Day 34: The pregnancy glow

Feeling that unexpected spotlight

This entire publication is already self-indulgent. But this post especially is true vanity. Be warned.

I’m 30-something days into real-time reflections on my last trimester of pregnancy. Somewhere in all this I do want to memorialize the fact that my skin has never, in my entire life, looked better.

After a wrecking ball of a year trying to conceive a viable baby, and a first trimester ridden with prenatal depression and anxiety, I felt the total opposite of “glowing,” despite what my kind mother-in-law insisted right before we told her we were expecting.

But once I was out of the fog of those first few weeks, I finally looked in the mirror and awoke to how beautiful I felt. Despite being in the middle of an upstate NY winter, my skin was vibrant, my body balanced, my hair full. I’m now in the 10-week countdown to this baby, and we’re still going strong. My energy is in full-force, I have no pain to report, and this bump is still on the “cute” side.

I never expected my body to take so well to pregnancy. When we first started trying, I resigned myself to feeling like the ugly duckling through it all — knowing that no matter how my body transformed on this journey, our family was worth it. So, this has been a pleasant surprise. As someone with chronic acne that has persisted through adulthood, I don’t take for granted every time I wash my face and feel smooth skin instead of zits.

It’s an old wives’ tale that boy pregnancies give mama a glow. A girl pregnancy steals mama’s beauty. Whatever greater force has blessed me with a so-far healthy pregnancy and quintessential glow, I’m holding on and I’m grateful.