I Think I'm Starting to Get It

I think I'm starting to understand that my former self is gone. That she is gone forever and even though I might catch glimpses of her here and there, she will exist only in my memory. She's being replaced by someone new.

I commented to my mother that it's so easy to worry about a baby in your belly. I can't see her, touch her--sometimes she doesn't kick the same way she did the day before, and there's no way for me to know why. "You think that's bad?" she said. "Wait till she's out of you."

Yikes. I think I might know what she means. Even now, both of my parents stay awake until everyone is inside the house. With teenagers/young adults who have night lives, that's difficult--and sometimes it meant my parents would be up until 3am on a weekend night, waiting up for us to return from our midnight movie. Hopefully now, it's more that Hannah and I rearrange our schedules so we can be home by a decent hour. That way our parents can get some shut-eye. We're sort of considerate like that.

How will this be? Every time I read on the news about a child--any age, any race, anywhere in the world--who is hurt, upset, lost, missing out on opportunities--will I really put my own child's face on theirs in my mind? Will every traumatic pregnancy haunt me? Will I be kept up at night with the cycle of "what if" playing through my head like a horrible record? Will I even be able to enjoy one second of my little girl without feeling guilty for bringing her into this scary, scary world?

I know motherhood changes you. I know I keep going on and on about it, and I don't even know the half of it yet. I am just making documentation of this awareness. It's not paranoia. It's motherhood. Life is hard. The world is scary. But life is also sweet, and the world is also the greatest place to be.

I can't wait to meet her, because she'll get to meet me. And so will I. As she learns who she is, I get to re-learn who I am, because I'll be someone new. Birth of a daughter=birth of a mother.