This Is Not an Ending, It’s a Becoming - Part 2

OMG, - welcome to the last episode of season 1. For this one we baked up something together. You asked, I answered. So this entire episode is about "WHAT NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT PREGNANCY" - we'll talk sex, judgement and boundaries.

Ten months, not nine. That single truth reframes the whole journey, from how we plan to how we forgive ourselves when the calendar and our bodies don’t match. I open up about the quiet math of forty weeks, the social noise around women’s bodies, and the unexpected weight of judgment that can come from other women—often other mothers. Not to blame, but to notice. When we hold impossible standards, we tend to pass the pressure along. The antidote is a string of small choices: a pause before reacting, a clear boundary, a kinder script.

We also pull back the curtain on winter pregnancy. Flu season narrows medication choices, congestion stacks with sleepless nights, and “just rest” becomes a puzzle of pillows, humidifiers, and patience. Practical, unglamorous tools suddenly matter: saline rinses, hydration, gentle movement, and sunlight when you can find it. Then the conversation goes deeper into the third trimester, where movement changes shape intimacy. Desire may be present while mechanics say not like that. We talk honestly about adapting: new positions, slower pacing, different settings, and dropping performance goals so pleasure has room to return.

At the core is partnership. The kind that doesn’t make your body a battleground or tie self-worth to your response. I share why communication, playfulness, and ego-free listening matter more than any “tip,” and how choosing a true teammate changes everything when life gets complicated. If you’ve ever felt policed, stuck, or alone in these moments, this story offers language, options, and a nudge toward grace. Listen, share with someone who needs the real talk, and if it resonates, subscribe and leave a review so we can keep building this honest space together.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage
• 1:50 Ten Months Of Pregnancy
• 2:43 Policing Women’s Bodies
• 5:18 Foot Soldiers Of Patriarchy
• 7:40 Boundaries And Micro-Moments
• 9:50 Winter Pregnancy Realities
• 12:05 Congestion, Sleep, And No Meds
• 14:10 Third Trimester Movement Limits
• 16:25 Intimacy, Hormones, And Frustration
• 19:05 Communication And The Right Partner

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

And here's the very imperfect opening for the second part of this last episode. I'm gonna refrain from all sorts of chit chat, and let's get right into it. Bye. Thanks for being here. Now on to the last question that so many of you requested. And naturally, I have a couple of answers. You requested, I do talk about what no one tells you. And it's such a funny concept itself because we talk so much about women, right? We talk so much about pregnancy and birth when you're actually being confronted with having a baby yourself, or if you're having somebody in your field who is going to or who has a baby. But if you are not in that bubble, there's so much. Like there's this world that you have no idea about. And I found myself over and over over that trail of the past nine months where I just I was mind-blown by how little I know. And I was thinking of myself as a very educated woman in these terms. Mind you, my mom is a midwife. I've been present at a birth. I thought I know a lot about the female body, but oh, oh, oh, oh. Turns out I don't. I believe I could fill an entire season for this podcast with the single one question, but I'm gonna carve out what really stands out for me at the moment. And what I want to remind you that this is my experience. This is my thoughts. It's so valid that it is extremely different for other women who go through a pregnancy as well. With that being said, the first answer to what they don't tell you, well, they trick you. My loves, you're not pregnant for nine months. You're pregnant for 10 months. And if you're like, what? Wait, what? Excuse me? Okay, do the month. On any pregnancy app, there's 40 weeks of pregnancy. There's four weeks in a month. Multiply that with 10, you get 10 times four weeks. You're pregnant for 10 months, not nine months. I was so confused by that. And whenever somebody asked me in which month I am, I was completely utterly startled. Because you always look at that app. With every step that you come closer to your ninth month, you're like, that doesn't add up. Something is wrong here. I don't know if they do that to make it more digestible, or if this there is an actual mathematical logic behind it that I just don't get. But yeah, that's that's the first thing that I want to point out. They trick you. You're pregnant for 10 months, not nine. Next one of my answers. Ooh, this one is spicy. Now we all made it socially very acceptable to talk a lot about women's bodies. It's normalized. Magazines do it, marketing is especially good at it. Watching TV, you're hit with so many conscious ways that teach us how normal and acceptable it is to talk about a woman's body. While it is not, it is none of your freaking business how a woman clothes herself, how she talks, how she walks, what size she is, what she does with her hair or does not do with her hair. And in that, I even want to say vulnerable phase in a woman's life that is pregnancy, this is extremely highlighted. Now, interestingly, I have found that the most judgmental, overstepping, or simply annoying comments or even actions come from other women. And not only that, mostly from other mothers. Seriously, other mothers have granted me so little grace in when my energy levels were low, in when I couldn't live up to their expectations, in how I did things. It's mind rattling because you would think that the oppression of women, that the talking about women's bodies, women's actions, judging them so constantly is obviously a byproduct of the patriarchy, which is a system that consequently oppresses women. And yet women are the ones that keep it all up. Women are the foot soldiers of patriarchy. And I don't know why we do that. And the only thing that I can pull it back to is the fact that there's so much criticism on women that as women we have so much expectation towards ourselves. As soon as we put such an overload of expectation towards us, we also do that with the ones around us. So whatever you haven't worked through yet in your constitution pattern, in your psyche, you will, without a doubt, unconsciously put these very uncomfortable and sometimes even harmful behaviors towards others, especially towards others who go through the same thing or who are a part of this kind of group. Now, this is just my theory, yeah. But I think because we overload ourselves with such harsh expectations, we then project those onto others. And others, in this case me, very often suffer from that. Because those expectations are unchecked, because it doesn't mean that they apply onto the other person. And I've been quite stunned and even a little frustrated at times because of that. I also don't have an answer. I have no idea how we fix this issue, but I do want to bring awareness to the fact that other mothers are fucking judgy without even meaning it. So if you're listening to this and you are pregnant as well, or you might have a baby in the future, maybe keeping that in mind can help you to not be startled once you might get into the same situation. Eventually, if you hear this and you can keep it in your mind and in your heart, it will give you that moment of not falling into a reaction or a trigger, but instead thinking back and be like, whoa, yeah, we talked about that at Salty Big Club. I am absolutely in charge of my own reactions. I can set boundaries, I can tell people when they're impolite, I can tell them that they should not touch my belly, I can tell them that, yes, I don't have the same energy resources that they are used to me having, and that that is absolutely okay, and you're not gonna let anybody shame you for that. Once again, just that moment of noticing what's actually happening, that this person is not being kind to you right now, and that you don't have to just defend yourself or give in to whatever they're expecting of you, that is such an important teeny tiny micro moment. And to catch that, ooh, that will unlock your inner strength. Next one. Now, let me be clear. I didn't plan for this baby, but if you are a person who manages the life according to something and who's planning on when to fall pregnant or when to hope to fall pregnant, I wanna say there's a lot of talk out there that summer pregnancies are really hard. And when we're talking about a pregnancy being really hard, obviously the three trimesters they appear so, so different. I will generalize a little bit and say for many of us, the first one is hard, and the last one comes with very specific challenges. The second trimester, the middle time, that's for partying. Most women are feeling so good in the second trimester. It's when you have all your energy, when you still have your physical range of motion, when life is just being a big, big blessing. So when we're talking about this next answer, I want you to keep in mind that the last trimester might be the most physically straining one. Again, as I said, so many people out there say that summer pregnancies are really hard. And I've never experienced it, so who am I to tell? But I know I like summer, I know I like swimming. I can absolutely empathize with people who say it is really hard, but I also want to make a point that winter pregnancies are not for the week. Hear me out. Besides the fact that they're also extremely romantic because you have the holidays and just being pregnant, being super round and cute with this little belly, it's just romanticizing that romantic season so much more. But hear me up, people. It's also flu season. Everybody is getting sick. There's so many germs around you. And while I'm not a person who's afraid of germs, I have learned my lesson here. Because once you fall sick, you're not getting rid of that. At least not as easily as you would have done when I've not been pregnant. Besides that, you can barely take any meds. Yes, there's a couple painkillers that you can take, but if that's not what you need, if that's not what your body requires, a simple painkiller, but you need specific medication. You will just have to sit it out. Because there is so little medication for easy things like a burning sore throat. You can literally take nothing. I was in that situation. I survived on honey and lemon water, which if it's a moderate sore throat, might be fine. But if for days your throat is burning, let me tell you, with all the yoga teacher heart, I missed a good medication. Next one up, you don't even have to fall sick. You might just have a stuffy, runny nose in winter. Well, let me tell you, you know what's a side effect of pregnancy? Congestion. Once you have this mucus in your sinuses, let me tell you, it's not going away anymore. And that is especially fun because you're not really able to sleep anyway. And once your body is falling down into bed after a full day, and you're looking forward to that little bit of sleep that is interrupted by going to the bathroom three times every night, you will be kept awake because you literally can't breathe anymore. Okay, I don't want to scare you or complain too hard, but I want to raise awareness that winter pregnancies are coming with certain difficulties that I would be mindful of if I would plan my next pregnancy. Plus, I also think pregnant women in summer dresses look so cute. Alright, what no one tells you is the physical strain that weighs on your body in the third trimester and how that affects the intimacy with your partner. By the time you hit mid-third trimester and you're as round as me now, moving through space is extraordinarily difficult. I think I shared in a previous episode that Kree has to shove me over every morning so that I can get out of bed. I just want to put emphasis on it is really hard to do very simple acts of movement. Even though I'm still doing yoga, I'm still teaching minyasa flows. You will simply have to deal with the fact that you will be restricted from some movement. Or movement patterns. Anyway, it might sound obvious, but no one told me that the physical changes and the restrictions of movement patterns will leave me feeling like a beetle on its back. And that will of course affect the way I can have sex. Now, once you're at that stage, I believe so many people probably refrain from having sex because it also requires a bunch of in-depth talk with your partner to be able to even get to that point of passion with deep and sweet and dark and yummy intimacy can be unlocked at all. Now here's the groundwork. Obviously, in these situations, you want to be sure that you, first of all, did the self-work that is needed to have difficult conversations that make you uncomfortable, and that you have chosen a partner that is not only able, but willing again and again to do that with you. Without this groundwork, I believe a relationship is destined to fail once hit by trials and tribulations. Now, the trial and tribulation here is remember that Instagram story that I posted a couple days ago of the fat seal rolling, while in the background the song They See Me Rollin'. They hatin, please. Now, if you haven't seen that, I pity you because it is hilarious. But that is exactly how I feel once I lay. Doesn't even mean on my back, even on my side. Once I lay, I relate so much to that seal. That seal is me. That very fat, rolling seal, that is me. And I'm saying with the uttermost respect for the seal because it is me. I'm not saying that body shame the seal because I love my round belly, but that is literally how I move through space once I lay. And if you empathize with that seal and put yourself in the situation of that fat seal, well, it is really hard to feel sexy. It is quite difficult to bring up that lust and that hunger and that dark and sweet and gorgeous feeling of now, obviously. Over the course of pregnancy, we are also enormously influenced by hormones. And these hormones, they come in batches and they come in, I want to say hormone potions. So in these three trimesters, you have a very different hormone potion. It can very, very easily be that you are extremely horny. And it can be that you're losing any lust at all. And it can be that these things change in their extremity throughout your pregnancy. I certainly faced both of those courses, but I was able to relate and be okay with what is, and even work with what is, because I knew what was happening, so I could react to it, right? I could take my actions accordingly, and I can focus on putting more effort into making myself feel more passionate, or in whatever way that goes now. What I'm gonna say is the hormone changes. That is something that I was able to deal with. But no one told me that I would be physically so restrained that it deeply influences my range of motion. And with that, how I can have sex. Like literally, there are some movements that I just can't do. And unlucky me, those were exactly those movements that make me calm. Why does no one prepare us for the fact that it can be physically hard, even though you might long to be intimate with your partner? It can be so physically hard to get to that point of feeling sensual, of feeling free in your body, of feeling able to explore the other body. Now that doesn't mean you cannot have sex. That doesn't mean that you're destined to roll around in bed like that fat seal lonely on that ice platter. No. What it really took for me was first of all a switch of scenery to get out of my own head. And ooh, a partner that is not placing their own self-worth onto your response to their sexual endeavors. A partner that is so confident that you can talk to him about these struggles openly without caring at all that he could be hurt or his self-worth or his ego could be scratched because it's not about him. It's obviously not about him. But when I think back on all the partners that I had before, there's so little men that I would trust to be confident enough to stand with me in those moments and make those moments work. To not just have them be as what they are, but to transform them and to actually, I don't want to say work on it, but engage in whatever is in life as a perfect as it can be, as restricting as it can be, and still make it beautiful. That only happens when you meet another, truly, without your own projection. I'm so grateful that I'm with a man who's able to also guide me through those moments when I'm feeling like I feel helpless. What happened that I I've really, really longed to be intimate with him. But I just like I the way I was able to do that with my body before was just not accessible to me. Oh my god, that is such a biggie. And I feel like I just opened a pot of gold with that question because it's so deep. And I I don't know if any can one can relate, but it's it's certainly something that we don't talk about enough. And I could talk on and on and on about it, but at its core, what I want you to take away from me sharing that vulnerable moment is that you better pick a partner, not only for pregnancy, not only for having a baby together. Obviously, that is a big life change, but to spend a life with another human who is in there with you, who wants to have these difficult conversations, and who doesn't leave you alone in challenging moments, but is right there with you. A person you can trust so deeply that nothing can come between you two. And I think that's the note on which I want to end it. What no one tells you is that you better pick a partner that has so much inner strength, regardless of you, that he or she or them bring to the table so that in those difficult moments that life will inevitably bring, you won't be left alone. That you're actually a team. You're an alliance in those moments. So mind that once you swipe left or right on your next dating app endeavor. No, big love. It has been an honor to have you listen to my words, to my thoughts, to have you respond on my Instagram reels, Instagram question boxes, and truthfully, that you give me your time. I do not take that for granted. I am so curious about what the future will bring. This podcast will be back. Once I am a mommy, I don't know if we're gonna. Have the same format, the same podcast couch or microphone. But I do know that I couldn't feel more lucky in doing this with you. This is the now really final episode of the season one of The Soul Date Club. I'm your host, Sarah Grace. And until I see you next time, thank you. I love you.