Welcome to Kim Crossman’s column, Pretty Pregnant – this week, Kim is feeling the duality of pregnancy: she’s looking forward to being a mum, but also, has anyone out there felt like they just want to stay pregnant? Like they will grieve their pregnancy belly? Kim’s also grieving a big loss in her life, fighting some overwhelm, but also, has some very exciting things to share.
Missed her last edition? Click here to catch up!
I’m now 32 weeks and in the final days of my LA chapter before I fly back to New Zealand for the last few weeks of pregnancy and birth, and I am feeling all the feels.
This week I had to put my 17-year-old cat Little down and I think it opened a wound of mourning, so forgive me if the top part of this week’s check-in is a little more somber, but it’s honest and in embarking on this column I vowed to be fully transparent and raw, so here we go.
The passing of my cat Little brought up the need in me for some consistency and how, although she was elderly, she was always on the couch or the bed, always purring with the slightest little pet and always craving warmth. I think in a life where I am almost addicted to an element of adrenaline, chaos and a complete aversion to routine, having pets usually means there is some form of consistency in your life. They are almost always reliable in their personalities and their behaviours, and it’s not until losing her this week that I felt this huge wave of realisation that everything is about to change.
Now I know you are most likely thinking, duh Kim, you are pregnant, of course everything is about to change!! And you would be right, but I think it didn’t really occur to me until this week as I get ready to leave my place in LA and travel home. Soon I will not have a bump (which I adore), and I will be in NZ and be a mother. All things I want and am excited for, but also all things that have felt like they were ages away, and this week I realised that it’s literally just around the corner.
Finding out you are pregnant at just four or five weeks means that the journey does feel long and endless in some ways. Possibly because I am emotional, it feels like the end of a life chapter and the start of a new one that I am feeling a duality of things this week. Losing Little opened a wound that I didn’t know was waiting in the wings of my heart and I want to honour it while I can before, what I can only imagine will be a pretty hectic few weeks in Auckland, as I really get to work in terms of prepping for the arrival of this little one.
As I write, I think perhaps one of the emotions at play is overwhelm. Because I haven’t been in Auckland, I have been kicking the can down the road when it comes to buying things like strollers, cribs, clothes, anything that I will need, and now I have condensed it into a small window which I can now say is perhaps not the best thing to do haha.
I feel it is worth mentioning again, that I welcome the change and the new chapter. I have wanted this and I am looking forward to it. I just am always looking ahead in life and don’t often take pause to look back and reflect much, and this week has forced me to do that in an odd way that has made me want to pause time for a moment just to catch up with myself.
Has anyone else had this moment in pregnancy where you just need a minute to let your emotions and life catch up to the moment you are currently in, yet as time works you feel you are catching up?? I haven’t felt like this often and perhaps that is why it’s so foreign to me. I am usually the one with the foot on the gas to get to the next thing. I have always been one to embrace change and difference yet here I am wishing things would move a little slower. From what I have read this is not a common feeling in the third trimester as social media shows me mums who are ready to go with everything sorted and are eating dates and drinking raspberry tea to get things moving quicker. Help.
Tom headed back to New Zealand a couple of weeks ago for work so I guess it’s also not a huge surprise that I have realised this week these are my last few days alone, alone in the sense of just me as a human in a space. As baby kicks inside me, me and baby are alone in this form for the last time and that’s made me sad too. We are a little team and I am going to work really hard to use the tools I have learnt in the past six months in therapy and in pregnancy to be able to return to the peace and calm I have been exercising even when my outside environment changes drastically.
Don’t get me wrong, I am so looking forward to being surrounded by all my amazing friends and family, it’s just been a new development during pregnancy where I haven’t minded being alone. For context, I would avoid this at all costs usually prior to pregnancy. Being alone is when my depression and self-doubt would creep in, but recently and perhaps because I have reframed it as belly bonding time, I have grown to enjoy our little moments of stillness.
Okay, enough of my sadness, let me pivot to what is bloody epic that is happening so you don’t feel like I have just trauma dumped on your eyes and ears.
I physically still feel great. I have decided that kick counting is the most stressful and unhelpful thing in the world, so I have removed that from my experience. It is said that you should eat, then lay on your side and count about ten kicks in an hour. Well, this baby decided not to kick once during that test so nope, we are not doing that anymore. They say children can test and mirror the part of you that you need to work on yourself. I am guessing an addiction to achievement and results might come up again in my journey as a mother, you heard it here first.
I have been doing some hip stretching daily based on some videos I have been watching online and I have stopped craving as much carrot cake or cake in general.
Bump looks great, I have been showing it off which is something I didn’t think I would do early in pregnancy but a) my clothes don’t fit me and b) the response to an exposed bump seems to give people joy and Americans are great at yelling out compliments. If you are having an average day, a walk anywhere in LA in public will turn that around. People compliment outfits, style, energy, everything. They hand out compliments as much as Kiwis avoid eye contact haha. It might be slightly delusional, but I love it. Tom and I were walking in West Hollywood, and it was like we were in some kind of opening titles of a TV show. People were popping out of shops yelling across the street. I have never felt more fabulous and sweatier simultaneously, it was divine.
Now to my questions for the week as there are a few decisions I do want to marinate on before I land in NZ:
- Has or does anyone know about cord blood storage or have they done it? It sounds like an amazing thing that could be life changing.
- Do you have any must have products that might not be on the printed baby lists online?
- Do you have anything that you never used, that is overpriced or not worth it? This would be really helpful to know if I can avoid spending money on something that will just collect dust, I would be so appreciative.
- Strollers, keeping in mind we will be a nomadic family. If you have one you love or wish you got, please let me know so I can narrow down a list.
- Do I collect colostrum? Is that a thing? I think breastfeeding will have its own chapter here in a few weeks when I get my head around it a little better, but I can get colostrum collection kits in LA for very cheap, but again, is this something I need to do? Any help would be appreciated.
As always, I adore this growing community and appreciate all the amazing advice and tips from you all. It has made this journey feel so full in so many ways and I am forever grateful.
x
