5.17.2009

Today is the day.

 

My Benjamin Boyd will be here within a matter of hours.  Tiny and snuggly and smelling of that sweet new baby smell.  

 

It's funny how a single thought can run through your mind a thousand and one times and have no impact until all of a sudden.  Withouth warning, that seemingly harmless thought of 'I'm having a baby' turns into, 'oh my God.  I'm having a baby.'

 

Obviously, I've had several months to get used to the idea of becoming a mom again, but it's still all so shocking.  It's safe to say that I had a very difficult time dealing with this pregnancy.  The depression was overwhelming and it did not help that I chose to hide it from most people close to me and was attacked and accused of unimaginable things when I opened up to a select few friends of my true emotions.  It threw me into an even deeper and darker chamber of sadness within myself I never even knew existed.  I became a constant sobbing shell of a human being locked in her own sense of helplessness grasping for some sort of hope that someone would see my pain and reach out to help.  I suppose a few people did here and there, but the truth is, I worked it all out on my own. 

 

I can't say that one I just woke up and was okay.  It didn't work like that.  It was a gradual acceptance and a gradual healing.  I do know that there was one day that I just woke up and realized that I was going to be okay.  I remember thinking clearly and rationally that day.  I remember feeling something that I hadn't felt in a long time and that was contentment with a sprinkle of excitement.  It had been so long since I had felt anything to look forward to and here I was, looking forward to having a baby.  The very same thing that had me unhappy to begin with.

 

 I still feel a tremendous amount of guilt about the awful emotions I enveloped myself in while carrying this baby.  I hate the idea that my encompassing unhappiness and sadness has somehow negatively affected the baby's emotional growth and personality somehow.  I hate the idea of how I resented myself and my husband for allowing this to happen at such an inopportune time and while I cannot fully and honestly say that I ever resented the baby itself, I know for far too long I did not want to be pregnant and instead chose to ignore the fact that he was growing inside of me.  

 

Baby, what I want you to know is that right now as I sit here and type this, I am thinking completely of you and your well-being.  I am praying for you to be happy and healthy and to know nothing more than how much you are loved and adored.  I want you to know that I am so sorry, more sorry than you can ever imagine, for spending so much time being consumed with anger and sadness in the beginning but that it never had to do with you.  I want you to know that it was never about me not wanting you, just being terribly confused and in a very fragile mental state.  I may not have wanted another baby just yet but now, right now, I cannot imagine my world without you.  

 

Happy birthday, Baby Benny.  And welcome to a world where you are surrounded with nothing but love.