A month today … or earlier … or later – who knows? CRAP! The uncertainty is killing me. I just want to get this giving birth thing out of the way. I am feeling petrified and paranoid. Petrified of the pain and paranoid that something will be wrong with my baby girl. If I am completely honest with myself, I think that I will be able handle a deformed baby but I can’t handle a retarded one. The ‘what if’ game is seriously dangerous but I find myself playing it irrespective. One minute I am excited to meet my daughter and the next minute I am thinking about brain damage, down’s syndrome, episiotomies and third-degree tears.
Diary, I have had an easy pregnancy to date so I shouldn’t really complain about some water retention but I am going to do just that because this is my diary and I can say what I like. I am starting to feel particularly unattractive. My face looks like a puffer fish, my legs are swollen and gross, and my belly, although not huge objectively speaking, is huge subjectively speaking. Warren loves my pregnant body but I certainly do not! I miss the clothes that I haven’t been able to wear for a while. I miss my platforms and I miss my corsets – or at least the ability to fit into them. I realise that pregnancy has probably changed my body forever and that’s difficult for me to deal with. I guess that I am jumping the gun a bit because I haven’t even given myself a chance to recover yet. But what if I am puffer fish-ish forever? What if, what if, what if? Aaah!
So at the moment I am feeling pretty sorry for myself. Then I feel guilty for feeling sorry for myself because I know that having a baby is a privilege and that I am a genuinely fortunate individual. But this is what keeping it real is all about Diary – not denying the truth of one’s experience or emotional responses. And if I start doing that now then I will lose myself, which I don’t intend to do.
