If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you saw me participating in a personal challenge I designed to help myself try to have a more positive pregnancy experience for the month of January. It was called, “Connecting with My Body to Connect with My Baby.”
I decided to do this challenge because, after experiencing two miscarriages, I had wanted to avoid turning to escape coping to manage my pregnancy anxiety (as I have with my last two pregnancies). If you haven’t read my Blog Post titled: Pregnancy After Loss: My Personal Challenge to Connect with My Body and Baby After Experiencing Pregnancy Loss, make sure to check that out. It details my journey related to pregnancy loss as well as pregnancy after loss, shedding additional light on why I chose to do this challenge.
The challenge is over and now it’s time to recap! Which is what I’ll be doing in this Blog Post. I’ll discuss my findings, overall feelings, and the impact this challenge has had on my pregnancy experience.
Table of Contents
Impact of Challenge on My Emotions
Surprises During This Challenge
Recap of Challenge Activities
Let’s start off by recapping this challenge and the activities I engaged in for the 31 days.
At the beginning of this challenge I was 22 weeks pregnant and had been starting to feel some movement for a few weeks prior. During my last pregnancy (with my son) I had a lot of anxiety over fetal movement. Specifically, how much I was supposed to feel… and I’d panic when I didn’t feel him moving often enough. To cope, I would turn to escape coping strategies, such as doom scrolling social media, binge watching tv, over eating, or just getting overly engrossed in my work day, so that the time would fly by and I’d forget or I’d feel numb and I wouldn’t have to think about it.
When I first began to feel movement during this pregnancy, I decided I wanted to lean into feeling it instead of avoiding it. I started by keeping a log of all movement I felt for the first week. Each time I felt movement, I’d log it in my phone. I did this under the premise of, “What you give attention to you will notice more of.”
I also began doing daily grounding exercises to practice connecting with my body. Some of the exercises I did included:
- The 5,4,3,2,1 Grounding Exercise
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation
- Interoceptive Awareness (Can You Feel Your Heartbeat)
- Grounding Nature Walks
- Box Breathing
- Mindfulness Exercises
- Guided Body Scan Meditations
After the first three weeks, I began to notice an urge to start connecting with my baby in more bold ways. Ways that hadn’t felt “safe” during my previous pregnancies. For example, I began talking to my baby when I felt her move and placed an ultrasound photo on my desk where I could see her regularly while I worked. I purchased some baby clothes, hung them in the closet where they are visible, began making a hospital list, and started looking around for nursery items. These were things I hadn’t allowed myself to do while pregnant with my son either at all or until I was at least about a month into my third trimester.
Impact of Challenge on My Emotions
Overall, this challenge definitely impacted my emotions in a positive way. I feel focusing on connecting with my baby daily helped me to really embrace this pregnancy instead of wanting to avoid or escape it. I think this is because I was making a conscious and intentional choice to do so every day. I will say it felt really good around the 4th week of this challenge when I allowed myself to get excited about meeting her. I felt proud of myself for lowering my “walls” instead of doing what I had always done in the past, which was to try to be optimistic but suppress my excitement (just in case it didn’t work out).
It wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine however. When I really began to take more bold actions, I did feel some heavy emotions. For example, my grief came through. Grief from previous losses. Grief over the way I hadn’t tried to connect with my son while pregnant with him. Grief from having to be so worried during pregnancy instead of simply enjoying it like some other women get to do. But instead of trying to avoid or stuff my grief as it arose, I was able to witness it, without judgment, and move through it. And this gave me a sense of peace…that no matter what happens, I’ll be okay…because I’m capable of healing.
Surprises During This Challenge
I did have a couple of surprises during this challenge which, in the past, would have really sent me into a full on anxiety spiral, but I’ve actually been able to roll with them pretty well.
First, at my anatomy scan, I learned that my baby’s umbilical cord is attached at the edge of the placenta instead of the middle. There’s a medical term for this but I can’t recall what it is…forgetting medical terminology almost immediately after hearing it is one of my super powers 🙂. Anyway, this can sometimes cause issues with fetal growth. The doctor told me that, at this point, she is growing just fine and there is no reason to believe I won’t have anything but a healthy pregnancy. I just have to have an ultrasound every four weeks, just to keep an eye on it. I’m proud to say I was able to keep my anxiety in check after receiving this news and allow myself to accept the doctor’s reassurance, which would have not been the case in the past.
Second, I learned I have gestational diabetes. So far my blood sugar numbers aren’t bad. They’re pretty good actually. And I’m actually looking at it as an opportunity to learn more about my body and how it reacts to different foods. It’s just another challenge! I’m proud that I’ve been able to keep a positive mindset about this instead of leaning into fear of the future. I don’t believe I would have been able to maintain such a positive mindset in the past.
Other Considerations
Realistically, I don’t believe my positive mindset and experience over the last 31 days is solely due to having engaged in this challenge. While doing this challenge helped force me to move through this pregnancy with intention, making conscious choices to connect versus avoid, it takes more than 30 days of grounding exercises to get over the trauma of pregnancy loss. I do feel, however, this challenge was the final “push” I needed, to shift my mindset and let go of fear.
And I’m not saying I’m completely over the trauma from my previous pregnancy losses. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s even realistic to expect myself to ever experience the same excitement and pure joy as someone who has never experienced pregnancy loss. But I feel as though I’ve gotten to the point where I’m ok, no longer running from my emotions, and that feels…beautiful!
I will also say, I would caution anyone who does not feel as though they’re mentally and emotionally ready to “push” themselves to connect with their body like this, whether they’ve been through pregnancy loss or any other sort of trauma where they are coping by escaping their body. I’ve done a lot of work on myself the past two years to help myself move through the trauma of pregnancy loss. I’ve sought therapy, shedded maladaptive coping strategies, integrated self-care into my daily routine to help myself cope with my emotions, worked to develop my intuition and feel more connected to my body (even when I’m not pregnant), and leaned into self-love. The work I’ve done is what helped me to feel ready to do this challenge. It would not have been such a positive experience for me had I not done the work.
Thank you for reading this post! Before we say goodbye:
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