Feature image from BELLELUMIERE

Pregnancy is one of the greatest lessons in delayed gratification.

What is Delayed Gratification?  It is the opposite of instant gratification.

Delayed gratification is where you are required, or choose to wait to receive the benefits of a decision made a long time ago.  It is a skill that must be learnt and then practiced over a long period of time  before people are able to truly delay their gratification.

Decide to have kids (if that is what happened) but you don’t get to see the fruits of that decision for almost a year.

With pregnancy, you make a decision almost a year ago.  At the time you make the decision to have a baby, your life is a certain way, you are a certain person and you may or may not be in a certain relationship.  But the baby doesn’t come for almost 10 months.

But the baby doesn’t come for almost 10 months.  That is nearly a year.  A lot can happen in a year.  So many things can have changed in that time.  The life that you had when you decided to have children is not the life that you will have when your baby arrives, weather you are adopting or carrying your own child.

You might be a different person by then.  You might have a new jobs (though I doubt is as employers are notorious for not hiring heavily pregnant women).  You and your partner may have split up, or gotten married, or moved overseas, or changed jobs - or died.

So many things about your life that were certain when you decided to have a baby are now all different.

Since my partner and I found out we were pregnant we have moved house twice and he has changed jobs.  We have also brought a new car, changed our savings plans, lost a few friends, gained a few friends and traveled.