I Just Don't Know What To Say

Let me start by assuring you that everything is fine - or at least it was a couple of weeks ago, when we saw the baby's heartbeat on ultrasound. I have no reason to believe that things are still not fine. My morning sickness has subsided for the most part, but at 11w5d, that's perfectly normal. Other than fatigue and my very tender boobs, I've been pretty much asymptomatic. We never found out where the bleeding came from, but it doesn't really matter anyway.

I want to apologize, sincerely, for my absence. It shames me to say that I haven't written anything because I haven't had anything to say...and I haven't had anything to say because so far I have utterly failed at bonding with this pregnancy.

It's not like it was the first time. The first time I was in love from the day I found out. I was so really ridiculously thrilled to be pregnant. I was walking on sunshine. This time I don't feel much of anything. I'd hoped that it would change once we saw the heartbeat. It didn't. My husband cried when we saw her little heart thumping on the screen, but I didn't have much of an emotional response at all. I was glad, certainly, that things were all right...but only distantly.

I've tried to force myself to feel something. I've been telling more and more people, in hopes that their excitement would help me to make this real. I started buying baby clothes. I started making a baby registry. I've bought a book or two. And it still doesn't feel like anything.

The only explanation I have for my lack of emotion is that some part of me must be trying to protect myself from getting hurt again. Some part of me is staying distant so that if things don't turn out well...maybe it won't be as bad as last time. I don't want to think that way (and consciously, I really don't), but why else would I continue feel like this pregnancy is not a real part of my life yet?

I have no doubt that when the baby comes, I'll be head over heels in love. But I don't want to start feeling that way on the day she is born, I want to feel that way now. I want to trust that things will be all right and that we really will bring home a child this August.

Maybe it will change when I start feeling her kick, or when I start showing. Maybe it will change all at once, with no particular explanation for why, just like the day that I realized that I was ready to start trying for another baby. Maybe when I reach the second trimester, which is so very close now, whatever bit of leftover paranoia that I still have will leave me, and I can start to enjoy the thought of being a mom-to-be again.

I just don't know. But I am very grateful for all of the kindness that you all have shown me. I'll try to be better about writing. It's just very difficult right now.