worry

Moms worry, a lot. I am no exception. Every pregnancy seems to have me worry more that something might happen and the law of odds seems to make it more likely. How many times can one get so lucky as to easily become pregnant, carry a healthy child through a normal pregnancy and deliver a beautiful, intelligent child? I have been down right scared these past couple weeks because I can not imagine the baby after she is born, there is a disconnect between her and my picture of her as a baby in my arms and in my life. I think of the stories I have read where the moms JUST KNEW something was wrong, just had a sense that they were not going to get to know their babies and I am terrified, I clutch my belly and I beg her to please be okay, I tell her how badly I want her, how badly I want my fourth little girl, my own little women. Then I go back to being terrified that something will happen when she is born and I will not have her. This has never happened before, I have always been able to imagine my girls and this is what makes it so much more real and scary.

This morning I woke up at 6am, I lay in bed and I felt her move, and I rubbed my belly where she was moving and I thought about all this and how much I wanted her. Then I did something. I imagined her as a he and their he was, I could imagine HIM as a baby, I could picture his birth and him in my arms and as a small child. Why would I even try this? Because the first time I heard the heartbeat "he" flooded my veins with every beat of the heart, the thought "he" is what popped in my head when I talked to him, touched him thought of him before we were told "80% chance" at the sonogram, before we cut the gender reveal cake and it was pink. Then when I tried to say "she" it just felt wrong so I kept saying "the baby" and I could tell I was offending people by not accepting this little girl. They pushed "she" and I knew if I persisted everyone would think I was the mom with all the girls who truly wanted a boy. BUT the thing is before they told us what the baby was I honestly could not decide WHAT I wanted more a boy or a girl, I truly had no preference. A lot of parents will tell you that and honestly it is rarely true, this time it was...until the cake was pink, in that moment I was SO FUCKING HAPPY to be having another girl, to be getting my little women. I jumped up and down and screamed and smiled and even cried a little to be getting my fourth girl, how damn lucky could one mom get?? But then, girl just didn't seem right, but I made my plans anyway, saying "she", naming her, falling in love with this girl, so devoted to my fourth little girl mostly forgetting the "he, he, he" beating in my veins with his heartbeat, forgetting the dreams where he came out a boy, forgetting how sure I was, how I just knew, I just knew he was a boy. I was wrapped up in my daughter but as birth approaches and I can not imagine her I have grown scared, afraid I will lose my child at birth and this morning I wonder if I have found out why, because what if I will lose her when she is born? What if she is a he, this morning I imagined my son and he was real in a way she has not been. She has only ever been real since the cake was pink, she's only real in my womb. What if I can't imagine her because she doesn't exist and a son exists. I have about 2 weeks to know the ending of this. I want a baby, any baby as long as it lives and breathes and grows into an adult. No doubt if she comes out a girl I will feel guilt for thinking so adamantly that she was a boy, and if she comes out a boy I will be so happy to have a boy, yet I will also have to mourn the loss of the daughter I think I know. I guess we shall see.