One of the most memorable moments in those earlier days was when we discovered we were having a baby boy. This rush of energy came over me as we sat in the doctor’s office; suddenly, everything felt real, and I was surprised by how close I felt to my baby in that moment. For the first time, I felt like a mother. I was having a son. The surge of love I felt was something else, and I couldn’t wait to meet him and tell him how much he was going to be cared for, protected and loved by me and his daddy. I felt an innate sense of responsibility, followed closely by the intention that I will be the mother he needs me to be.
CHAPTER NINE
THE TRIMESTERS
Welcome to your new life. From hereon in, and certainly for the duration of the pregnancy, things are going to be a little different. Your body won’t seem like your own, more like an ever-inflating costume you can’t take off. Nor will your mind for that matter. On occasion, due in no small part to the dramatically fluctuating hormones, it will be quite normal to question whether you are completely losing your mind. Generally speaking, you’re about to experience an intense but wonderfully exciting emotional roller coaster.
You’re probably somewhere between ecstatic and terrified right now, but however you feel, there is so much to think about and adjust to that it’s enough to make your head spin. The initial weeks of pregnancy can often be such a discombobulating experience that you may well struggle to find your bearings. So much is changing physiologically, it’s only natural that it will begin to impact the mind and how you are feeling. And here’s the thing: you can do everything by the book – adhere to a strict diet, adopt an exercise regime, take the correct vitamins and have your physical health in tip-top condition – but if your head isn’t in the right place and the stress levels are through the roof, then you’re probably not even going to notice the benefits of all those things.
So much pregnancy and antenatal care focuses on the body, without giving proper attention to the health and happiness of the mind. This seems a little odd because pregnancy needn’t be something you just get through; it can be one of the most wonderful, empowering and enjoyable times of your life, but only if you’ve got a bit of headspace about you.
There are very few defined periods in life where we are so focused on both the journey and outcome for such a fixed period of time, making it an ideal training period to practise mindfulness. Sure, you’ll be learning as you go, but that’s the best way to learn. And hey, this isn’t just to stay sane while pregnant, this is for the transition into parenthood too.
At the junction between a mindful and a non-mindful pregnancy, there are really only two options: you struggle with, worry about, resist and sometimes resent what’s happening, wondering if your life is over, fighting unpleasant symptoms, feeling confused by emotions and finding it difficult to keep an equilibrium; or you accept that the experience won’t be easy, that it might not pan out the way you expect, and yet you embrace it none the less, learning the skill of mindfulness in order to find the calm in the storm – that quiet place you never thought could exist.
The mind is particularly powerful at this time, and the enormity of an event like pregnancy can sometimes seem too much to get our head around. It’s not surprising that some of us wonder about ever being able to cope. But, as if this is understood, nature kindly breaks down the nine months into distinct periods or trimesters. Of course, not all pregnancies adhere to the trimesters accurately or equally, but as a general rule, they can be approached as three manageable chunks of time.
In fact, the first month has pretty much gone by the time you receive the news. That’s because the forty-week term officially begins from your last menstrual cycle, so that’s week one already ticked off. Week two is the ovulation; week three, the conception; and week four is when the embryo implants itself into the wall of the uterus. So once your mind starts to grasp the reality – notwithstanding the early signs that may have made you wonder – you are already four weeks into the ride.
I say ‘ride’ because that’s the description of pretty much every mum I know. Sometimes it’s a bike ride, or a boat ride, or even a long car journey, but, more often than not, they compare it to a white-knuckle roller coaster that whizzes them through the entire spectrum of human emotion. Each trimester is different, with its own unique characteristics, so it’s interesting to see how the mind tends to behave through each twist and turn.
The first trimester is when the roller coaster pulls away from the station. You’re strapped in and already moving, approaching that initial steep incline. The mind can be particularly active at this stage. There is time to notice everything as you hear the click-click-click of the wheels, and to perhaps lean back over your shoulder, wondering who on earth talked you into this. The climb seems to take an age, allowing the tension and anxiety to build, as the thoughts begin to race. What if something goes wrong? What if I lose the baby? How drastically will my body change? Oh God, I feel sick. I want to get off! What am I doing? These first twelve weeks can be a worrisome time in which newly pregnant mothers are inundated with thoughts about the future. Then, at the crest of the incline, you’re ready for the first scan and the incredible sight of a two- to three-inch human being, with hands and feet. And you hear the magical sound of the heartbeat …
You drop, hands in the air, screaming out loud, accelerating into the euphoria of the second trimester. The G-force is so intense that it feels like you are floating, riding on air. Coming out of the dive, into a series of camel-back humps and more downhill runs, you might feel a little light-headed at times, but overall, you’re probably beginning to enjoy the experience.
But then, just when you thought you were getting the hang of it all, you move into the dramatic ups and downs of the third trimester; the emotions may spike, the mental commentary kicks back in and the anxiety grips you out of nowhere. Oh, crap, I’m having a baby! The climax of the ride is fast approaching, and you feel the tension and aches in your body. In a matter of weeks, you are going to be getting off this ride and climbing aboard another altogether more daunting one: parenthood. Every fear and worry you’ve entertained suddenly returns. Before you know it, you’re racing into the roller coaster’s signature sensation of the corkscrew – the delivery.
BIRTH PLANS
Before exploring each trimester in more detail, it’s worth looking at the much-discussed, much-deliberated ‘birth plan’. Of course, this written agreement between you and your midwife is both practical and sensible. After all, it is intended to be a valuable source of information should you be incoherent in the delivery room, or in the event that an intervention is required. In these situations, the birth plan is extremely useful, but only as long as you’re not attached to the idea of ‘This is exactly how it must be’. When it comes to giving birth, things rarely run to order. Consequently, when a birth plan starts becoming a fixed expectation – you want the lighting to be a certain way; you don’t want a C-section unless absolutely necessary, and even then the scar should go below the bikini line; and so on – then you are potentially adding another layer of tension to an already tense situation. Because what happens if, in the throes of labour, and for whatever reason, plans go awry? Having set out with very fixed wishes and a certain expectation, you are left feeling let down or disappointed, leading to upset or possibly resentment and self-recrimination.
A mindful approach does not preclude the need for a birth plan, nor does it discourage you from making the choices that are right for you and your partner. But what it asks of us is flexibility: a willingness to adapt to changing conditions, to let go of any hard and fast rules, to trust in the expertise around us and, first and foremost, to focus wholeheartedly on the health and wellbeing of mother and baby.
A mindful approach allows us to be present for each moment, to miss nothing, to be awake to everything, to watch as events unfold before us, and within us, as nature takes its course. A mindful birth is not something prescriptive, it is spontaneous in the truest sense of the word.
As our obstetrician, Dr Amersi, points out:
Every single birth I’ve witnessed is different and every single baby is different. Anything can happen. Quite simply, you can’t plan a birth, which is why I prefer the term ‘birth wish list’ – wishes are not as fixed as a plan. All you can do is talk everything through with your midwife. After that, the only plan you can realistically have is to deliver a healthy baby in the safest possible way.
Who knows? One day, we may well see a plan that simply states one intention: ‘To have a mindful childbirth …’
THE FIRST TRIMESTER
The first three months of pregnancy can be an exciting time – especially if having a baby has been a long-held dream. That said, it’s still hard to get a handle on the fact that you are going to be parents when there are usually no visible, outward signs, and often no real sense of an inner connection. This is unknown territory and so there may be a lot of trepidation and fear. In many respects, the mind is still trying to catch up with the physical event that is well under way.
When I wrote earlier that the aim of this book is to help you stay sane, I was thinking particularly about the first trimester: the hormonal tidal wave that affects mood and cognition; the knock-out fatigue that can make 5pm feel like bedtime; the nausea that can leave you throwing up four or five times a day; and the quite inexplicable food cravings and aversions. If you’ve found yourself slathering peanut butter and pickle on a slice of bread, feeling ill over the smell of your morning coffee or sitting in a restaurant telling your partner, ‘I need chicken soup. I. JUST. NEED. CHICKEN. SOUP!’ you’ll know what I’m talking about. Not to mention the other changes, which can really go either way: glowing complexion or acne and eczema; hair like silk or moulting like a cat; improved digestion or more flatulent than your partner; sky-high sex drive or zero libido. Due to the major fluctuation in hormones, the initial twelve weeks are without doubt the rockiest passage, and unless you’re someone who has always wanted kids, and are immediately plugged in, it can be a really tough time.
On that point of hormones, I feel women have had a bad rap for centuries, mainly because men have misunderstood what physiologically happens with their partners during pregnancy. For far too long, erratic, emotional behaviour has been dismissed as ‘crazy’ or ‘unhinged’, and this conditioning has even led to women feeling almost apologetic. ‘Oh, don’t mind me – it’s just my hormones.’ After all, the word ‘hysterical’ comes from the Latin word hystericus, meaning ‘of the womb’ – and one suspects a man came up with it because the original definition was ‘a neurotic condition peculiar to women, thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus’. I really don’t think that man’s understanding has advanced a great deal since that was written, but if there was one aspect of pregnancy crying out for more compassion, it is this one. There is good reason why your hormones are out of whack: when pregnant, there is an unavoidable surge in hormones because they are needed to support the womb. Without these spikes, the embryo couldn’t thrive. So yes, you may well feel emotionally out of control at times, and succumb to your hormones, but you can change your perception of why it’s happening – and it’s all happening in support of the baby. I hope this brings new context to this much-misunderstood side effect of pregnancy.
NAUSEA AND FATIGUE:
Around 75 per cent of women experience nausea and vomiting in the first trimester. I don’t know why they call it ‘morning’ sickness because it can last all day in many cases, feeling like a permanent hangover. To grow a human body requires a huge amount of energy; that energy has to come from somewhere, and right now it’s coming from you.
When feeling nauseous and exhausted, you will quickly see the mind’s initial instinct is to dwell on the suffering. ‘Ugh, I’m miserable.’ ‘Ugh, I’m exhausted.’ It’s easy to magnify the misery by getting caught up in it and perpetuating the storyline, but the key is to be present with the sensation. That’s the way to create some distance between you and the feeling, giving it space to do its thing and pass. So, rather than thinking about it and telling yourself that you are tired and you are sick, try stepping back and witnessing the sensation in the same way you’d witness a thought – that is mindfulness. There is a meditation designed to guide you through the trimesters at the back of the book but, for now, let me provide an example that a teacher once taught me. Read the following paragraph and then put down the book for a couple of minutes to try out this small exercise:
Firmly hold the tip of your left index finger between the thumb and forefinger of your right hand. Don’t look at it; keep your eyes looking up, dead ahead. The focus here is on the physical sensation which, unlike a thought, is very tangible. That’s not to say a thought won’t try and come in to distract you; if that happens, simply notice you’ve been distracted and come back to the sensation. OK, so it might be tempting to say that the finger ‘hurts’. But does it? Is it the whole finger or just one part? And what do we mean by ‘hurts’? What is the actual sensation? Is it a sharp pain or a dull pain? Is the sensation static or moving? If you feel a gentle throbbing sensation, do you also feel the gap between each throb? And is that sensation fast or slow?
Whenever we focus on a physical sensation, our curiosity is not analytical but observational, for that is what creates the distance between us and the sensation. It’s then no longer a case of ‘I hurt’, or ‘I’m in pain’, or ‘I’m miserable’ (caught up in the thought of it), it’s more ‘There is “this”’ (observable sensation). Likewise, when you feel a bout of morning sickness, you’ll see the mind’s initial instinct to dwell on and resist the discomfort, wanting to hold on to the security and comfort of feeling well again. But see what happens when you let go of that tendency; the result might just surprise you. When we let go of resistance, nothing but acceptance remains.
Let’s take fatigue as another example. You may well think, This is terrible – I’ve never felt this tired! Or I’m absolutely exhausted! And then you may ponder how much time you’re spending on the sofa, how you never used to be like this, and so you start to feel bad, and your self-worth takes a dive. See the downward spiral that just took place? As I write these words, I can almost hear Lucinda saying, ‘Now, hang on a minute – I was passing out by seven in the evening and nothing could wake me. That was hardly an idea!’ And she would be right – it’s not all in the mind. Hormone levels have spiked, blood sugar is down and your nutrients are being sapped by the placenta. These physiological changes are very real and have an impact on body and mind. So I am in no way suggesting that this is simply a case of overthinking! However, in these situations, we have a tendency (as human beings) to compound the difficulty, adding additional layers of thought and emotion to an internal storyline which only makes things that much worse.
The challenge is to be aware of the sensation, and to then focus or rest our attention on that sensation rather than thinking about it. This way, we get to witness the emotion instead of becoming the emotion.
So try bringing a gentle curiosity to whatever unpleasant sensation you are experiencing. Break it down, layer by layer, as we did with the index-finger exercise above: how does it feel? Where is it mostly felt? All over, or just one area? What’s its intensity? What’s its rhythm and consistency? If you can simply maintain an awareness – seeing what arises moment by moment – you will naturally be present and free from thought.
Whatever trimester you are in, the more fatigued, stressed, anxious and sleep-deprived you are, the more difficult it becomes to maintain awareness. But the more you have practised mindfulness beforehand, the more stable your awareness is and the more chance you have of applying it to difficult situations. The first trimester is difficult. Make no bones about it. But once you stop running away from that truth, things can begin to feel different. And in the moments when it really does feel too much, it might be worth stepping back and appreciating the precious human life you have been blessed with; from a compassionate perspective, there are countless infertile women
who would give anything to be experiencing such difficulties right now.
THE SECOND TRIMESTER
Hello blue sky! After twelve weeks of living against a backdrop of nausea and fatigue, the clouds begin to part and, if you’re lucky, you will start to feel the warmth of the sun on your back. There is good reason why this is considered the honeymoon period of pregnancy. Obviously it is not the same for all women, but most describe this as a time of excitement and increasing confidence, as though they are regaining a footing and finding a sense of rhythm. Needless to say, this is all relative. From personal experience, I can confidently say that I have never seen my wife look so radiant as she did at that time. It is that infamous ‘glow’, as though the entire body is simply oozing new life. This is one of the potential upsides of the hormonal changes – better hydrated skin and luscious hair.
That doesn’t mean that the hormones totally settle down. The ups and downs will still be experienced and resident anxieties remain, but the mood swings are not so intense and, physically speaking, the hormones appear to be working with you rather than against you. These changes may come as a welcome surprise to the partner too, as your appetite for food and physical closeness tend to increase. In fact, with what seems like a constant state of sexual arousal, I don’t think many women will be complaining either! Emotionally speaking, most women also say it’s a time for more personal thought and reflection, as if the second trimester represents the calm after the storm, offering time for both contemplation and preparation in equal measure. Dr Amersi points out that the mind can be particularly active as we sleep: ‘It’s normal to experience vivid dreams that can be sexually explicit or sometimes nightmares that involve the baby – it’s just the mind’s way of processing the anxiety and excitement.’
The Headspace Guide To A Mindful Pregnancy Page 9