it might not be that bad

In the beginning, I was careful to not let myself get too attached to an embryo. It was important to me to not be too attached. Not all seeds sprout, after all. And I’d rather live in uncertainty than fear.

I have this anxiety problem, see. When it flares up, I can’t help but pair positive and negative emotions. Wild happiness is always tainted by the dread that it’s too good to be true. Deep love is twinned with a horrific and inescapable fear of loss. I don’t mean passively; I mean anytime I feel a good and strong emotion, I immediately start getting the butterflies of a dramatic anxiety attack. So I encouraged the uncertainty of early pregnancy to blockade the progress of a greater and more debilitating fear. It made sense to me. If I’d gotten attached to anything, it would have only been the idea of being pregnant, of being a mom in eight months. I didn’t want to get attached to that.

But that couldn’t go on forever. Some seeds sprout.

Or rather, it could go on forever, if I kept pushing the ideas away. It’s something I’m very good at. The core emotional center of me is well shielded from big impacts (though the little ones can leach through–song-sized sentimentality). A baby’s a pretty big impact, and an absolute magnet for anxiety. But letting an avoidant fear of a crippling fear control me would be as much of a tragedy as anything more biological.

I’ve talked about this with Kevin. And I’m getting closer accepting a baby person in my life. I can see the looming iceberg* of the most crippling fear I’ve ever felt on the horizon. But today, feeling little whooshes inside, I will not let it sink me. ‘Cause suddenly I really know that a baby person is cooler than fear is frightening.

*The iceberg of fear is an illusion. It’s not there if we can’t see it. Most of the time, disaster is a submarine, not an iceberg. I’ve been telling myself that for eight years or so, and I don’t know that it’s worked much when push comes to shove, but I didn’t have medication then.