Pregnancy Weight Gain

So here I am more than halfway through my pregnancy and more than halfway through my second trimester.  Time is flying by so quickly!  Next week we move into our new apartment here in South Florida, and the week after that I board a plane heading west!  We have a baby shower in Oklahoma City on the 31st of January, and then another one the following weekend in Houston.  I am SO excited about getting showered with love and baby stuff for two back to back weekends!  Gifts have already started arriving and I frequently feel overwhelmed (in a good way!) with all the love there is out there for our sweet little Greysen and for me and Jonathan.  Man we are a blessed little family...our cups overflow!

Lately, I've been having a bit of a moral dilemma going on in my head.  Before getting pregnant it used to bug me when pregnant women would obsess over "getting their pre-baby body back".  I was bothered because I naively thought, "Geez...when the baby comes you'll lose lots of it!  Not to mention, give it up.  Your body will never be the same again."  I stress the word NAIVELY in this though.  Because now, in week 24 of pregnancy, I understand on a different level.  I cringe when I step onto a scale even though I really do know and understand that more than half of the extra weight I'm carrying is my baby, the organ I've grown to support him, and the fluid in my uterus.  But gosh if society hasn't messed with us women when it comes to weight and body image!  I have no logical reason to freak out about my 12 total pounds of weight gain.  No *logical* reason.  Yet here I am constantly thinking about that number and obsessing over how much of it will "go away" once my baby arrives...

It's SO stupid!  I mean really girls...it's STUPID to get discouraged over weight gain during pregnancy.  It's unavoidable!  And like I've said before, it's so incredible how our bodies change over time to accommodate the growth of our babies.  At least 1 of my 12 pounds is 100% Greysen.  And as he gets bigger, so will I!  And consequently, so will that number on the scale.  So I'm gonna resolve to continue eating the best things I can for my baby's health and try my darnedest to quit being so ridiculous about the number on the scale, or the added cellulite on my thighs, or that pudge that's forming in my neck/chin area.  In early May when my little boy makes his debut, I will see some radical weight loss, and that will be marvelous!  But my "pre-baby body" is a thing of the past.  I will never look the same again.  And praise God for that fact, because the alternative is that I keep my "pre-baby body" and never experience the amazing and miraculous things that my mommy body has gone through and will go through in pregnancy...

Greysen is worth it.  He is worth the aches and pains, he is worth the weight gain, he is worth the fatigue...he is worth every minute of discomfort and every change my body goes through.  HE is worth it ALL.  Shame on the media for getting in my head, but shame on me for forgetting the fact that it's just not about me anymore.  This is 40 weeks of pregnancy devoted to Greysen Neil Womack's growth and development inside my body, and the rest of my life devoted to being the best mother I can be to him.  He doesn't care one iota what I looked like before I gave birth to him...