Remembering My Pineapple Days

On the run-up to Freya’s first birthday, I’ve been nostalgic, thinking back to where we were a year ago.

Mid-November 2019 I was heavily pregnant. I was eating a ridiculous amount of pineapple every day, in the hopes that it would make my labour start. (Spoiler: it didn’t) I was trying every known method and a good deal of the unknown ones to induce labour, but really I was also enjoying pregnancy still and I didn’t want it to end.

Those last two weeks where I was ‘overdue’ were intense. It was luxurious in the sense that I was paying so much attention to my body, to feeling the baby, I was treasuring every second. It was stressful as well, because something had to happen, and relatives and doctors were not giving me an easy time about that. I felt immensely emotional for a lot of it.

But in all, I have gorgeous memories of those last weeks.

I wrote this at 41+4 weeks pregnant:

I am expecting and that is true in all the senses of the word, I am expecting to be turned upside down and inside out when this happens, when this little person makes me into a mother.

Soon. So soon.

Every day seems to pass in a fog. Slow, heavy, but sweet with promise. My body doesn’t want to yet. I don’t want to let go, or she doesn’t, or some combination of both of our wants and needs means that we are stalling, waiting to get this just right.

It’s all right. This, being pregnant, the kicks, the turns, the hiccups… I love being a home to her, to have her with me wherever I go. I can soothe her with a touch, wake her or play with her with another one. It’s beautiful.

It will feel lonely without her. And yes, I know that she will not disappear but instead she’ll be in my arms, or wrapped to my chest, or breastfeeding endlessly. But it’s still a goodbye. I will never be pregnant with my first baby ever again, and I cry at night when I think about that.

It’s all a bit ridiculous, I know. It will happen, it has to. We’re on the verge of this, toeing the edge while waiting for the right moment to jump. We need to!

We’ll get there together baby, you and me…