Twenty-Five and Grateful

So far I have covered a lot of the downsides of my pregnancy, but I am also really grateful for a lot of what pregnancy has done for my life—even though sometimes it is really difficult to remain cognizant of those things. I feel as though pregnancy has really helped me to realize the things that are important in life, namely family.

The first huge change that pregnancy brought into my life was a much closer relationship with my significant other. I have mentioned it before, but Richard and I haven’t always had the healthiest relationship. We have always cared a lot about one another, but I also saw him go from an incredibly productive person—when we first started dating—to a lazy, depressed, self-doubting man in the following months as jobs became more difficult to find. We also had our fair share of drama, as one of the people who we regarded as a friend would lie to both of us independently about the other.

As a result of all the lies that our friend was telling, we had a lot of mistrust for one another. With all of that mistrust came anger, and as a result we spent nearly a year not talking to one another about the issues that we probably should have resolved sooner and instead talking to our supposed friend about them—who was fueling the fire. When I became pregnant, everything was put on the table. As I mentioned previously, we’d already had the discussion about what to do if I did become pregnant, so that wasn’t a necessary conversation to have. Given the state of our relationship, however, we did need to sit down and discuss how to be better partners to one another and effectively raise a child as a team.

Throughout this discussion we both had the chance to calmly clear up the lies that were being told about us. We discovered that the person that was supposed to be our friend, was very effectively preying on our general relationship fears and causing striations in the fabric of a relationship that pre-“friendship” was actually pretty effing awesome.

Second—and somewhat related to the first—pregnancy has allowed me to evaluate my life in a new way. I have a better grasp on what is “important” now and what isn’t. This clarity has allowed me to remove the people from my life that serve as negative forces—starting with the aforementioned “friend.” Removing the most manipulative, dishonest human being in my life was a pretty good start to removing a majority of the stress. Following up with removing those under his sphere of influence was also pretty helpful. Instead of caring so much what others—outside of family—thought I started caring more about what would be best for Richard, myself, and our future together. That kind of focus has allowed me to cut out a lot of the negativity that was based around petty drama that ultimately means nothing. I lost a lot of friends in the process because they’re still under the spell of a manipulative con artist, but those who actually know me and care about me have stuck around and become pretty awesome allies. I’m incredibly grateful for those friendships that have encouraged me and given me strength.

Finally, since I stopped seeking outside approval from my “friends” I have had a lot more free time to do things that are productive, like write this blog, or start creative projects in efforts to bring in more money for our growing family. I’m not saying that I’m a completely unselfish person now—since I think that part of pregnancy kind of makes you have to be selfish—but I am definitely more focused on the larger picture and making a good life for the three of us.