Ky’s pregnancy journey highlights how important it is to find a balance between researching and trusting your intuition when it comes to lifestyle changes. Every mother wants their baby to be safe and healthy but each pregnancy is unique and requires different regimes. Ky talks about how she finds a routine that works for her and the anxiety that comes with trying to follow all of the "rules".
My baby is solely dependent on me to keep him alive...
"When I first found out we were having a baby, I was ecstatic! We literally just finished a day of sky-diving where I was feeling a little dizzy. I drank soda water with lemon and that helped a little, but later that evening I started to feel nauseous again. The next morning I thought I should take a pregnancy test and voila! It was positive.
My pregnancy journey was absolutely unexpected. It is scary being pregnant because the moment I found out, I immediately was frightened that I might do something bad which might cause the baby some issues. As a first time mom, you read all the stuff and track every week of your pregnancy. But some of those readings are scary—don’t drink or eat this or that, watch your exercising level, the high rate of miscarriages, etc. It can be very daunting and drive up your anxiety level, especially for a new mom. However, my journey was nothing like I read about. Other than the sky-diving day, I had no sickness whatsoever and no complications. I even continued to run until 8.5 months!
I was pregnant during COVID shut down so very few friends, colleagues, and family saw me pregnant. It was a surreal time. Despite that, I really enjoyed being pregnant, especially when the baby would move and when I would hear his heartbeat. Knowing my baby is solely dependent on me to keep him alive and well is all I needed to ensure I only ate well, slept well, and took care of myself during pregnancy.
This feeling brought me joy but it was also scary as I would question everything I did including the skin and hair products I used and whether they were harmful to my baby. During pregnancy, I learned so much about the damaging chemicals that are in many products which drove me to find more natural remedies, which I still use today!
Capturing my pregnancy journey in professional portraits was really important to me because we did not have professional photos of the two of us prior. I really wanted to capture the joy and love that we, as first time parents, were experiencing and Ani really did that and more! I also think pregnant women are beautiful although we don’t feel beautiful the bigger we get, ha! But also honoring myself—for maintaining a healthy baby in the womb while preparing for parenthood once outside the womb—and highlighting the beauty of pregnancy is why I chose to celebrate with beautiful portraits!"
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