I’m sporting a rather large belly these days. At 30 weeks pregnant (40 is the estimated total for those of you not immersed in all things prenatal) and in the home stretch, I’ve gained 27lbs or so and the bulk of it is hanging out up front. All this to say that sleeping is, well, different.
Every night I make a little barricade around myself of pillows, including a small one underneath the side of my belly. As if turning over while this pregnant wasn’t challenging enough, bringing the pillows is a veritable athletic feat. Which is why that doesn’t always happen.
It’s also how I’ve come face-to-face with an internal drive to create stories about this child I have yet to meet. This is how it goes:
- I find myself in the wee hours of the morning, having switched sides one more time, this time having neglected to bring my belly-supporting pillow
- I notice that I’m turned halfway onto my stomach – the belly needs support somehow! – and so everything is a little squished
- I’m uncomfortable
- The babe is moving around like crazy – rapid, strong motions
- I interpret this movement as discomfort
The only real “fact” here is that the baby is moving. But instead of putting a period at the end of that sentence and being done with it, I make meaning out of it, I make up a story: the baby is uncomfortable because there’s not enough room in this position. There’s no way to know if this is true.
Many of the stories we create – and we’re creating them ALL the time – are generally harmless. The slope, however, is slippery. When we insist on maintaining an interpretation of any fact we are creating limits that may not be fair. In my case, I’m already deciding what this child likes and doesn’t like. That may be a relatively innocuous thing to do in utero, but this could easily slide into a rigid understanding of who the child is moving forward. I could make all manner of untrue assumptions that affect how I parent.
The best way I know to move through all of this is with curiosity. Creating narratives is important and natural, but I choose to remain curious about my world and about how I interpret my world (although there really is no difference between those two things). In the case of the active child, I might ask:
- Why else might this child be moving?
- What reason might I have for assuming it’s the result of discomfort?
- Is it possible that only I am uncomfortable?
- How might I experience this movement without constructing a narrative about it?
And you? Where do you tend to create fiction out of fact? Is it useful? Or might it be limiting you or another person? Consider coming up with another interpretation or maybe, just maybe, releasing any interpretation, if only for a moment.
