You are my sunshine

I can't believe it has been more than 200 days since this little fella started growing inside me. Not only have these past seven months flown by, they've changed me. Not in the bigger-boobs-larger-belly-huger-ass-more-emotional way. I've been changed for the better. 

We had been wanting a baby for two years before I got pregnant. I had a rule that we wouldn't stress about it and we'd let it happen when it happened. But every time it never happened, I got lower and lower. I remember purposefully declining opportunities to hang with our friends because I couldn't be around baby talk. Sometimes TFitch would hang out and I would opt to chill with my family because I didn't want to have a bad night. I felt I was irrelevant to them. I had nothing to contribute. And I was jealous. When someone else would tell me she was pregnant, of course I was legitimately happy, but I would be crying as soon as I hung up the phone or left the person's presence. I made excuses to not attend baby showers. Facebook became an album of sonograms and pregnancy announcements I couldn't bear to read. I remember one friend telling me she was pregnant and I still had to spend the rest of the evening with her. I couldn't leave fast enough, but felt obligated to finish our planned night out. I remember feeling like my chest was going to explode and how hard it was to keep my eyes from welling up with tears for that long. 

My theme song became "Learning to Live Again" by Garth Brooks because the line "I’m gonna smile my best smile and I’m gonna laugh like it’s going out of style," was how I was living my life. I wasn't letting the outside reflect how I was living and feeling on the inside. I was doing the best I could to portray happiness. To the world, I was trying to be someone I wasn't. I felt like an absolute terrible person. An awful friend. I was mad and sad and angry it wasn't us. Moreso I was scared it wouldn't ever be us. 

Since April, my world has become sunnier. I feel like the clouds have gone away and I'm the old self I knew and loved prior to the roller coaster of trying to become a parent. I walk around smiling...and I mean it. I'm consumed thinking about babies, but in an excited way of anticipation, not in a concerned "what will this month bring" way. I feel like I belong. I am relevant again. 

This baby hasn't even made his debut on earth and he's already brought me more happiness than I could ever imagine. I've moved past those dark days but to anyone living that nightmare now, please know I understand. I realize I've become the person who used to make me cry. I know consolation from a pregnant woman rarely helped things. I don't have the words but you do have my prayers. No matter how you feel, you do belong, you are relevant and you are not alone.