On the perfect pregnancy

Another chance to make women feel like they are failing!

Instagram has my number, and my feed is now filled with beautiful models and influencers - that I have never seen before - who are pregnant like me.

Well, not like me. They all look perfect. Their bodies are perfect manifestations of glowing fertility and shiny hair. Dappled sunlight dances across their many, many new purchases of maternity clothes, beauty products and renovated nurseries. Their designer outfits from niche brands are exquisitely styled (these women are never crying about losing their sense of self or wearing sweatpants with their partner’s old t-shirts). I am bombarded with endless reels from people with dubious qualifications promoting the hundreds of competing exercise programs that promise to magically make birth a breeze.

The perfect pregnancy, the perfect birth, the perfect postpartum - Instagram (capitalism) is telling me this is all within my reach. I can buy them! I can get there if I try hard enough, if I am good enough, if I do my homework and choose to have all the right things. The message is clear: pregnancy will finally turn me into the perfect woman! It is very exciting.

It’s hypnotic, actually. As someone who likes to be an excellent student, I am easily hooked on the endless claim of: do this correctly = you will be perfect ! I love a clear path forwards that promises to erase all flaws, remove uncomfortable feelings and arrive at a new and improved version of self.

Well, I’m old enough now to know that wherever you go, there you are.

And I’ve been here before. When I was pregnant with my son 6 years ago, Instagram wasn’t as aggressive, but I still remember the disconnect between what I was seeing and how I was feeling. The frustration that I was doing all the things I was supposed to but: I was still me. My hair was still curly and frizzy (still waiting for that famous “pregnancy hair” to show up six years later). I was very happy to be pregnant but my endless sickness and resulting depression were not, shall we say, aspirational.

The emotional and spiritual changes I was going through were clunky and uncomfortable and not aesthetically pleasing. Where was the beautiful, glowing model version of myself that was supposed to emerge? I was becoming a new woman, sure, but not in the way I had been promised.

Because I did evolve. But it was more of a Plutonian initiation - down through the depths of the underworld and eventually (slowly) up and out the other side. A letting go and grieving of the life I had known, in order for a whole world come through. Less of a “look how glowy and beautiful I look now/ how perfect my life and relationship suddenly are”, and more of a “dark night of the soul/ identity crisis/ deep overwhelming love mixed with deep overwhelming anxiety/ lots of crying and releasing and talking about feelings” situation. Quite hard to capture that in an Instagram post.

Now I can look back and feel so grateful for the underworld journey that becoming a mother took me on. But at the time I had an acute sense that I was failing somehow because it didn’t look how I thought it was supposed to.

I didn’t look or feel how I thought I was supposed to.

Certainly I felt that way after the birth when it became abundantly clear that no amount of preparation or support or material things can fully shield you from whatever physical, emotional and spiritual initiation that birth will take you on.

I don’t mean that doing informed, supportive things for yourself in this wild time is not important and worthwhile. I love homework! I love rituals that take care of my body and mind. Some investments are truly worth it (I had a doula with my first birth which was incredibly supportive and am currently saving in the hope I can give myself that support again) . The regular yoga classes, acupuncture, NHS therapy sessions and maternity bras in organic cotton that I gave myself in that first pregnancy helped me to feel supported, stronger, more optimistic. Certainly I went into my birth with less anxiety. Most likely my commitment to prenatal yoga and red raspberry leaf infusions and guided meditations helped me to enter birth land with mind as calm, body as ready, as they could reasonably be. I am glad that I did those things, thankful that I could.

But they didn’t magic me into a prettier version of myself, into someone who didn’t feel labour pain (fucking hell) or postpartum anxiety. I was still me, still doing something very hard. And I have always been sensitive, always felt things so deeply.

I remember crying to my midwife in the days afterwards, when I was a nervous wreck, saying: what is wrong with me, that I found it all so hard. But - it is hard, she said. That’s just shame and guilt and perfectionism and women need to put that down. She was angry, actually, talking of all the mothers she sees who feel this way. Like no matter how things unfolded, all these women were left feeling like they didn’t do it right, aren’t good enough. Like they haven’t just ferociously created and birthed and fed life.

This time round I promised myself I would be kinder to myself, that I wouldn’t fall for such false promises. My friends remind me that there is no magic way out of the hard parts. But Instagram is all about magic promises and that algorithm is tenacious. On a bad day I find myself longing for the pregnant woman I could be if only I could buy that Doen nightgown or the £100 organic face serum or the very expensive electrolytes. Truthfully, I don’t have the disposable income that I had 6 years ago and I am having to make peace with the fact that I can’t buy my way to the false promise of a perfect pregnancy right now.

On that note, if I see one more list of beautiful Pregnancy Essentials or Top Purchases To Make Birth Painfree or Things You Need To Buy To Ensure Escape From All Negative Emotions During Postpartum I will scream.

I will also read them hungrily because I want all the things, even as I cry because I can’t buy them or seethe with anger at what a late capitalist shitshow this all is.

This farce designed to make women feel lacking at this most vulnerable and powerful time.

So, in the spirit of a yoga teacher who used to say in every prenatal yoga class “You already have everything you need to birth these babies”, here is my:

NO BUY list of simple, soothing pregnancy things

Naps

I don’t manage to nap every day but most days I try to lie down with my eye mask for 20 minutes (I realize that I work for myself and so I have the gift and privilege of flexibility). I am no longer interested in being a martyr and rest is my favourite and most radical gift to myself.

Friends

Who can you call to cry at or be honest about your feelings with? This is going to make you feel much better than an hour on Instragram pining after cute maternity bras.

Free yoga videos on YouTube

It’s been so much harder to get to prenatal yoga classes this time round with another kid to care for, so I have been leaning on these short videos which are lovely and calm.

TV

My advice is to please indulge in whatever absurd or vapid TV show brings some levity and joy to your life at this time.

Reading Fiction

Restful escapism - but I am avoiding anything depressing. My brother screens books for me. Comfort reading only at this time.

Dress nice when you feel like it and dress comfy when you don’t

I’m not going to lie and say that sometimes putting a good outfit together does not make me feel great. That clothes don’t help. I don’t mean to turn the fashion girls on Instagram into the devil - certainly I am also not posting pictures of myself disheveled in sweatpants and I am not above a sponsored gift with an aligned brand. I love fashion, worked in fashion for years and have always expressed myself through aesthetics and what I wear, and so tapping into that side of myself when I feel like it is actually medicinal at this weird time. There are days when I enjoy the creative challenge of styling my pregnant body with what I have in my wardrobe. But! there are also a lot of other days (most days) when I feel crappy and uncomfortable in my changing body and I just want to wear leggings and big jumpers. I refuse to let the perfectly styled pregnant women on my Instagram feed make me feel bad about this less stylish season of my life.

Walking

My mental health reset, connection to Mother Earth and also apparently the best kind of pregnancy exercise you can do.

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Thank you for being here. I am going to leave you with these nice words from Erica Chidi’s new Substack:

Remember, your body doesn't want to be impressed. It simply just wants the opportunity to respond to whatever support you're willing and able to provide.

Katy x