Just thinking about this day today, and feeling emotional and excited and a little scared.
The truth: I’m feeling more than “a little scared.” I’m really, really scared. More scared, in fact, than I was the first time, because now I know just how big of a thing it is to bring a baby into the world. The first time I figured, what, it hurts? Big deal. But now I know that it’s not about “hurting,” it’s about one of the most exhausting, overwhelming and – yes – painful ordeals you can put a body through, and I know about all the stuff that can go wrong…and I’m scared. And that fear makes me disappointed in myself, because shouldn’t I just be pure joy at this point, days before I meet my daughter? Shouldn’t I feel like Christmas is coming?
I don’t feel that way. I know that joy is on the way, of course I do…but right now I feel scared. And I guess I’m mostly scared that I won’t be as brave as I want to be, because I wasn’t last time.
But that’s why I’ve been spending time every day looking at these photos: because seeing them reminds me that there’s something much bigger waiting for me on the other side of the pain and the exhaustion and the everything-that-might-go-wrong, and that’s that no matter what happens, I know this: I get to fall in love. Again. I almost can’t believe it. I know there’s “a baby” coming…but my daughter? That doesn’t feel possible; it feels too big and too forever to be real.
So maybe being not so brave is okay. I mean, it’s okay to be scared of falling in love. It should be scary, shouldn’t it? Because you can’t control it, and you can’t stop it, and once it’s there it changes everything.
