(Diary) Week 38: Will I Be Okay?
(Diary) Week 38: Will I Be Okay?
The answer is...
Welcome to my diary. These are entires I wrote during my own pregnancy. What you’re about to read is unfiltered, unedited, and perhaps a bit uncanny. But these are my raw feelings written in real-time. Everyone’s perspective and journey is different. This is mine.
Dear friend,
Jen Glantz here. I’m 38-weeks pregnant and this morning I woke up at 5am and felt something drop inside of my stomach. I imagined boxes falling down my uterus. I thought about the time I went to Disney and rode the Tower of Terror. It felt a lot like the finale of the ride. I laid in bed silent. Is the baby coming today? Okay, if the baby comes today, can I actually do this? Wait, I’ll need to do this. But before I was able to solve the riddles in my head, the feeling stopped. I got up. I felt completely normal.
I’m guessing this is how week 38 will feel. I’ll have many moments like this. I’ll have many odd bounces and jolts in my stomach. I’ll question, constantly, if my water is about to break or if I just need to let out one giant pee. Because the truth is, I don’t know how any of this is supposed to feel, so when I feel anything, it feels like everything, and when it turns out to be nothing, I just think:
Test runs. I love a good test run.
Some quick things I loved this week:
❤️ I don’t think people really talk about this but in addition to your body changing during pregnancy, your mind does too. I’m officially out of the weeks of pure panic and into the weeks of, “Okay, let’s do this.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m still scared out of my mind, but it’s less of a panic scared and more of a jump up and down scared.
❤️I asked friends to share their favorite postpartum recovery clothing and nursing bras. Everyone mentioned the same brand, over and over again, so I bought a box of stuff and loved it all. I filmed a try-on haul here. Everything is super soft, fits great (I sized up because I love comfort), and makes me happy to put on - which will matter during a time when I imagine my body will be a wreck. You can check them out here!
❤️Because I feel both happy and scared this week, I am reminding myself that when you feel conflicting emotions in life, at the same time, it’s a sign that you’re so freaking alive. So much so that you start to really widen your eyes and appreciate the tiny things in life. I’m so aware of everything right now. And I adore that feeling.
❤️I’ve been spending time spilling my thoughts on TikTok. Watch some of that fun stuff right here!
I can't stop asking everyone to answer this question:
Will I be okay?
The receptionist at the dentist's office tells me: yes, of course.
The sales associate at Madewell says: I really do think so.
The ice cream scooper at Oddfellows doesn't say anything. He just adds another scoop of sprinkles to my vanilla cone and doesn't charge me a penny for any of it.
But when I ask Adam, his response is in his eyes.
"Yes!" He'll say, because he has to. Because if he said no, he knows I'd put on a one-woman Broadway show of emotions and dance moves that would just never end.
So he says yes in the way you say maybe, or I hope so, or what kind of questions is this, Jen?
I ask the question a lot, mostly after interrupting a good moment we're having to proclaim it as our last:
"Do you realize this could be our LAST Sunday together...just us?"
"Do you think this will be the LAST time we laugh this hard?"
"Do you think we'll ever get to sit here and eat pizza like this?"
And after we've both accepted that yes, this might be the last day, last hour, the last few minutes that we live life this way, forever, I hit him with the question of:
"Will we be okay?"
And the truth is, it's not like I need strangers to tell me that I will be, and it's not like I need my best friend to tell me that either, and even though I try to study Adam's body language to look for any clues that he's lying when he blurts out: YES!
I'm not looking for him to tell me that either.
It's taken me weeks to be able to say this, months to be able to feel this, and even after I admit this to you, I might have a moment where I try to hit the edit button, where my fear begs me to take it all back:
But I know the answer is yes and the only person I really need to hear it from is:
Myself.