Crazy Thoughts From A First-Time Mother
27 Jan 2012 2 Comments
As some of you may already know, I was having a really tough time sleeping for the past week or so. This time, however, it wasn’t due to me feeling under the weather, but from me feeling nervous and anxious about being a mother. I am actually really surprised that I’m as nervous as I am. I’ve always considered myself to be a nurturer. I’ve been “taking care” of different cousins since I was 16 years old. I’ve even been watching after Ciera, Paige, and Genevieve since they were little babies. I think watching after children and nurturing them comes very naturally to me.
But recurring thoughts keep coming back to me over and over at night. Will I be a good mother? Will Dan and I be able to provide our child with the kind of lifestyle we want for him or her? Will we have enough money for college, extracurricular activities, and birthday parties? Will I be able to be strict enough to help guide them to be a decent human-being? Will I be lenient enough and respect their space so that they can be who they were meant to be?
And if all those thoughts were not enough to drive a pregnant woman crazy, there was also a touch of paranoia to add to the mix. Now, I’m fully aware that I’m not even 3-months pregnant yet and things are supposed to be uneventful (except for the nausea and constant visits to the bathroom, of course). But a lot of times, I don’t really feel pregnant. I started to worry that there might be something wrong. I started to think to myself, I hope my baby’s okay. Maybe I should’ve waited for the 3-month mark before I started announcing to everyone I was pregnant. Maybe I can call my obstetrician up right now and ask her to just give me 10 minutes of her time to give me an ultrasound and let me hear my baby’s heartbeat. That would give me some peace of mind.
That last paragraph there, I initially did not want to include in the blog. Who wants to read about something so negative on a baby blog, right? But Dan convinced me that I should and that I’m probably not the first pregnant woman to have these thoughts and feelings. (Please do not feel obligated to comment and legitimize my crazy thoughts)
But once again, my strong network of family and friends have helped me through this time and I have been feeling much better for the past couple days. My husband wrote a beautiful letter to me to help ease my worries and help me sleep at night. My mother has jokingly given me anecdotes to help me fall asleep. And my sweet father, after having heard from my mother that I’ve been getting little sleep at night, called me telling me that I have nothing at all to worry about. He said in his broken English, “Jenny, why do you worry?! You have nothing to worry about! This is MY grandchild, okay? He is just like his grandpa. He’s quiet and doesn’t make any trouble. He’s not like his grandma who is so loud and talks a lot. So don’t worry, okay? He’s quiet, but he’s good.”
And as weird as that sounds, that made me feel a lot better. I feel truly lucky that while I’m going through this crazy roller-coaster called Pregnancy, that I’ve got so many people holding my hand throughout the entire ride.
Only five more days until the next doctor appointment. I think all these pep talks will help me not freak out and will hold me over until then.
-J
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