I've been thinking a lot about fears lately, how they govern my life, how I perceive things and how they make me act in situations and towards others.
Thinking about this has stemmed from this pregnancy. From the beginning I have feared something would go wrong, exactly what is different as I progress but I realized recently that a lot of the fears are rooted in two things.
1. Experiences that people around me are having.
2. My experiences in Olivia's first few months.
I decided as a way to hopefully move past some of the fears I would get them out of my head.
In the beginning, I feared I would have a miscarriage. This fear was sparked by a few close friends that had experienced miscarriages along with the fact I had some spotting in the beginning. With Olivia, as naive as it probably was, I never once feared I would lose her.
As I moved into the second trimester and neared the anatomy scan I feared the baby would have some sort of defect. This one is deep rooted, it's one I haven't moved past, though the scan was clear, and worries me on the daily. A few things have sparked this fear. One being that I didn't feel the baby move for a long time. We went to the anatomy scan at 21 weeks and I had only felt what I assumed was baby a couple times. Olivia had her anatomy scan at 19 weeks and she was like a ninja, so the lack of movement scared me. Another, a friend who is just under a week ahead of me found out her baby has a heart defect. And probably the biggest, our experience with Olivia. Her getting so so sick when she was only weeks old, being told by ER doctors that we basically were horrible parents for not just giving her Tylenol, and then her ending up getting really bad and being admitted to the hospital, dehydrated, and tons of tests ran to figure out what was wrong, to find out she had a birth defect that wasn't caught on the scan. While luckily, she was/is fine and she is growing out of her defect, as a new parent it is still one of the worst, mostly terrifying moments of my life. And while she is on an antibiotic everyday to prevent kidney infections and damage to her kidneys while we wait for her to completely outgrow it, anytime she starts getting sick or has a slight fever I instantly fear she has a kidney infection. And lastly, what probably started this fear to begin with. We were originally planning on having a home birth with this baby. I was already seeing a home birth midwife and it was going to happen. But then I got a very strong feeling I needed to have our baby in a hospital. (While I know many people have different ideas about home birth I believe that as long as the pregnancy is low risk and all is well they are 100% safe.) I ignored the feeling. But I kept having it, and the feeling got stronger and more frequent so I felt I should probably go with it. And in that moment that I decided to switch, my fear that something will go wrong was born. So, I fear they didn't catch something with this baby. I fear that baby will be born and all will be well and then BAM, everything will crumble or something will go wrong during the birth.
I feared having a 2nd trimester miscarriage. I was told of someone who had recently had one and a few weeks later had a significant amount of spotting. Everything ended up being fine but it was scary for a few days.
And of course, I have general fears about having a second. Will Olivia feel abandoned? Will she love the baby? I know I will love the baby but what if I don't like the baby as much as Olivia? What if this baby is just as hard as Olivia was as a baby? Can I manage it all again and still make sure Olivia is enjoying life? Anxiety. (I also realize these fears are normal going from one child to another).
Also, I'm really not a baby person. 😬 I think they are cute, but I honestly never really have the desire to hold other people's baby's. I do of course, but it always freaks me out a little especially the tiny ones. Partially because I feel like for some reason I don't know how to hold their baby right. Every baby likes to be held a little differently and not knowing the right way for that baby gives me a little anxiety. (There have been a few exceptions where I want to hold someone's baby and it just works and I don't mind holding them for awhile but for the most part, 30 seconds and I'm good).
Although, Olivia is entering the emotionally draining threenager age, I LOVE kids starting at 2. Younger than that, and even with Olivia, I just want them to be older.
Now that I have fully ranted on my fears about baby. Maybe I should clarify that I actually like being a mother 😉.
I love being Olivia's mom. She is seriously the best. She's so stinking cute, funny, sweet, strong willed, friendly, a good eater, and so smart. She's the best! I love hanging out with her.
Even though I really don't like being pregnant, because I tend to have hard pregnancies and this one has been rougher than Olivia's, I am amazed at my body's ability to create and grow life within me. And then to feed that life after birth! Women's body's are seriously so so amazing and I am grateful that though there have been many struggles associated with child bearing and rearing we have not, at least not yet, had to suffer through infertility.
Although I am terrified, I am so excited to meet our new baby. I am excited for Olivia to have a buddy and totally be little miss mom.
I know that even though I have fears, and thus far those fears have luckily not been some sort of intuition of what would actually happen, that even if the worst happens, even if we go through hard things with this baby similar to Olivia that we CAN make it through. I am a mom who can provide for my baby the best way I know how, I honestly don't care if other people don't agree with the way we choose to parent, and any struggles that come our family is strong enough to endure and come out happy and thriving.
I love my family. And I will love our family with one more. It may take an adjustment period but it's going to be so amazing and exciting to see where we end up.
