Editorial

A lot has changed since our March 1st newsletter! What a strange time to be pregnant. What a strange time to become a parent!

Mostly at home, mostly less busy, many of us will spend more time contemplating this pregnancy than we might have under usual circumstances. When we are pregnant, our focus often dwells on the discomforts and deprivations associated with the condition: Our aching back, our puffy ankles, our cravings for cabernet, or camembert. Sometimes we look down on our swollen belly, our stretch marks, our sore calves with bemusement or even antipathy. How did I get like this? Can this really be my body?

The pregnant body seems to have a mind and will of its own. It infuses us with a unique incursion of hormones that alters our physiology: our shape, our circulation, our very constitution. Our body expands and morphs to accommodate the pregnancy, shifting in shape and texture before our eyes and under our fingertips. No part of us is immune to alteration: our skin, our brain, our hair, our thirst, our feet, our breasts, our appetites, our energy, our libido, our joints and muscles, our moods, and of course our ever-expanding belly. Do we even recognize ourselves within this altered body? Have we been taken over, reformed, according to our tenant’s specifications? 

In some eras the pregnant body has been revered as the most beautiful womanly shape, an ideal form of femininity radiating fertility, maternity, strength, and good health. Here, many of us experience more ambivalence about our pregnant contours, maybe mourning the loss of our waistlines or the sight of our own feet. It’s common to feel impatient with our breathless fatigue on short walks, our struggle to heave our girth off a sofa, our inability to squeeze into our favourite clothes. Do we luxuriate in our pregnant form, admiring our new curves, and appreciating our new assets? Or do we count the days until we can recognize our ‘normal’ self in the mirror? 

Despite our uncertain feelings about inhabiting this temporary body, we know that it provides a medium for our growing progeny. As strange and unfamiliar as we may feel about it, our body is, quite literally, essential to our baby. The pregnant body’s changes, fluctuations, and bizarre new habits are all helping baby form and develop. It is an enormous feat, growing, cultivating, and nourishing a whole new human being; It is not to be undervalued. The pregnant body is a body of transition; a miracle of nature, an achievement of evolution, a non-illusive magic trick. From one of you, to two of you: A whole new human emerges.  

In this issue we look at some common pregnant body considerations: fatigue, discomforts, exercise, nutrition, and the role of the partner. Even though this edition dwells on the mundane effects of the pregnant body, we ultimately want to acknowledge the incredible result of the pregnant body: it grows a brand-new person. Wow!

In this Issue: