y’all, i love this bump. i really do. but i hope i do not have another bump day post next week. i hope i have a baby. in arms. not in belly.
i officially have a big sister on my hands. the photo below is of darla telling the baby he/she has a “stinky poop toot butt.” this sounds like older sister teasing at it’s finest already.
sigh. all the love for this rounded belly.
dear baby,
i baked a stock of biscuits for the weekend. and there’s jam. this means we’re ready to meet you.
bump day this week is another homage to our baby shower when i was growing darla. i’m happy to keep this circle and tradition going with her. i asked her to draw her prediction of whether this will be a little brother or sister.
she set to work with her predictions….
and prophesized that i would be giving birth to…
Bubbles from the PowerPuff Girls.
and of course she wanted to sign her artwork.
so now we just wait and see if her predictions are correct…
let’s play a little game of pregnant, not pregnant!
pregnant…
not pregnant!
pregnant…
not pregnant!
yep, pregnant.
it’s really all about perspective, huh folks?
i enlisted the help of my family for this week’s bump day post.
i’ve gazed upon the freckle constellations of this belly now for months and thought it would be fun to have darla and mike take this belly swell on as an art project. so together, darla and mike mapped out a picture from these here abdominal spots:
it was at this point that darla decided she wanted in on the belly art and asked for a “baby monarch butterfly.” She wasn’t very happy when she realized mike had given her what she asked for and what she asked for was a caterpillar. mike finished the job and she and i had a good time strutting our matching belly art for the rest of the night.
i love my growing family and i love this growing belly. this week has given me the desire to get darla in on the belly face action that was started at our baby shower for her. i’d love to let her take a crack at drawing her prediction of baby brother or baby sister on my midsection.
i wonder if her version would turn out better or worse than the collaboration of a room full of drunken adults…
{ps. her baby shower still remains one of my favorite nights of life ever. sending love to all the wonderful humans who were present that day. ♡♡♡ }
yesterday, i got to peek at the person who makes this belly swell and round. it was my first and only ultrasound of this pregnancy. this baby has done a beautiful job growing. but i’m glad that i don’t need an ultrasound everyday to know that. i have a daily reminder and it’s there every time i look down.
i love this baby and i love this motherly body. i love this belly swell. bring it on, baby. round me out.
“as we grow older we should become not less radical but more so.” margaret laurence ~ author
so i was struck with inspiration after seeing this in the feed of one of my instagram faves. i thought i would include this here for a little context and sort of as a warning sign.
if you think this photo is objectionable then you should probably “turn back while you still can. this is not the way. take heed and go no further.”
if you think this photo is awesome, incredibly poetic and quite humorous then you’re probably ok to proceed for this weeks bump day photos.
my
versions
are nowhere near
as good as that gorgeous
photo up there though.
i absolutely love that quote. i feel that one of the gifts of womanhood is that many of us regain that whimsical and wild as we get older. i envision myself as an older woman, wearing about 15 turquoise necklaces and driving an el camino at age 75 just because i want to, dammit. but at this stage of my life what i can achieve is to radically and unabashedly love my body the way it is at this moment. a friend of mine once spoke about not bashing the way you look in photos right now because some day those are the photos you’re going to pull out and say “oh, if only i still looked so good.” i know that even though i think i look unbelievably huge in these photos, i’ll be pulling them up in the future saying “oh, if only my belly was still so taught and full of life!”
my belly has really bloomed over the past week so the symbolism of the flower and this time of year combined with the quote held a special magic for me. i know these are really just pretty lame selfies i took in my bedroom but i love them just the same.
thanks for indulging my radical.
i couldn’t pick just one image for bump day this week so i just decided to include both. i feel they gel together nicely by highlighting new things happening to my body. darla likes to keep track of how far her finger *doesn’t* go into my belly button anymore. thanks, kid. i never got an outie with her but it did get pretty darn flat. we’re getting there.
i really like the second image because it shows how my body is folding over and resting on itself in new ways. well, in truth, it always folds over and rests on itself in more places than i would like but at least when a baby is in there it’s for a purpose. and i was wearing my Frankie Says Relax shirt as a reminder…hey, relax…it’s only a baby belly on the internet. no biggie fries.
mmmm biggie fries…
hanging out by the window with my bump b/c my bump is so serene and prolific. yeah.
i think i’ve crossed the threshold of everything just feeling really big from here on out. ain’t it wonderful? getting big is a good thing. one of the nice things about subsequent pregnancy is knowing that 3 more months of being big is a really short amount of time. during a first pregnancy 3 more months seems like an eternity but now…i think i have a more accurate idea of just how quickly 3 months will slip by in relation to the rest of my life.
this person will be here before we know it.
this post is here to tell you how wildly proud of my baby belly and mama body i am.
you have probably noticed from this blog and other social media that i’m not really one to keep it all under wraps or covered in a mu-mu. i love the way my body looks pregnant and i’m not really sorry about that. i think pregnant bellies are beautiful and i wish more of them were out there in the real world for us to see, not just slapped in advertisements to get us to buy things. because that’s the only time skin bared on a woman is acceptable right?
this post is also serving as a warning that it’s not going to stop anytime soon. for those of you who know me in real life you should know that you may, at some point, see me out and about with a whole lot more of myself out and about. this mama has mid-drift tops and she’s not afraid to wear them. warm weather is approaching and this belly has got to breathe!
if you have an opinion about that, particularly a negative one, then i first want to applaud you for being in touch with yourself and in tune with your own opinions. but secondly, i want to remind you that i do not really care about your opinion. your opinion is not my business. feel free to run the other way if you see me and my bare baby belly approaching.
because it’s out. and it will be about. and i won’t be sorry or shamed about it for one little minute.
it’s a birthday baby bump post today. it’s hard for me to believe that the body holding that baby is 31 years old. i never thought i would get old. the 30s are a weird decade where sometimes i feel much, much older than my years only to follow it up with feelings of eternal youth the next day.
anyway, i’ve enjoyed a day of rainy solitude for my 31st birthday. husbeau left me cinnamon rolls for breakfast and i’ve been catching up on household projects, rest and online work that was all put on the back burner during 6 long days of workshops and learning for my ventures into postpartum doula work and childbirth education. there’s a lot to unpack in this brain. i feel like i have a 50 item laundry list of things i want to get started on asap to further my career in birthwork.
but in the middle of it all, i’ve made sure to stop and spend time with this belly. i cannot believe it will be only a few short months before i meet the little person inside there.
momjeanz 