It’s Friday July 19th 2024. A very nice sunny warm day. I am 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant. I woke up today with a lot of anxiety deep inside. My heart is racing a bit. I have been anxious for the past few weeks though. I mean I am always anxious but like special edition anxiety. I am on the precipice of one of the biggest changes of my life. I haven’t been able to fully process that. I’ve talked to people about it of course. I’ve tried to explain how I feel. I haven’t written about it, idk why. But nothing really expresses how it really feels; I don’t know how I really feel. It’s too big to comprehend. I have felt this way my whole entire pregnancy, but I thought it’d hit me more by now. It still feels kind of abstract.
I feel like a lot of people have a baby, and then a couple years later have another, and another, etc. But I had my last baby over 8 years ago. Which is basically a decade. Especially between the ages 23-32. It feels like a lifetime ago. So I’m in this weird space. This is not my first time. I am not naive. I have been in labor before, I have given birth. I have been postpartum, I have cared for a newborn. I have breastfed. I’ve had a toddler, I’ve raised a child. Somewhere in my brain and body I have these skills tucked away, these experiences stored in my memory. I can faintly recall. But it’s faint. It’s blurry. I don’t remember fully how to do these things. I don’t fully remember doing them. So I’m in this weird in-between area where I know what to expect on some level, but feel like I’m brand new again at the same time. Which is the dynamic that is causing anxiety.
When I was going to have Juniper I had no experience to reference besides that of the people I’d read from or heard from. I was so curious and so open to the experience. Anything could happen. Going from zero children to your first child is indeed a huge life adjustment. Probably the biggest. Your entire world changes in an instant. So this second time shouldn’t feel like as big of a change but because I am not naive it somehow is feeling like more intense?
It’s just so hard to grasp the concept that within the next couple of days I am going to be handed a new person that is just going to, like, stay with me forever. It’s one thing to anticipate an event, such as childbirth. It’s another thing to anticipate a newborn baby and that whole adjustment. But this is also a 2 year old, a 4 year old, eventually an adult human. Named Duane. My son. Forever. And I know that better now, that I have an 8 year old who was once that newborn being handed to me up out of the water she was born into.
To make a new human is surreal. Just out of nowhere, poof! New human.
I’ve been emotional about the fact that Juniper isn’t going to be my only child anymore. I don’t know how to fully process that, either. I’ve just been playing back the past 8 years a lot like a montage of memories in my brain theater.
The first half of Junipers life was really tumultuous and hard for us both. It won’t look this way for Duane. That’s interesting to think about. I believe I am 100% a better mom now than I was when Juniper was really young. Duane will have a more present, more experienced mom. A mom who isn’t going through a very difficult situation. That makes me feel a bit guilty and reminds me of my underlying remorse for how it was for Juniper back then. But things are good now. And Juniper is beyond excited to be a big sister, and to have a little brother.
I need to release fear. I am so scared. To give birth. To hold a newborn. To have two children to somehow love and care for equally. I still don’t believe that I can love anyone as much as my first born. This makes me feel broken somehow, like my motherly instinct isn’t intact for anyone new. To have a son. What will a boy and I have in common? What do I do with a boy? Will we be close? Will he feel like more of Scott’s child than my own? Will I be less worried about him than my daughter? That would be nice. Ot maybe actually more worried?
What’s he going to look like? What’s his cry going to sound like? Am I going to be depressed? Am I going to be okay with the lack of sleep? Are Scott and I going to be okay? What am I going to do for work when it’s time to start making money again?
It could be tonight. It feels just like the sunny, warm Friday that I went into labor with Juniper. It could be tomorrow. It could be next week or the following. But sometime very very soon I am going to have a baby. And that is really tripping me out. I’m just sort of riding that inexplicable feeling. Going a bit quiet, into the birth portal. Just kind of staring off into space a lot. Letting this all happen as it’s going to.