push a little human out of my body without experiencing a whole lot of trauma and pain. I was most terrified about having a big baby, tearing, and never feeling the same down there.
My fear of all this even manifested into thoughts of me thinking I could never actually get pregnant, or if I wanted to get pregnant it wouldn’t be without any interventions like IVF. And although I had all the right “signs” that helped convince me that getting pregnant wouldn’t be easy, I now wonder how much did my thoughts and beliefs influenced or exaggerated this perception. For years, I had either an absent period or very irregular period, I was diagnosed with PCOS by some doctors, other doctors told me I didn’t have it, I was even told by a gynecologist that she wasn’t sure if I could ever get pregnant and we won’t know until I was ready to try.
Because of this, I begin to live my life leaving it all up to fate. If it was meant to happen, it will, and if not then it won’t.
On December 17, 2019, Matt and I got the surprise of a lifetime - it was the day we found out that we were pregnant after a weekend of feeling the most nauseous I have in my entire life. The nauseousness started on Friday, I was on the couch the entire weekend, Sunday night we decided to call 811 because I was not feeling any better. The nurse on the line asked if I could be pregnant and we laughed and said no. She said I was probably dehydrated and to go to urgent care to get an IV put in. It was late so we decided to see how I felt in the morning. On Monday, I tried to hydrate, eat and tough it out because I hate going to the doctors and hate any walk in clinic even more. By Tuesday, I decided to drive myself to urgent care as I was not getting any better. I got checked in, I was told to pee into a cup and the doctor came in and was like “You really don’t haven’t any idea why you feel nauseous?” I said no and that was when he told me that I was pregnant. He must have seen the shock and disbelief on my face and he said that I did not have to tell anyone, decide anything, or do anything until I was ready. We talked about the options available to me and he prescribed me medicine to help with the morning sickness. Matt was at work and then was meeting his school group to work on a project. I knew the moment I told him I was done at urgent care, he would call and ask for an update. I tried to hold off telling him I was at home for as long as possible. Of course, as I expected the moment I told him I was at home, he called me. I did not want to tell him over the phone so I tried to just say we will talk when he got home. He asked if i was pregnant and I just kept saying we will talk when you get home. I tried to reassure him that I was okay but naturally he was worried and the anticipation was killing him. He followed our phone call with two text messages telling me that he would be ecstatic if I was pregnant and if I wasn’t that was okay as well. He also reassured me that whatever it was, we would get through it together.
One of my biggest regrets was not recording Matt’s reaction when he finally found out we were pregnant. I was sitting on the couch when Matt came home and I didn’t even have to say a word, he took one look at me and knew. A huge part of me wishes I could live in that moment over and over again, I don’t think there has been or will be another moment like that in our life even when we find out about our next child.
Shock and disbelief is an understatement of how we felt, but there was never a second or moment that we questioned whether or not we wanted to keep this baby. There was absolutely no doubt that this was meant to be and was exactly how everything was supposed to work out.
Months previously, Matt and I just started discussing moving in together in the near future. We were not in a rush as I didn’t want to leave my mom hanging as she was trying to figure out her next steps, however, the universe had other plans for us. A few weeks after this conversation, Matt got notice that he had to move out of his place in Olympic Village because his landlord was going to move back in. We discussed our options, chatted with my mom, and ultimately decided that it made sense for us to find a place together. We moved into our first place together on October 1st, 2020, we worried how living together would change our relationship as we both are introverts and needed our alone time to recharge. We quickly realized that our relationship thrived and we actually really enjoyed living together.
Since the beginning Matt and I had always balanced each other out, when I am down - he is up when he is down - I am up, no matter what. We understood, supported, took care of each other in every way possible, and this only gotten stronger now that we were living together.
Matt had told me before we started dating that his life purpose was to have children and there are no words to describe how happy I am to be able to make Matt’s dream and life purpose come true. He had been waiting to be a father for so long and my belief I could or did not want children was almost the sole reason I didn’t pursue a relationship with him over two and half years ago. I didn’t want to be the one who kept him from achieving his life purpose and never living his dream. Early on in our relationship, Matt and I had multiple conversations surrounding having kids, we talked about all the what-if scenarios, what we would want to do in each of those scenarios, and about our fears and worries.
From the beginning of our relationship I knew this one was going to be my forever relationship, I never knew what a healthy relationship was until I met Matt.
I always believed and knew that no matter what happened in our lives either individually or together, we would find a way to make it work, and always support each other.
And that was even more apparent when we found out we were about to embark on the journey of parenthood together.
Every single day, I am grateful.
Grateful for Matt because pregnancy, labour and taking care of our beautiful baby boy would be so much harder without the support and help from him.
Oddly enough, I also find myself selfishly grateful to have been pregnant and to have had our baby during the pandemic.
It has allowed us to really slow down, work from home, adjust to being home all the time, spend quality time together, eliminate unnecessary distractions, connect with others in ways we never would have, shift our perspective, and re-evaluate what is really important in life and to us.
