One of my biggest fears about getting pregnant is how much my body will change and how long it might take me to feel like my old self again, if that is even possible. I feel as if pregnant women are sometimes caught between a rock and hard place where they are either forced into feeling satisfied enough from being able to bring life into the world, or into magically snapping back to their old bodies. Anything that falls in between and brings disappointment is usually made to seem like a non-factor.
Our bodies are so personal to us yet at same time we are made to feel that they aren’t. They are forever open to scrutiny and question. Ingrained in our culture is that odd Guyanese way of greeting, “Gyal yah put on!”