Thoughts For My Baby cont'd

I didn't have time to post much more than the poem last time, I wanted to explain why I posted it in the first place. It has a great deal of meaning to me, it's how I felt throughout my entire pregnancy, but I mostly wanted to focus on the first few months because that is where I'm at in my story.

Even though I wasn't sure at that time that having a baby was a good thing, I still wanted to love and care for him (although I didn't know it was a him at the time...) as best I could. I was going to do everything I possibly could for my baby. And so my first trimester was filled with thoughts on how I could prepare for a child, and how I could parent the right way. I couldn't wait for the first time I would look into my baby's eyes. I couldn't wait for the first smile, laugh, and banged elbow. I couldn't wait for kindergarten, the driver's license, prom, mission, wedding day, and finally, grandkids of my own. I was looking very far ahead :)

Of course I was terrified too. I never had been much of a babysitter and most of my patience for kids had dwindled to nothing, not to mention the fact that I had a weird feeling through those months. I didn't feel that the baby growing inside me was mine. I tried to ignore it at first, and whenever I did think about it I told myself I was having that thought because I was scared. But the feeling persisted, and it wouldn't be long before I found out why. In the meantime, I DID have a baby growing in my tummy, and I WAS the mother. And so I began to look towards the future with hope and love.

In the 5th stanza to that poem, you'll notice that the rhyme and rhythm are different than the rest of the poem. It was meant to stand out because it is important to me that my child knew that I would love him no matter what. It is something inside me that will never change. The phrase "mommy, mom, and mother" are used. It is meant to show time. Small children use the title "mommy". When they find out that it isn't cool to use that, it changes to "mom" and then finally, once the child is grown and has children of his own, it changes once again to "mother". Oh, how desperately I wanted to hear those words from my child throughout his life. I wasn't thinking just of the near future. I was thinking of eternity.

I had all those thoughts just in the first few days of finding out I was pregnant. Yes, I was scared to death, but I was so excited by the challenges and experiences this baby would bring. I would find myself lost in thought all the time, wondering what life would be like for this innocent, precious child. I wondered if he would ever hate me or think I was old fashioned. (Of course he would, don't we all?)

I frequently thought that it would be a good idea to be like my own parents. They are great examples of what parents should be, and I hoped to do as good as they did.

Most of all, I wondered if this baby would repair my relationship with Chris.