Fear

I have been watching a lot of shows on TV lately that all seem to have to do with giving birth. And quite frankly, they scare the hell out of me. I am starting to get worried. Worried about giving birth, because it is going to hurt. Also, so many things can go wrong. On one show, Starting Over, they have a girl who is due to give birth any day now and she had a tour of the hospital. At the hospital they showed her the OR, where she would go if she had to have a ceasarian. It freaked me out. They strap your legs and your hands and they do the operation and all they give you is an epidural. You are awake watching while they cut your stomach open. It was too much for me. I came out of my room, and told David, that's it, this baby is staying inside. I am not letting it come out. If it wants to come out I will give birth from my head, like Zeus did with Athena. I can handle a bad headache, but something coming out of my vagina, or watching someone cut me open, so that I can see parts of me that I am not meant to, that's not my idea of a fun evening, afternoon, or morning. I don't know. The fantasy of having a baby is a lot more romantic, I think than the reality. Whenever I envisioned myself with child, I imagined being pregnant and wearing overalls. I imagined holding a baby in my arms and walking quietly with it to its bed. I imagined me with a one year old. I have never imagined myself giving birth and moaning like a mating cat. I have never imagined myself staying up all night to comfort a crying baby. I always got the best part of parenting while working as a nanny. I got to go home to my quiet apartment at the end of the day and rest up before having to do it again the next morning. Now I am not going to have that option. I will be responsible for it 24 hours a day for the next 4 years. Until it is old enough to go to preschool. I worry that I am too selfish to have a child. I worry that I am not organized enough. I worry that I haven't researched this issue enough. I worry about not knowing how to make homemade baby food. I know how to do the essentials in childcare, I know how to change a diaper, I know how to hold a baby, I know how to rock it to sleep, but do I know enough to be a parent? Do I have enough selflessness inside of me to be a parent? Am I stable enough emotionally to give unconditionally to another human being? I don't know.
On the other side of this, my sister had a baby a year and a half ago and the birth was very traumatic for her. First, she gave birth a month early and secondly she was told that her son has down syndrome. She was devastated by everything. She is the best mother, she really is. And he is a great kid. He has a wonderful sense of humor at only 16 months. And usually a kid with a great sense of humor is a sign of a happy kid, which is a reflection of how the parents are with them. I am proud of her. Now she is pregnant with her second and she is worried. And I think she has good reason to worry. This is not imaginary. The first time, she didn't know enough to ask the right questions and now she knows a lot and it is hard for her to decide what the right steps are for her to take. I had a miscarriage before this baby. It was very traumatic for me. I felt like it was a punishment from G-d for having had a termination when I was 20. And it was so painful to go through, here in Israel, with no one to hold me and comfort me. I felt so alone. I prayed for that pregnancy. I prayed hard for it. And I lost it. It is such a strange term in english. I lost the baby. Like it was my fault. I put it somewhere and couldn't remember where and I lost my baby. In Hebrew, the phrase for a miscarriage is to fall out. This baby fell out of me and there was nothing I could do about it. And now, I am so worried that this baby is going to fall out of me. I don't know when I am going to stop checking for blood. Every cramp or pain scares me. Every none pain scares me. I try to trust but I am overly cautious about certain things. And then what has happened is that I have dreampt for so long about being pregnant, now I am scared to death. I am 14 weeks today. About 25 weeks left to go...