In Search of Bliss

“No expectations, no disappointments”

Our pre-natal nurse says this to us in our final childbirth class, and while it seems like great advice I already know it will be impossible for me to follow.

I’ve reached my ninth month, and expectation is the name of the game. I’ve done all the classes, read all the books and bought all the things. My mind is filled with visions of future days with my baby and the expectations creep in. Maybe I wouldn’t go so far as to call them expectations, more ‘desires’ or ‘hopes’ that I have as I picture those future days. And I have a lot of them.

I figured I would give my future self the gift of documenting them, so she can have a really good laugh when she reads them a few months down the line.

I hope he will be a good sleeper, a good eater and generally good-humoured. I am very motivated to make this happen, but don’t ask me how because I have no specific solutions other than praying to the baby gods regularly.

I hope that my family and friends will never see my boobs. I have wrestled with the concept of breastfeeding throughout my pregnancy. It’s one of the elements of motherhood that I am most fearful about: the pain, the difficulty, the pressure to make it work so that my baby gets the very best nutrition. Losing my modesty is tops on this list. I just don’t see how I could ever casually whip my breast out in public (like the woman beside me at the cafe as I write this) let alone in front of people I know. I wonder if I will go through some kind of ‘mom lobotomy’ that will erase this fear once I have the baby.

I hope my husband and I will still like each other as much as we do now. The other day my husband casually mentioned that he hoped I wouldn’t ‘forget about him’ once the baby was born. I found this both so sweet and sad that I burst into tears. The thought had never occurred to me. Since being pregnant I’ve found that the new love I have for my baby has only increased my love for my husband, not decreased it, and I can’t see myself feeling any differently once our son is born. Yet all around me I see tired parents bickering and wonder, will that be us?

I hope the first three months won’t be as bad as people say. Early on in my pregnancy I focused on being realistic when it came to the newborn phase. My friends with kids gave me the nitty-gritty on how tough those first three months are. And I thought I was prepared. I tried to think not about when the baby came, but about when he hit three months as being the time to get excited. But somewhere along the way I’ve completely fallen off the wagon. As I count down the final four weeks I am too damn excited and happy about his approaching arrival. I can only picture being over-the-moon. I realize that this is probably setting me up for a rude awakening, but my brain is refusing to consider any alternative other than pure bliss. Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism so that it can face the idea of labour…

As all of these fantasies and more fly through my brain the anticipation is already killing me. Yet somehow I have to make it through 28 more days (give or take another 7). I can see why people say the ninth month is the longest!