Strength and Beauty

[Got your attention, didn’t I?]

When a woman is pregnant (you are getting nervous, aren’t you, unsure where I am going with this) and entering the third trimester (which I am) that little baby is putting on mass in an exponential fashion. And the hard part about all this is that the baby is sitting high thus throwing your body forward. Your lower back, hips, hamstrings all try to compromise by tightening back up and straightening you out so you don’t fall foward. I think somewhere my husband read how women’s spines are formed a bit differently from men thus making it possible for us to carry such loads on our front sides.

This pregnancy I have been experiencing more pelvic pain and sciatica pinching and have felt desperate for some relief. I ended up going to a massage therapist that I discovered in my church yesterday. I am a big fan of massage therapy so when they suggest I take my underwear off, I take the underwear off.

It’s worth it. Trust me. I had the best butt massage yesterday. Feeling it today though. As another massage therapist used to call it (butt massage, that is)–strumming a guitar. Kind of cute and very accurate when you consider the muscle design.

So if a massage therapist ever suggests taking off your underwear, do it. Let him/her strum your guitar, so to speak (giggles).

In oncology nursing we talk regularly about compassion fatigue–when your caring of really sick and terminal patients begins to take a toll on you as the caregiver that you become unable to doll out the compassion and care you normally would be able to give. You find yourself having little emotional outbursts, not wanting to get involved, feeling more depressed and triggered by loss, and just unhappy in general, especially at work. And so very much of this compassion fatigue is rooted in letting others needs take over your life to the point that you have completely neglected the fine art of ongoing, authentic self care. I have been caught in this trap and unable to recover until I pull away and get some perspective and learn that leaving on time to go home to my family is more important for all then working my ass off in a job that can literally suck the life out of me.

Which brings me to my current area of fatigue–mommy fatigue. This morning I dropped Audrey off at Michelene’s (which is so wonderfully convenient being two blocks away) and I practically sprinted to my car to be on the road to work with glee oozing out of me. FREEDOM!

I have spent the last four days with that little girl and for the most part she is utterly delightful, surprising me all the time with her brilliance. But there are other times where she is learning to be rude, disrespectful and unkind. The time out chair is now permanently in the corner by the piano and her little butt is planted there what seems like every two hours or less. I even had to take her out of a store yesterday and plant her on the curb and gave her a good talkin’ to.

I am so glad I work on days like today. Most of the time, I feel slight resentment that I am forced to work a part time job so that my family can have health care insurance. But not today, friends; today, I am glad to have a break from that little Audrey Anne.

My heart goes out to all you full-time mommy’s who don’t have a job to go to on days where you are feeling high levels of mommy fatigue. May you experience a new dose of strength, kindness, and patience for those children of yours. And may I suggest some good ol’ fashioned self care this evening…glass of wine, a walk bare foot on the beach, schedule a massage, take a bath.

You know your belly is growing exponentially when:

1. You go to make a copy at the copy machine and before you have laid down the document into the feeder, your belly accidentally taps the copy button and makes an image of your arms laying the paper down.

2. You are massaging a friends shoulder’s at work who is completely stressed out. You are standing behind her chair and for some reason you can’t get close enough and your body mechanics seem off. You look down and realize, “Oh, there is a belly in the way.”

3. You go to lay flat on your belly in your big king size bed to read a book and flirt with your husband and there is something in the way and it feels like a volleyball that all of a sudden snuck up and placed itself between you and the bed. Curious.

4. Your shirts aren’t quite covering your mid section the way they used to.

5. Your toes are beginning to disappear when you look down.

6. You are placed flat in the dentist chair, and maybe just a bit in trendelenburg, and you all of a sudden feel a bit short of breath as the weight and mass of the baby in the womb slides north into your diaphragm.

7. You put your hand on your belly that once used to feel soft and smooshy with lots of woman curves and chub and now it is starting to feel hard and bubble like.

8. You first start feeling the little baby move around way down in your pelvis, kind of like a little butterfly fluttering its wings or a bubble popping. And all of a sudden, you are quite sure there is a little head pushing up above your belly button, jumping, as it seems on a pogo stick, on your bladder. Lovely.

9. You bend forward all prepared to tie your shoe and realize that this isn’t working so well. You can’t breathe and it is a bit painful. You are forced to put your foot up over your leg to reach the laces.

10. It has happened…your belly has almost instantaneously become a nice shelf to prop a book on when reading in your recliner. Fantastic!

[Enjoying my growing belly these days and finding it quite beautiful, actually.]

Every two years or so I try to remember to hand over my cherished wedding bands to our dear Sara at Cottage Jewelry to have the white gold rhodium’d cleaned (I can’t remember the official name of this process). But essentially it makes the ring sparkley and like new. They professionally clean the perfect blue sapphire my beloved picked out just for me so that the blue is crystal clear and deep like a crater lake. I had dropped the rings off weeks ago and haven’t had time to pick them up.

Last night, as I was chopping bell peppers, cucumbers and carrots for the salads, Ivan pulls out a little plastic bag and I knew instantly what it was…my heart leaped with excitement. As I ripped off my other rings that were in their place, I reached for the dazzling “new” wedding rings and slipped them on as if it was for the first time. I declared, “I feel like a newly married woman,” flashing my glittering rings under the lights of the kitchen.

Oh, to have my sapphire back on my finger brings me great pleasure. Thank you, my love, for picking out a truly lovely ring to adorn my hand as a reminder of the promise you made to me long ago.