no way out but through.

My sister asked if I was scared of giving birth. I am not, particularly. I don't expect it to be pleasant, in fact I am quite certain it will suck more than most things that have ever sucked before. But there's no way out but through at this point. My sister has given birth six times, so maybe you need the experience to have the dread.

I am also not scared of taking care of the baby. Not that I feel confident about it, but it does seem that there are complete morons out there who manage to keep a baby alive. I am not a complete moron, so my husband and I will probably muddle through with only light scarring. There will be mistakes, things that I feel bad about for an hour or a day or a week even, but then will tell as a reassuring story to some pregnant woman someday.

I am scared of other things. My continued ambivalence scares me. I thought I'd be more excited by now. I read a pregnancy forum that has been really helpful for me in that whatever symptom I'm having, other people are having it too. Plus, some women are having worse symptoms, plus relationship issues and dealing with controlling parents. A good story about a mother-in-law throwing a hissy fit about a baby shower really helps my pelvic pain. And there are threads where women fearfully ask if anyone else isn't excited "enough." So I'm not alone there. Other women, who already had babies, reassure the rest of us that they never felt particularly excited, but they're happy with their babies now.

That is reassuring. My lack of excitement makes me worry that I'm going to hate this motherhood thing. I asked a friend who already has a baby whether she bonded with her baby immediately upon birth. She did not really understand the question and reassured me about the keeping the baby alive part of it. That leads me to believe that new parents are too busy to worry about whether or not they actually like parenting. That's actually a bit comforting. Misery is worse when you have time to dwell on it. If I feel the cold grip of regret on my soul, I'll just start a load of laundry.

I have trouble picturing my life with a kid. It's like my due date is the horizon; after that, I can't see anything. I know my life will be drastically different, but I can't picture what it will look like. I try to insert a baby into it, but that just looks like my existing life with some random baby hanging out. I can't picture my baby. Maybe this would be easier if we knew the gender, then I could at least picture a baby with a bow on its head or something. I don't know how to be excited about spending 18 years with someone I don't even know.

Still, no way out but through.