I Surrender

 

During Pregnancy #4, I’ve been thinking a great deal about Surrender.

During my first few pregnancies, I spent energy trying to fight the symptoms and drawbacks of pregnancy, trying to control and manage something that is, I have discovered, uncontrollable.  

Fighting against pregnancy and its limitations is easy to fall into.

On my Pinterest feed the other day this headline caught my eye, “How to Have a Belly-Only Pregnancy.” It was a work-out/diet program sold by the author that would ensure that you only gained just enough weight for the baby to grow and would keep that ugly pregnancy weight away from the rest of your body. The writer of the post looked slender, beautiful and fit at 9 months of pregnancy.  

Part of me wanted to click on that link. Maybe she knew a secret I didn’t? Somehow I didn't think it would be a good idea for me. 

There are lots of lies about natural childbirth out there, too. Usually, it is because someone is selling you a program or an ideology that promises pain-free labor IF you will buy their product, do their exercises, and brainwash yourself sufficiently to believe what they tell you. Of course, if you buy their product and you still have pain in childbirth, well, that implies that it was probably your fault, and you’re pretty much a failure. As if labor is the Final Exam at the end of a college course.

For a person like me, who believes far too much in working hard, studying, and that my worth lies in making my own success (not a Biblical idea, by the way,) these sorts of ideologies are attractive…and dangerous. They are also, at least for me, untrue.

During pregnancy, I will gain weight, I will be exhausted, my brain will become unreliable, I will be cranky, I will often be nauseous, and unless the Lord blesses me with a remarkably easy labor, childbirth is going to be intense. I am planning another home birth for this child like my last 2 births, but there are no guarantees. A hospital transfer happened with my first labor, and it can happen again. I am trying to surrender to all possible outcomes. 

 These things used to be bother me more because I used to fight them.

“No,” I would say to myself, “This will not keep you down! You will still do all the things even though you are pregnant! You are not weak.”

Or I would become frustrated like a petulant child who wants to go out and play instead of having the flu, “Why do I have to feel like throwing up all the time?! Why am I so tired? Why do my joints hurt? It’s NOT FAIR!”

All the frustrations, all the fighting, all the fears, all the tantrums….they don’t help. They don’t alleviate my symptoms one single bit. In fact, they make them worse, because now I’m not just tired, achy, and nauseous, now I’m tired, achy, nauseous, AND angry, fearful, and frustrated. In fact, the sooner I lay down, the sooner I eat or drink, or do my stretches, the sooner I relax and allow myself to just BE, the sooner I begin to feel better. This pregnancy has been the easiest of all my pregnancies- perhaps because my body is used to pregnancy, and perhaps because I have surrendered.

I have a note on my shower wall that reads, “Surrender- It’s not so bad over here in surrender-land.” It helps me to relax and breathe, even when I’m frustrated because I’m about to throw up after brushing my teeth.

Surrender is not the same as letting yourself go. I follow my Trim Healthy Mama eating plan as closely as possible and have a personal contract witnessed and signed by my children that keeps me accountable. I use a daily to-do-list, I try to take walks, and I try to take very good care of my body. But like it or not, I’ll probably gain just about as much at this pregnancy as I gain at all my pregnancies- and especially near the end, I will feel as if I am the size of a small boat.

I’m alright with that- because that’s what it takes to grow a healthy baby, and to take care of myself along the way. It's part of what God created me to do- and I'm blessed to have this new soul growing inside of me. 

I surrender.  And now I’m going to take another nap.