Pregnancy as a Healthy Time

Every day, people ask me how I am feeling. It's true that some people have a horrible time with morning sickness, but I didn't. What I notice more is that I feel HEALTHY.

It's true that I have been vegan for a long time, and in a sense that makes it a lot easier to be healthy--but there are bad ways to be vegan too--and James and I have had those months, days, meals, plenty of times.

But before getting pregnant, my body was whacked out on gluten (and the longer and more strictly I avoid it now, the more sensitive I feel to it); I didn't pay attention to taking multi-vitamins, DHA, and lots of other things that my body probably is in need of (especially when I WAS eating gluten) . . . in a lot of ways, my body was out of balance, and part of our journey to get pregnant was correcting that balance as well. I started going to the chiropractor, getting treatments for food sensitivities, completely stopped eating gluten--and learned a ton about how my body works and why.

Now as summer blossoms, more than anything else how I FEEL is healthy--I have been eating tons of fruit, and that, like being vegan, seems to add some automatic health into my life--I've been more active--starting to enjoy the warm weather, getting tanner, taking tons of vitamins, not drinking--I just feel good.

And what I've noticed about some other women is it seems to go the same way. People who are overweight, if they are serious about being healthy during pregnancy, seem to most often not gain much weight, and then lose a lot after the baby, especially when breastfeeding. People who are already thin typically stay thin if they are taking care of themselves.

A friend of mine observed that pregnancy taught her to care about her body and now she is taking pride in it after her son was born. I hope I can remember this lesson as well!