dianaschnuth

I rarely write personal thoughts in my blog anymore. Either I’m just not interested in blogging after spending the work day in front of a computer, or I’m not comfortable sharing that much of myself anymore.

Today, I think, may be a departure from that trend.

Because I’m feeling totally overwhelmed.

It really is ironic that I got pregnant after Aaron and I had decided that having kids just wasn’t for us. I mean, I’d always wanted to be a mom, but Aaron had never wanted children, and he never sugarcoated that fact for me. I knew. I hoped he’d change his mind, but I knew. In fact, I told him on more than one occasion that I loved him more than I loved someone that I’d never met, that didn’t even exist, and that I certainly wouldn’t leave him just so I could have a child with someone else.

Back in September 2009, nearly two years ago, I blogged about why people choose to (or not to) have kids:

This really feels like my deconversion from Christianity: a slow but revealing process that makes my brain look at the world differently. Once I seriously asked the question, once I stepped back from my worldview and considered it, I got my mind blown.

There are just so many reasons why we didn’t want this. Like I said earlier, it’s not that I didn’t want kids, but I did recognize that the support situation isn’t ideal. We don’t have any family who’s local, apart from my father-in-law and brother-in-law (neither of whom are likely to watch Junior on a regular basis). We work opposite shifts — I get home from work and usually get to spend about 30 minutes with Aaron before he’s off to work; I’m asleep for a good four hours before he comes home; then I get up and leave for work in the morning and he sleeps for another five hours after I leave. This spells daycare, so Daddy can get some sleep after Mommy goes to work in the morning.

Then there are even more selfish reasons, like having nice things, and sleeping in on weekends, and going on international and tropical vacations, and being totally comfortable with our current financial situation. Yeah, they’re self-centered. That doesn’t bother me. After all, I am the center of my universe. I am the person who perceives the world around me and interacts with it. (But that’s a philosophical post for another time.)

Maybe it’s hormones. Maybe I’m overloaded with babyness. I don’t know. But I have this pervasive fear that our child is going to affect our marriage in a Very Bad Way. So far, we’ve managed to work through most of the relationship bumps we’ve encountered, coming to some sort of arrangement or agreement to get us through. But this… I don’t want us to resent this newcomer. Or each other.

A friend-couple of ours just told us that they’re also expecting, and that they’re “overjoyed.” I read their e-mail, and thought about that first few minutes after our positive pee-test, where Aaron and I sat in the living room in shoe-gazing silence, punctuated by the occasional quiet f-bomb. Even after getting used to the idea, I’ve barely made it to the “moderately excited” part of the spectrum. “Overjoyed” won’t be until… I don’t know when. Until he graduates high school?

I feel guilty as fuck for NOT being overjoyed. Like there’s something inherently wrong with me. And, again, it’s not that I won’t or don’t love this little still-unnamed son of ours… but I do love my husband, and I don’t want us to grow to resent our son or each other.

I hate the unknown. That’s mainly it. Our lives are about to change (as every parent loves to tell us), and as much as I can read and prepare and learn, there’s no knowing how this is going to affect our routine, our lifestyle, our relationship.

Maybe we can have a “normal” weekend, with no baby garage sales or baby naming or shopping for maternity underwear or bras that are three goddamn cup sizes bigger than my old ones. Maybe some normality (or as close as I can get) will help set me right.