F is for

This is going to seem like a very strange photograph for the prompt, but "F is for..." was another hard one for me. Before going to bed last night I still wasn't certain what to photograph today, or write about, but after a conversation in bed with my husband last night, and some of my fears about the new baby, I woke up this morning knowing that F should be for Fears, as they are fairly overwhelming at the moment, as I guess fears of the future are for most women at this stage of pregnancy.

The photograph, that is of the area in our room that will be for the baby's items. He wont have his own room for a while, but our space is large enough to accommodate my husband, myself and Emerson for a while at least. My daughter has her own room and I don't plan on making her share with her younger brother at any point, the age difference is far too great, she has always had her own space and she needs that.

We don't have much for the baby, as you can see in the photo, and most of what we do have were gifts. The blankets in the bottom drawer were from my grandmothers, half of the clothes in the top drawer were brought by my mother, and the toys on the top shelf were gifts for Emerson from my daughter. She is very excited to buy him things. I on the other hand, am cautious. I have been so full of fear since finding out I was pregnant, well, since before even becoming pregnant, that when my husband and I try to have children, which he so dearly wants multiple of, I will struggle because of my age.

Not a day has gone by when I haven't worried about losing him, about something happening that will stop us from ever bringing out son home. I have pushed off buying things because I fear a time will come that I look at the baby items we have brought and break down knowing they will not be. I know I worried about this with my daughter as well, but never to the scale that I worry about it now. I guess with my daughter I knew there was the option that I could always try again, I didn't at that time know the overwhelming joy of having a child and the true heartbreak that must come with losing one.

A more recent fear, which I never had with my daughter, who I bonded with and loved beyond my imagining before she was even born, has come upon me lately. I fear that I won't love him, and if I do love him, that it just wont compare to the love I have with my daughter. I mean, I know the later is understandable, I have spent 9 years loving my daughter, for the majority of those years it was just her and I, together, always, with no one else in my life but her, so she got 100% of my love and attention every moment of every day. I've had 9 years for my love to grow more and more every day, how is it possible that you can love someone you've just met as much as someone whose love has grown for that long? But still, I fear I wont have a connection, bond, or love with him at all. I just don't have the feeling for him now during pregnancy that I did with my daughter. I don't know if its just different circumstances all together, it seems so strange, that I don't have this love for the child my husband and I so dearly wanted, compared to the love for my daughter while I was pregnant when that pregnancy was an accident, completely unplanned and in a point in my life when I hadn't wanted to have children.

Is it the depression, stopping me from being able to realise there is happiness and love in the future, along with the fear of growing attached in case something goes wrong? Is it the medication that is leaving me feeling flat, taking the positive feelings that I may be developing? The issues earlier on in the pregnancy when I was considering abortion and the resulting anxiousness and guilt from that on my mind? Is it the horrible morning sickness and uncomfortable pregnancy symptoms that have been so much worse during this pregnancy than before? Is it the constant, uncomfortable and sometimes painful kicking whenever I lay down or start to relax, when I barely felt my daughter kicking until the third trimester and it was always such a joyous thing (except those aimed directly at my bladder).

Maybe it is a result of the fact that since the horrible morning sickness began I was fairly negative in my thoughts of the way the pregnancy was treating my body. Before the nickname Hippo came around I was often referring to the baby as my husbands devil spawn, which sounds so horrible now writing it down. Just because it was making me feel so dreadful all of the time. Even now, when he is kicking me really hard, or when the braxton hicks contractions have me almost doubled over in pain, or when I can barely walk because of the ligaments relaxing (gotta love pregnancy...), I will joke to my husband that Emerson is already a jerk. Is it my overall resentment for males and the way I have been mistreated in the past which makes me doubt the compassion of their gender in an overly sexist way, and therefore worried that no matter how I raise him he will be a jerk just like 'all the rest'. Which is one of my greatest fears of all.

I know these type of fears aren't mine alone, and that pregnant women all over the world are fearing them too. For some, their worst fears are becoming reality which is heartbreaking. I hope my fears though are unfounded, and that everything will be okay.