Fears of Motherhood

I have to be totally honest. I am terrified of being a mother. Don't get me wrong, I'm also feeling the joy, anticipation and excitement of pregnancy but it's all edged with fear. A nagging fear that I don't know what I'm doing and may be a terrible mother. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I've always had this naive belief that women have this inate ability to calm and soothe babies, or that we all have a natural born ability to make babies happy.  However, I've also always believed that I just don't have that ability.  God, just left me with an, "I O U" sticker when it came to that gene. You laugh, but it's true. 

If there is a baby in the room, Chris will immediately want to pick it up, hold it and play with it. And, the baby usually responds to him with coos, and giggles, and gurgles and smiles. I, on the other hand, am shrinking into the shadows, praying that nobody asks me to hold the baby. I've even gone so far as to make up ridiculous excuses to save myself the impending embarrasment of holding the baby, which inevitably cries only proving my inadequacy at being a good mother. Insane, I know, ... but I can't help it.  At parties, where a friend might bring their baby I would dread holding the baby but not because I didn't like holding them. That part I loved. I loved cuddling them.  No, what I dreaded was my own fears that the baby would start crying and I couldn't soothe it and in my head the parents are staring at me wondering what's wrong with me and how can she not know what to do to calm a baby. I would try to hold it like the mother, try playing with it like Chris, but nothing seemed to work. I was hopeless. 

I've had one good experience with one really laid-back baby named Morgan. This little guy didn't care what I did, he was so relaxed and enthralled with me. And, for the first time, I felt somewhat calm. I held him for hours and he rarely fussed. Just cooed, and drooled and smiled at me with huge blue eyes.  So, maybe I'm not completely hopeless.