Enormous Growth – Both Physical & Emotional

I wanted Pregnant in Cape Town to be all things to all pregnant women in Cape Town. A place to share in pregnancy experiences, to participate in a growing community and to be able to find everything they need locally during their pregnancy. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked out that way. As an overachiever, I overreached. I couldn’t be happy with just a blog, I wanted it to be everything to everyone. It’s a sign of growth to have realised that isn’t it?

I am a writer, that is what I do best. I am also a person who loves being there for people, supporting them through bad times and cheering them on through good times… From what those in my life say, I am really very good at that too. So I am refocusing my energy into doing those two things to the best of my ability. I am using my writing to share my own experiences to help others normalise the way they are feeling, hopefully bringing a smile at unexpected times and maybe a little insight into how things that seem bad today may appear altogether different tomorrow.

The forum has never caught on, so I am going to take it down from the site. I have Facebook and Twitter accounts where people can achieve the same as through forums; as a techie who worked in PR I should have recognised that up front. Every day we live and learn.

I am going to leave the resources page up and I do want to figure out a way to better present the information there. Even if I don’t manage to collect and collate all the local information before our little girl arrives in February, I do think it would be valuable to Cape Town’s pregnant community; so it will remain on my To Do list, just a little further down.

As my pregnancy progresses, I am fast learning that the only person I am letting down by setting myself endless extreme goals, is myself. Someone special said to me the other day that I need to be gentler with myself. I have had a wonderful hectic amazing whirlwind year and I need to slow down now and focus where I need to and start processing and incorporating those changes into my world.

I am loving working for myself and I am particularly excited about planning and creating the content for my amazing clients for the rest of this year and early next year, allowing me to focus on becoming a new mom and all that brings with it when the time comes. This makes for a busy few months ahead, but all on my own terms. I suspect that maintaining this little bit of control over my world for the next few months might ease some of the nerves for the rest of our lives, when that control will forever lie with first our little girl and then hopefully another little one as well.

Although change has always been an arch enemy of mine, I have discovered that when it is something that I choose rather than having it forced on me, it can be liberating. I chose all the changes that have happened this year with my whole heart and every decision has had amazing results. I chose to start a family, to be a mom, and so I am feeling stronger and hopeful and a lot less afraid of the changes that will bring than I have been.

I realise that often when reading my site, it may come across that pregnancy has been a harrowing experience for me, when in actual fact I know I have had it relatively easy. I blame the hormones in part and then secondly, the fact that I am a writer at heart – and creativity is often strongest with me in times of fear and pain and sadness.

I hope that my readers take this into account and know that although pregnancy has been really hard at times and it can be terrifying as well, it is also an incredible experience on many levels. I hope that even though I believe it is important for women to prepare themselves for the tough parts of pregnancy, all the positive changes I have gone through on a much deeper level have come through too. In a way, I feel that the fact that I have grown enormously physically is only a reflection of the enormous growth I have experienced emotionally 🙂