My two biggest concerns is that something could happen to baby and also that something could happen to me. I know these are normal things to worry about and it's most likely everything will be just fine. But these thoughts are still in my head a lot lately, so much so that I was standing in line at the post office the other day and just suddenly started crying. For some reason I just had this feeling like I wasn't going to survive the birth. And oddly enough that didn't scare me so much but it did make me feel overwhelmingly sad that I could potentially end up leaving my little girl and beautiful family behind and never get to see or know of a future with them. Even now it upsets me writing about it. I love my wife and our little family so much and I just can't bear the thought of ever leaving them like that. Anyway, it was bothering me so much that after my tears at the post office, I had to talk to Scout about it. She was very understanding and said that she'd had similar thoughts when she had the girls ... Nightmares about c-sections going wrong etc. I made her promise that she would keep and care for our baby girl if anything happened and of course she said she would, even though I think she thought I was being a little melodramatic. Anyway, I feel better now that she knows what's going on in my head. I think I just felt like I needed to have the conversation ... just in case. It's not like I think there will be any issue with anyone not letting her keep our baby if something where to happen to me, but the thought is still there in the back of my head for whatever reason.
As far as worrying about something happening to baby, I have been a lot better about pushing those thoughts aside and convincing myself that she will be fine. I think it's just not something my brain is prepared to process or even consider with any seriousness at this point because the reality would be beyond comprehension. Somehow I think I have just managed to convince myself that she will be fine and I'm happy to take that expectation (no matter how naive) with me into this labour because the alternative is just not something I can think about at this point.
In terms of labour, I feel a lot more empowered now to just give it a good crack and see what happens. I'm not scared of the pain. I might be once it starts! But right now I feel ok about getting through that first stage. The second stage still worries me, but I am just going to have to keep all those fears out of my head somehow and focus on having a happy healthy baby at the end of it.
Another thing that has been playing on my mind, is whether I'll be successful with breastfeeding. I know it's probably not something I should be worrying about at this point, but it's something I really want to be able to do and I hear so many stories about how much others struggle with it. Anyway, we will cross that bridge when we get to it, but I am hoping it's not something that gets the better of me, because I'll be massively disappointed if it does.
Apart from those couple of things, I am really looking forward to baby making her grand entrance :). I don't feel nervous at all yet. Probably because I've been trying to convince myself that she'll still be in there for a little while yet. We are yet to make a list of who to tell when she arrives or discuss how we'll go about doing that. I am not a fan of Facebook and we have deliberately keep our news quiet on there so I imagine it will be phone calls and txts. One of the reasons we have keep any baby talk off Facebook is because we haven't wanted to hurt or offend our other friends who are still TTC. I can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but I finally told them we were pregnant back in January. I had been putting it off because I was concerned about how they'd take the news etc. and the potential impact it could have on our friendship. Anyway at the time, I spoke with the partner of the one who had been having so much trouble. She was actually just starting IVF herself because they had had to swap roles in the end. Anyway I figured she would know how best to break the news to her partner and because they were both seeing a counsellor my friend said she'd discuss it with their counsellor first. I hadn't heard from either of them since and Scout was worried that that was the end of our friendship with them I kept telling her it would be fine and that they just needed time after everything they'd been though. Anyway ... I got a call out of the blue from the one I'd spoken to about it last week telling me that she still hadn't been able to break the news to her partner! Apparently the counsellor didn't feel it was a good time to be sharing the news back in Jan and had told her to hold off but now with baby about to make an appearance any day, she had brought it up with the counsellor again and the counsellor suggested I be the one to tell the partner. So here I am ... about to hit my due date ... thinking I'd already dealt with this and it turns out I still have to! I can understand that it's been hard to pick the right time, but I'm feeling really bad now that my friend has been kept in the dark this long. Anyway ... they're away right now but the plan is for me to contact her early next week, when they get back, to tell her. This will be pretty much smack bang on my due date and pretty much the last thing I'm going to feel like doing ... but it has to be done. Wish me luck. I'm just hoping this baby doesn't arrive before I get to tell her ... because telling her after baby is already here is going to make me feel even worse!
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