I am finding myself a bit more at ease with how I treat my body during pregnancy. I have always felt the struggles of maintaining a certain size, and wanting to look a certain way, and I do feel like I have let some of that go.
I do feel beautiful, but it’s also really weird to be what seems like a new size or a new shape every day! I think some of us are always going to feel a level of pressure when our clothes don’t fit. I am purposefully trying to avoid that feeling as much as I can now. I want to be healthy, but also properly listen to what I feel like eating. In my first trimester I would have a smoothie and then a croissant with cheese every day, which I haven’t had for years, but one day I woke up and had to have one and thought, ‘this is everything I need right now’! I am honouring my cravings and what I truly feel like, which so far has been plainer food, carbs, and salt. I am trying to bear in mind eating nutritiously, too, though I hold no shame towards however anyone eats any time, let alone when they’re pregnant. There is so much mum shaming out there, and it starts in pregnancy! There are so many pressures to be eating a certain way and to be exercising and to be conforming, but you have to do what’s right for you; what you do is your choice. We mustn’t stigmatise any behaviours, because all that does is encourage people to do it in secret. You need to be honest with yourself and others about what you want, because there might even be an underlying reason behind it which you haven’t addressed, a physical deficiency or a psychological or emotional issue. I think our bodies try to tell us what we need, so we need to make sure there’s an environment to openly talk about what we’re eating and feeling.