10 things I love about pregnancy

At the beginning of 20 weeks, I wrote a blog titled "10 things I hate about pregnancy". I realized I should write a blog about what I actually do love about pregnancy since pregnancy has been so great to me. Here is a listo f 10 things I love about pregnancy, they are in no specific order since most of the things I love don’t trump over the other things on the list.

10. Eating what I want when I want without having to worry about getting “fat”. This doesn’t mean I eat junk all day long, but I get to indulge in candy and cookies a little more frequently then I used to plus I have an excuse.

9. A growing belly – I love to take pictures each week and see how much my stomach has changed throughout the weeks. I think it’s amazing that there’s a little human inside of you.

8. The miracle of life – Going on with the thought of #9, I think it’s incredible to think that there is actually another person inside of you. When I think about the miracle of life it awes me and makes me 100% sure there is a God, not that I ever doubt it, but it makes my belief in the higher power so much stronger. Then of course my mind goes deeper into thought about how amazing it is each thing in life works a certain way, has a certain function, and was created to do a certain job. Is it not miraculous that a human being can carry nurture another human being into this world? It’s so hard to wrap my head around how amazingly we were created.

7. Having a mini-me. I can’t believe Eugene and I are going to have someone that looks like us running around. A lot of people say I look exactly like my mom and that’s great and I love that I do, but it’s insane that now there is going to be someone else that is going to have the same features as me that I created. Plus the fact that the one person that I love and I are going to have one thing that resembles and symbolizes both of us absolutely amazes me.  

6. A heartbeat means life, the only way to tell if someone is living vs. dead is by listening to their heartbeat. Being able to find and listen to the first sound of a heartbeat early on during pregnancy is probably one of the most incredible feelings. Not only do you get to hear the heartbeat, but you also get to know that you were the one that created the heartbeat. When one gets pregnant, life does not always begin. Sometimes the life that you tried to create dies and never reaches the point to have a heartbeat. Hearing the heartbeat is like winning the battle between the odds of life and death - the odds of life after hearing a heartbeat early on during pregnancy trumps the odds of death at about 4 in 5 ending with a living, healthy baby.

5. Building a strong family. I know that people have different views on family and just like everyone else, I have my own views. I think it’s important to have a strong foundation of family support. My mom raised both my brother and I on her own but we were also raised by my grandmother, aunts, and cousins. My cousins are like brothers to me and I loved the idea of knowing that I had a huge family, even though my immediate family only consisted of 3 people. Because of my own upbringing, I always knew I wanted to have a big family. Pregnancy is the first step to making this dream become a reality. I love knowing that I am starting my journey to creating a family.

Eugene didn’t have a very large family growing up. He has an older sister and his mother and father. He was never really close to his aunts, uncles, and cousins so he likes the idea that our children will have what he didn’t. If all else fails, at least they’ll have each of their siblings.

4. Support – I love knowing that pregnancy has brought me closer to my mother and even my mother in law. They are so excited for the little one and I have so much support from both sides of the family. Everyone is super excited for this new generation of Chons and its great to know that little one will have so much love and guidance. I love the support I am getting from all my friends as well. I even get random support from people I randomly meet.  

3. New friends – they say that in your life you have stages of friends and I really see this to be true. When I was in college, I had a core group of friends and then when I got married I lost and gained new friends. Now that I’m having a child, I have new friends that are also having/or have babies and I’m onto a new stage of friends. Not that I leave all my friends behind, but it’s nice to have new friends that can understand what I’m going through, help me with questions that I have, or just to talk to about everything big and small related to pregnancy. My old friends do like to hear about my pregnancy and how I’m doing but they just can’t understand what I’m going through, the emotional and mental background behind pregnancy and it’s nice to have friends that share my common state of mind.

2. My first signs of movement. It wasn’t until about week 20 that I felt my first signs of movement, little flutters that felt like gas pains. It really wasn’t until one of my friends explained to me what I should be looking for, that I really felt the exciting “butterfly in stomach” feeling. Now that I’m almost 25 weeks, I feel kicks and rolling around more frequently and I’m enjoying the feeling of knowing little one is making a home out of my body.

1. The relationship Eugene and I have gained through me being pregnant. Although I’m the one that’s pregnant, Eugene is just as big of a part of this pregnancy as I am. He supports me, helps me with things I can’t do on my own anymore, gets just as excited to feel little one kick, and basically goes through the same excitements that I go through; the only great thing is that he doesn’t have to deal with all the downsides that I do. Pregnancy has helped us get closer, realize that we need to work together to be great parents, and helped us mature in our relationship. We always sit and talk about “are you excited to have a daddy’s little girl?”, “will you be upset if your son doesn’t like sports?”, “what would you do if he/she decided to do this?” We can talk for hours about how we’re going to be as parents. We know that once the little one comes things will be different, but it’s always nice to debate, discuss, and compare how we want to do certain things as of now. I’m most excited about working with my best friend on having a family that WE want and not what anybody else wants or tells us to do.