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The definition of femininity varies among women. My interactions with women from various backgrounds have taught me that those who value having children hold the experience of pregnancy as life-changing. As women, we are taught not only by our families but by institutions that our ability to change and adapt is no longer a quality but rather a trait we are born with. Surely, it’s not men who experience what it’s like to carry a child for 9 months or the pain of childbirth. A woman’s ability to take on the role of being a mother is not only physically challenging but also exhaustive on a mental and emotional level — yet she is the sole gender who is able to not only carry the seed of life, but also the only one who can give birth.
When I found out about my pregnancy, I was ecstatic. I was only five weeks pregnant but automatically felt that my life was about to change. When I look back and reflect on that time, I know my feelings surfaced not because I actually felt a tiny being inside of me (it was too early for that) but because everything I had heard about pregnancy would no longer be irrelevant. I was actually about to experience perhaps one of the most profound journeys in a woman’s life. I had always imagined myself being a mother, given that I already felt like I was a second mother to my younger siblings. But I knew that the next nine months of my life…
