I’ve made some new friends recently. I think. I hope. And one of them told me that she read my writing and she hoped I would write more. So here goes.
When I was pregnant I was full of all this self-righteous angst and rage. Is that to be expected from a feminist, millennial, first-time mom? Possibly. But I’m positive that there are plenty of other women who could not relate to my October diatribe. There are women who will criticize my choices, who will roll their eyes at how annoyed I was by innocent comments, who will call me crazy and tell me that I’m lucky everything turned out okay given my blatant disregard for the “pregnancy rules.”
I understand this. And I understand that what guides so many pregnant women’s choices, opinions, and comments is fear. But they are wrong in assuming I was not and am not afraid.
When I was pregnant, I was afraid every single day. I journaled about it a lot, actually. Fear is not unique, and yet everyone has a different experience of fear. The outcome of fear is different too. For some, their fear leads them to follow the rules to a T. For others, they overcompensate. For some, they block it out and ignore it all. Others go into research overdrive, information overload.
I read a lot of books when I was pregnant, but some might say I read the books that I would likely end up agreeing with. Confirmation bias, they call that. Whatever. I thought it helped. I read the books with statistics that proved my overconsumption of soft cheese was fine. I read the books that said I could eat as much chocolate as I wanted to. I read the books that tried to be positive but acknowledged the hard emotional aspects of this huge change. So I believe that my fear led me to eventually feel empowered and grounded in the choices I made, and I don’t regret any of it.
But someone criticizing those choices would be wrong to assume I wasn’t afraid.
My first fear was of miscarriage. I believe that is probably everyone’s fear. I was afraid of miscarriage long after the statistics showed how unlikely it was. I found it ironic that on one hand they say that miscarriage isn’t talked about enough. They say that women don’t realize how common it is and therefore feel alone if it happens to them. And yet, I felt as though I’d heard just enough about miscarriage that I was terrified it would happen to me. I know other women who have felt this way. It’s the main reason why women wait so long to tell even close family members that they are pregnant.
My fear didn’t end there. When my tailbone started hurting, I was afraid I would always be in pain, that it would never go away. I was afraid of my body changing. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to continuing working out or swimming.
After I turned down the blood tests that check for chromosomal abnormalities, I suddenly became gripped with fear that my baby had Down Syndrome. After the ultrasound tech pointed out a bright white spot on the baby’s heart at 20 weeks, I was overcome with fear that there was something wrong with her. I never even told anyone about it for fear that their fear would exacerbate mine.
My fears about what my life would look like after the baby was born began early. I was afraid of how my life would change, that I would no longer be able to enjoy even the simple things I loved. I was writing outside on the front porch with a cup of coffee one morning in August and I wrote “Will I still be able to do this when I have a kid? Will I still be me?”
Then there was the whole, “oh my God, I don’t know how to take care of a baby” fear. I had no idea what I was doing and since everyone was telling me that all babies are different, then I had no idea how to prepare. I was afraid of not having the instruction manual. How do you tell if they’re hungry, how often do you feed it? I feared the sleep deprivation, the crying it out, the babyproofing, the sick days, the long nights, the terrible twos. I feared how the age of social media would affect my child. I feared not being able to raise my kid the way I was raised. I feared the teenage years, terrified my daughter would be like me, yet kind of hoping she would be.
I was afraid of what having a baby would do to my marriage. I was afraid of what kind of mom I would be or what kind of dad my husband would be. I erroneously didn’t have any confidence in us or our abilities. I hoped that having a baby would suddenly turn us into these amazing parents, but what if it didn’t? What if we didn’t have this instinct? What if we can’t do this?
The feminist in me became afraid that we wouldn’t be able to manage equal parenting. I was afraid my husband’s job wouldn’t be flexible and everything would fall to me, the mommy role. I was afraid my career would suffer, that I wouldn’t be able to recover lost wages from taking an unpaid maternity leave (more on that in another post). I was afraid that the mental load of parenthood would fall to me – remembering to brush her teeth, trim her nails, give her medicine, take her to the doctor, buy more food when we’re running low.
As the pregnancy dragged on, tiny fears multiplied. Fear of not finding the right daycare, not getting a spot in that daycare, not choosing the right stroller. Not having the nursery ready in time, not being able to afford my child’s college education – I’m telling you, it all escalated quickly.
My biggest secret was that I was afraid I would hate my new life, this life of motherhood that I had chosen. I was afraid I would regret this. This fear raged and boiled inside because I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. Everyone seemed so happy with their kids. Everyone said that it all changed once they were here. But what if it didn’t? What if I wasn’t happy and I had made that irrevocable decision?
I was afraid of the unknown. I read all the books and planned and researched, but sometimes it didn’t help. Sometimes it opened my eyes to things I didn’t even know I needed to worry about.
As the pregnancy passed the halfway point, I started to fear preterm labor. As it neared the end, I started to fear C-sections and complications. As I passed my due date, I feared induction.
The wonderful part about writing this from the other side of my daughter’s birth is that I can remind myself that many of these fears never came to pass. I can calmly and clearly see that I was in the throes of a hormonal storm. Some fears didn’t go away, and I suppose now that I’m a mom, I will always have some level of worry. But instead of being consumed by it, I am consumed by a toothless, 7-week-old grin.
The above may seem like common pregnancy fears to you. Or maybe some seem absurd. But every fear is valid. There are reasons we fear the unknown – we literally do not know what will happen, and we imagine all possible outcomes. The bad ones keep us up at night. Even in the easiest of pregnancies, we are not immune to fearing the worst.
But most of us hide our fear. We don’t dare tell people, lest we sound insane, and that makes us feel like we’re alone. Once again, now that I’m on the other side, I look back and roll my eyes and laugh a little. How could I have been so consumed with these seemingly irrational thoughts? How could I have worried so much when it all turned out fine?
It was real then, though, and that’s what matters. I hope this post lets you acknowledge your own fears, if you are in this place. I hope you’ll know you’re not alone.
The common enemy of every fear is hope.
We are afraid, but we hope our fears will not come to pass. We hope that everything will turn out all right. We hope that we will have a happy, healthy baby. We hope that we will figure it all out. The hope drowns out even the loudest, most raucous fears ringing in our ears at 3 a.m. when we’re tossing and turning and Googling.
Hope turns into positivity and gratitude. Even if some of those fears do become reality, hope keeps us going. There is always something else to hold on to.