#13 Reflections on My Pregnancy Journey

Shifting communities, body image, overwhelming joy, new family dynamics and more.

Hello humans, 

Time has passed by very slowly and peacefully for me for the past few weeks. I totally overestimated how my energy level would be and ended up not doing much art or writing. I ended up just napping and walking a lot. But but but but, I did try to finish this writing I want to share with you today- my pregnancy journey :)

I painted my baby shower thank you card last week! They were post-edited with Canva.

Just A Normal Monday Morning Being Pregnant

Last Monday at 9 a.m., I was sitting on the sofa listening to Peace Like River of my newfound favorite band Beautiful Chorus and watching Pauli pouring hot water into his coffee. I was jazzing with the light music and the nice burnt smell of coffee as the steam rose from the coffee mug. Pauli looked up at me. We were smiling at each other. I was in a joyful flow state, filled with calm and peace.

But then, all of a sudden, a strong tide of emotion hit me. 

“Oh I wanna cry.” I said, overwhelmed by a wave of scare and excitement.

“Why? What happened?”

“Because I’m 38 weeks pregnant and I have hormonal shifts!?”

Immediately, I started balling. Paul came to sit with me and hugged me tightly.

“My snot is all over my face now” I looked up at him.

“No, you are bleeding.”

Ah, that goddamn nose bleeding again.

Those 3 mins pretty much summed up my pregnancy, the most incredible and unimaginable life journey I’ve ever been on.

So here are my seven long-ass reflections about pregnancy. Enjoy! 

Ps. Sorry for the typos and grammatical mistakes. Just gotta get this version out before Friday- my due date! :D

#1 Realizing What It Means to Be a Creator

“ When did you start to want to be a mom?” I was caught unguarded when a lady I met at a party asked me this question.

I actually don’t have a definite answer. Yes, I have been super popular among kids ever since I was young. Little girls who saw me for the first time will run over and tell me they loved me. When hosting summer camp with my college friends for elementary school kids, you could spot me surrounded by five-plus kids anytime. Kids in the playground refuse to believe that I’m an adult thirty years older than them. My mom friends call me a kids’ whistler because their kids love hanging out with me way too much.  

Even though I love kids, it’s only last year that I’m 100% sure I want to start trying to have my own kids. But something only came clear to me after I got pregnant. 

The hole that can’t be filled (Endless chasing of goals)

All the way throughout my adulthood, especially after becoming an online creator, I was trying to create all sorts of projects to feel like I was capable of creating something or shaping the world. I was chasing one goal after another, hoping the next creative or work project would bring me a sense of fulfillment that lasted a lifetime. Podcasting, course creation, community building, writing, you name it. These all turned out to be futile attempts. The glory of creation all lasted for a very transient moment (or, at best, a few weeks), then I felt the urge to find the next thing again.

But the moment when I was sitting on the toilet at 6 am, looking at the two lines from my pregnancy test, and realized I was pregnant, I finally realized this was what I was chasing.

For the first time, I truly get what it means to be a creator - at least for me. All the pride I experienced from accomplishing a creative project is nothing compared to how powerful I feel about creating a human inside me. Doesn’t matter if it’s the discomforts like nausea or the magical moments of feeling the baby moving in my body (hiccupping, shifting her butt from right to left, or using her tiny feet to kick my rib 🦶♥️), every moment of pregnancy is a powerful creative act for me.

I want to have a kid. I wanted to be a mother way before I even realized it.

#2 The Secret Biological Machine Inside US

Imagine you have a secret machine built inside you. It has all sorts of settings that enable you to perform magical powers and experience wild sensations. You live your whole life without knowing it exists in your body. But one day, it is turned on, and your perception of who you are and what you are capable of completely changes.

That’s how I felt when I got pregnant.

And the craziest thing is- almost every woman had this machine built inside them.  The girls I grew up with in the neighborhood have it. My high school classmates have it. My girlfriends that I used to party all night and got wasted with also have it. The same machine was always inside us, but none of us knew about it until we got pregnant. 

I thought I was this special snowflake growing up ❄️, but uncovering this machine made me feel like my existence was not special at all. Instead, I felt my whole life till now was just programmed to give birth to another human.

For example, my pregnancy app Flo predicted all the wild things I experienced every gestational week. In the first trimester, I felt there was metallic powder in the air or water everywhere in the house. I even asked Paul to inspect the water system to see if the pipe was broken. Then the next day, a message popped up in Flo’s daily information feed- 92% of pregnant women felt a metallic taste in their mouth in the first trimester due to hormonal changes. I was glad to learn our water was not contaminated, but also surprised that Flo predicted this weird thing exactly the next day!

Nose bleeding was also another good example. My nose started bleeding when I was in New York in December. I thought it was just a normal response to the dry weather in the Northeast that would last for just one or two days. But I was bleeding an incredible amount every day, multiple times a day. Then again, in the same week, Flo told me that because of the increase in the blood flow in the third trimester, some women have continuous nose bleeding that lasts till postpartum 😱 (How come there’s no nose bleeding emoji!?)

I felt so powerful in creating a human inside me, yet all these ‘standardized” changes made me feel so humble at the same time. Yes, I finally feel like a true creator. But with moments like these,  it’s hard not to think there’s an ultimate creator (or God, as many people would say) out there programming all our bodies just to serve the purpose of creating the next generation of human beings.

#3 Da Body image Struggle Is Real.

I’ve dreamed about having da baby bump after we started trying. The real bump for me comes surprisingly late, around 25 weeks. All sorts of physical changes came before that, not necessarily in a good way. For example, people always said one of the blessings of pregnancy is your boobs get bigger, but no one told me that they would also get saggy like two sacks of sad potatoes. One day, Flo told me I might be able to see a dark line going through my belly button. I looked into the mirror and surprisingly found that a line had crept up on my belly, and I didn’t even notice 🤯!

Before that bump became cute, I simply looked like I drank way too much boba tea or had weeks of constipation. I bitched about it every time I looked in the mirror but didn’t mind as much as it was not visible under my summer dress. It was fine until we went to an adult summer camp in Austin.

People who attended the camp were common Austin humans, which means guys all looked like bodybuilders, and ladies were all pretty and fit as if they had just walked out from a bikini competition show. I thought I got away with not being fit because of my pregnancy and thought I didn't care about it as much. But the last night, when I got lost after a sexy dress-up dance party and couldn’t find Pauli while everyone was transitioning to the next party spot, I wandered off to a dark corner by the lake and started balling. When Paul finally found me and asked me what was going on, I wanted to blame him for leaving me alone, but I found myself telling the most brutally honest truth to him.

“I felt so fat and ugly. Everyone here looks so pretty with their tight abs and cute butts. But my belly is so big. I looked like a monster.”

Yup, no matter how much I tried to convince myself I looked cute having that tiny bump, that scary sentence was what I truly thought about myself many times during pregnancy. I think many preggos experience the same thing as me. No matter how many body-positive words our friends say to us or how much weight we really gain, we can see that we look different. It is just no longer the way we know ourselves to be, and these changes can be scary.

On a good day, I would be so in love with my bump and feel blessed to be a mommy-to-be. On a bad hormonal swing day, I would doom scrolling the good old-time pics when I was lifting hard and sigh about my mom-bod.

I write about this body image struggle not because I want people to tell me, “Oh no Angie, you still look great.” I know I look great (most days) and that after pregnancy, I can (possibly) still train my body back to where it is. I share these experiences because I know they can help many preggos who struggle with the same thing feel that they are not alone.

If you are thinking about getting pregnant but scared about the physical changes or currently experiencing the same things, I want to tell you,

Girl, you got all the rights to bitch about it. I’m here with ya!

#4 Connecting to a bigger community

Closer Relationship with my In-law Family

One thing I’m most grateful for about pregnancy is my in-law family. Paul and I were adding the 17th great-grandkids to the family. We were showered with so much love and care from them that I felt so pampered :P I definitely felt closer to my in-law family and was grateful to bond with women in the family on another level.

Seriously, pregnancy can be a lonely and scary journey. I remember before I told people I was pregnant, I felt so clueless. I’m not sure if I’m doing things right, what choices to make, and how to think about the 9 months onwards. But after I told my in-law family I was pregnant, I started to learn about different birthing stories and parenting journeys. These made me feel it’s ok to feel all the mixed emotions I have and that all the women in the family who have been there are rooting for me.

New Communities in Austin

However, I felt nervous about returning to Austin with our new identity. Paul and I choose to settle in Austin because it is a very kids and family-friendly city. No matter where we go- river trails, food truck parks, or breweries, there are always tons of parents with kids or newborn babies hanging out with their friends.

More importantly, we both have a strong community of friends here locally. However, none of my girl (or lady) friends here were moms or pregnant when I knew I was having a baby. I feared losing my current friends because of our future lifestyle changes and that I’ll be restricted to our nuclear family. To my surprise, when I told them that I was having a baby, they were super excited for me and told me they couldn’t wait to have Michelle join our girls’ hang!

In addition, the news of having kids is like giving us a secret passport to the parents’ community. We had some parent friends here in Austin, but I sometimes felt a distance between them and us, almost as if we were outsiders to their community. But once we became parents-to-be, that barrier completely disappeared, maybe because we are bonded with the shared experience of planning our life not just for ourselves but also for a tiny human being that we will be responsible for the rest of our life.

Not only we are immediately introduced to so many other families, but we also started to reach out and build stronger bonds with creators who are parents as well, learning wisdom about how to live a creative life while taking on parental roles from them.

Yes, there’s been some changes after we moved back to Austin. But in a transient city like this, the communities are always shifting, dissipating, and forming. Some friends I imagined would be close to my kiddo embarked on their own growth journey and left the city. But more friends who want to be parents are moving here, too. It’s interesting to see what our future community looks like with Michelle adding to the mix. Don’t stop dreaming, Angie!

#5 A Chance for the family to begin again

Drawing boundaries with my mother

One of my biggest fear about pregnancy is my relationship with my mother. Parents have a saying in Taiwan that “No matter how old you are, you are still my kid.” I struggled with not being treated as an adult with my own will and autonomous decisions for most of my life.

When I learned that I was pregnant, I felt excited and scared to tell this news to my parents, especially my mom, partly because I knew she still believed in lots of outdated misconceptions (and disempowering beliefs) about pregnancy in Taiwan. I never dared to draw boundaries between my mom and me ( nor did millions of other Taiwanese daughters). I knew if she tried to impose those beliefs upon me, I would remain silent and not fight back. And I was right.

It was a Sunday morning when we told my parents about the big news. I just finished showering. Paul and I were squatting by a sunny balcony, and I had a towel wrapped around my head when I called them. 

After a few minutes of overwhelming joy and celebration on the other end of the video calls, my mom started to get into fear mode.

“Why is your hair wet!? GO DRY YOUR HAIR NOW”

(Note: In old-fashioned Chinese culture, people believe not drying hair immediately after showering can cause long-term headaches. Pregnant women are advised not to wash their hair up to A MONTH after giving birth😱 )

“ Why are you squatting? Go sit on a chair!”

(Note: Not sure why she said that, but I think she’s afraid of then 0.5-inch size baby dropping onto the floor…? )

“Stop stretching or doing yoga! You are pregnant now!”

(Note: Any forms of exercise are considered as dangerous for pregnancy. The best and only thing a preggo should do in Taiwan is to rest and not move as much as possible.)

Comments like this continued for days afterward. I wished I could ignore these texts from overseas and live my life unbothered. But the opinions of my mother weighed so much on me. At first, I tried to just phone it with meaningless FB messenger stickers (In Asian families, we don’t like to be direct about our emotions. We send stickers to express how we feel instead.) I went from rolling my eyes to feeling angry to getting really upset and powerless. Finally, a few days later, a comment about how I was holding a cute little niece  might harm the baby inside my belly broke me. I had a terrible nightmare that night and woke up crying.

I thought I would never confront my mother, but I finally took up the courage to text her:

“I knew you said all these because you cared about me and loved me. But the words you said to me hurt me deeply. They made me feel like I was constantly doing something wrong to my child and that I was not capable of being a good mother.

But I know I am capable of being a good mother. I AM a good mother. And I know my child will think I am a good mother, too.

Please respect me as an adult. I love you, and I hope you support me the way I want it.”

I was balling the whole way while texting her at 5 a.m. This was the first time I stood up for myself.  Doing this “rebellious” act was scary AF. I had no idea how this revolt would turn out. Maybe my mom would deny my emotion again. Maybe she would be so mad that she never wanted to talk to me again.

But I knew I could no longer just play the role of a daughter. I need to be a mother to my child.

Luckily and very surprisingly, she just sent a very chill text back.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be so serious. How would I know these comments will weigh so heavily on you? Fine. I won’t say this stuff to you anymore. I know you will be a good mother, too. And I love you 🥰”

This is not the most sincere apology, but to me, it’s already incredible that we didn’t end our relationship right there. It’s a huge milestone for me as a person, a daughter, and a mother. Learning how to draw boundaries between my mother and me has been one of the greatest gifts of my pregnancy. And these boundaries have made our relationship so much healthier ever since.

A chance for us to be new a person again

Our family dynamics have changed dramatically after my pregnancy. For the first part, being able to draw boundaries made me feel like I’m no longer a kid whose life purpose is to obey and please her parents. I am finally an equal member of the family who deserves respect. 

Also, I started to uncover some family stories of my mother’s birthing experiences of my sister and me, how my dad played a role in these, and some fun facts that I never knew. For example, they would feed me sugar water for my last meal as a one-month-old and let me cry for the whole night- a standard practice for parenting at that time lol.

Through the process of exchanging care, news, and playful words, our outdated family roles built on Chinese culture started to be shaken. My parents had some regrets about not being able to provide me with the best environment when they had me while they were really young, and they have been pouring so much more love for me, Paul, and Michelle, symbolically and materialistically. My family is not the most well-off, but they really blew me away with their generosity. My sister has surprised me with all sorts of lovely gifts sent from overseas.

 I also found all of us are more willing to be vulnerable and authentic with each other. Before pregnancy, I always try to hold back details of my life and my emotions from them because I found the Asian style of care suffocating. But now I’ve let my guard down and started sharing my life in the States more with them (with reasonable boundaries, of course;))). Joy and warmth were blooming in my family all the way throughout my pregnancy, especially every time I sent in new ultrasound pictures and videos of Michelle moving in my belly.

For my family, my pregnancy is really a chance that allows us to be the new self that we’ve always wanted to be, the version of us that show up with the most abundance of love.

#6 Navigating Pregnancy Between Two Cultures

Choosing my OBGYN

One of my biggest fears before pregnancy was that I wouldn’t be able to navigate the US healthcare system. I went to a pre-pregnancy consultation in Taiwan once. The appointment was rushed (about 5 minutes). Towards the end, I (my highly sensitive self) already sensed impatience from the OB when I tried to grapple with the terminology he used to explain pregnancy. 

In Taiwan, doctors and professors occupy the highest hierarchy in the social pyramid. It’s impossible to argue against them or challenge what they said. I was told to get some tests done immediately. The nurse demanded I remove my clothes on the spot (in front of her). I felt like an animal being manipulated around in the test room.

This experience was so bad that I was convinced giving birth in the States with English as my second language could only be worse. I imagined myself sitting in the OB office like a fool. I could see my mind go black, unable to understand any terminology the OB says. Even though Pauli assured me he could be my translator and that pregnant women are treated very kindly in the States, I would not believe him. I insisted on finding a bilingual OB who could also speak Chinese, so I could at least have some control during my pregnancy.

That surprisingly did not turn out the way I imagined. Because of our traveling, we changed three OBs during my whole pregnancy. Two of them are Taiwanese Americans, and the last one is Latina. And it was in the offices of the Taiwanese American doctors that I felt most uncomfortable.

Don’t get me wrong. All the OBs are incredibly nice and sweet. But I found myself resisting speaking to them in Chinese, and when they did speak Chinese to me, I felt super embarrassed and weird. I also found my body tensed up and becoming like a little child whenever I was in their offices.

It took me some time to finally realize that I automatically treat them like authoritative figures BECAUSE THEY LOOK ASIAN.

Especially with the second OB, who’s around my mom’s age, I literally felt like I was talking to my mom whenever I saw her. That brought out the docile Asian kid side of me. I was terrified to ask questions and felt like vomiting whenever Paul challenged the medical staff about their practices. When I spoke Chinese to them, I felt like a FOB. When I spoke English to them, I was afraid they thought I was some white-washed snob. I felt ashamed of being me. I started to dread going to my appointments.

Realizing that, I was finally open to seeing OB that is not Taiwanese when we needed to do the last switch. It turned out to be the best decision ever. I freaking love the last OB. I felt like a confident woman talking to my OB. There’s no resistance to asking questions myself, and I don’t go into an internal war when Paul pulled out the statistics in the OB office. I felt empowered and looked forward to going to my appointments. ( yes, the boba tea place close to my OB office also helped.)

#7 Navigating Hormonal and Emotional Shifts

Overwhelming Joy

The other thing I fear about getting pregnant is hormonal change. I struggled big-time with pre-menstrual depression and was worried that pregnancy would only make it worse. But surprisingly, I am SO HAPPY most of the time during my first and second trimesters (except for a few breakdowns like the one in adult camp lol). I heard of tears of joy but had never experienced them until I got pregnant. Not just once but over and over again.

I had a 10-day self-conducted silent retreat right before I got pregnant. It was filled with tears of physical and physiological pain. But I felt like I made a major reconciliation with myself at the end of the retreat. Toward the end of my first trimester, I did another 3-day self-conducted retreat, expecting a similar emotional journey. That was the time when I started to draw boundaries with my mom and had lots of emotional ups and downs. I ended the retreat crying for hours because of the overwhelming gratitude for the life that was forming inside me. I also realized that this must be how joyful my mother felt when she was pregnant with me.

For the first two trimesters, I cried because of happiness for any random things. I cried when reading my mother-in-law’s pregnancy journal when she had Paul. I cried when I learned about my friend getting pregnant. I cried when I was watching stupid Netflix reality shows. I cried when I was walking on the lake trail and saw a turtle or when the Taiwanese lady from a food truck took my order with her Taiwanese accent. Pauli said I was drunk with pregnancy, and he’s absolutely right.

In addition to feeling happy, I also had extreme confidence in myself. “Man, I have no fear for anything. Zero fear.” I remember telling Pauli this when I applied for an important freelance project.

I felt like I’m at the peak of my lifetime.

Third Trimester Shift

I was so irrationally happy with my pregnancy that I was caught by surprise when I found myself starting to feel scared in the third trimester. Suddenly, that constant happy, silly energy can plunge into fear. I swing between happy and fearful mode. Especially toward the end, I was so scared about labor and delivery that I would just throw a tantrum at Pauli because he left his spoon stained with peanut butter in the sink. One moment, I would feel so excited about the day of meeting my baby girl approaching. The next moment, I would cry about listening to birth stories on podcasts, not knowing if I am really capable of delivering my big girl (I mean, I better am lol)

Thankfully, I have the most thoughtful and supportive husband who’s always there for me, telling me it’s ok to have all these emotions, and he’s proud of me.

Love you, Pauli!

Last words for 39 weeks

After crying through writing every section, this long-ass article is finally coming to an end.

If someone told me, “At any time over the next two weeks, I will push a watermelon out of your vagina,” I would probably scream and call the police immediately. But that is exactly what’s gonna happen, not to mention there will be a tiny human following me around for the next possible 18 years.

The past few weeks of resting have been so chill that I was almost convinced nothing would happen. However, last Saturday, after my last big get-together with my girlfriends, I started to experience lots o contractions. At first, I was writing down the contraction times just for fun and still joking with Pauli about going to the hospital while trying to cook dinner and paint. But suddenly, the contraction got so strong that I didn’t even realize I already went into a flight response. My mind went blank. I started to clean our room like a maniac and got so mad at Pauli for sitting at his desk fixing his website. (Poor Pauli. He had no idea what was going on inside me).

That wave of contraction lasted 6 hours and turned out to be only Braxton Hicks, a type of non-painful practice contraction. The next day, we still went on a trip to visit Ryan Holiday’s bookstore in Bradstrop, had a super chill lunch with our friends, and went to a BBQ party.

It’s weird to know that a completely different future will become our reality ANY MINUTE and still live our day just as another regular day.

As if nothing happened and nothing will happen.

But come anytime you want, Michelle. Mommy and Daddy are ready. We are ready to spoil you with so much love. So many hugs and kisses. And I will be smiling at your cute face like a fool- while daddy changes your poopy diapers :)

Cheers to pregnancy and boba tea! Until next time!

Angie