If this baby was not planned - are you excited?

[Galatea]

I finally confessed this to dh last night (luckily he agreed): b/c this baby was absolutely not planned, and on top of that, the "wrong" gender, I still, at almost 37 weeks, am not excited. I know that I will love him, but I feel like I did with my first, where I was very ambivalent, and once he was born, I just wanted to eat and didn't want to feed him or anything. With #2 and #3, I was so excited for them and loved them right away. And now, though I want him out, I am not excited for *him.* My MW's forms have a question like, "What are your feelings on this baby? Do you have a sense of its personality? Have you dreamed about it?" and I couldn't answer it. I keep hoping that b/c I knew if I had a 4th, it would be a boy, that it means that he will be special somehow. I also hope our ambivalence won't delay labor. Dh confesses to just being scared (about our business without me full-time for awhile) and I am very ambivalent.

Hopefully someone else who was also ambivalent will come along to tell me how all this melted away once the baby was born.

[AnneCordelia]

We had always planned on 4 children but definately NOT on this timeline. I would love for our finances to be in a better place, and my household organized differently. I'm also really nervous about L&D although I know from experience that I am perfectly capable of birthing again.

Different from your feelings, but still apprehension and anxiety like I've never had at a birthing time before...I've always been very excited and happy. I know that will come...I just have to trust it.

[RedOakMomma]

That's how my husband feels, and because of it I think I'm a little more emotionally/mentally distanced from this baby than I have been in previous pregnancies or in our adoption. For me, I think part of it is being so incredibly busy, part of it is wanting to stay close to dh emotionally (so not too baby-crazy, because I dont' want to alienate him), and part of it is my dread of having another girl (dd is soooo challenging).

For dh, it's more what you said. This baby was planned, but not exactly hoped-for by HIM. It's more that he hoped for it for me, but not-so-secretly wouldn't have minded if we didn't have a fourth.

We talked about this in therapy, actually...our therapist said that it's common to feel ambivalent before the baby is born, but that it would be hard not to fall in love and develop a deep relationship with the baby once he or she is here. Our pre-birth (or even during infancy) ambivalence has a lot more to do with our fears and worries than it does an actual inability to attach and love.

[MaerynPearl]

This baby we spent 7 cycles in 2 years to conceive.

The cycle we decide to take a break so I wasn't pregnant at the wedding... well... we all know how well that worked.

Am I excited?

Currently yes, though there were many times I wished I had waited.

Right now my biggest thing is I am alone 8 hours out of every day while the kids are at school and I am so. lonely. So I am currently glad we got pregnant when we did, so I have a baby to keep me company here soon!

Otherwise, i still get times where I just wish we had waited.

[CoopersMommy0308]

Our baby was planned...

But DH and I are scared, nervous, anxious, etc. I don't feel as "attached" to this one as I did to ds1 when I was pregnant with him. I've even said that I'm really looking forward to giving birth, but not having a baby. Or that I'm ready to be done being pregnant but not ready to have a baby.

We think "what have we done?!!?" sometimes. ds1 is still not sttn and we're exhausted and about to add a newborn to the mix? ! We know we'll figure it out in the end.

I do love this baby, I just don't feel ready and that scares me.

[mrsjtc]

We also didn't really plan this one. At one point, I said to dh "whenever you're ready, I'm ready" then we never discussed it again until he forgot to pull out (sorry tmi).

Dh is not excited because he just doesn't enjoy the newborn stage. We're also trying to build a house and baby us just added stress on top of everything.

And it really wouldn't have been my choice to be due at the end if summer. I hate the heat to begin with. The extra 20 pounds, the belly and the hormones have not made this the most enjoyable summer.

I'm excited because I love babies and snuggles and all that. But I'm missing out on my favorite volunteer activity for the whole fall semester. I teach kindergarten at our homeschool coop (its a 'school environment for 6 hours a week, for music, art, gym, etc.), but it starts the week after I'm due. Because I'm taking the fall semester off, I'm keeping my two oldest dd's home with me. (one has severe food allergies and I'm not ready to let her eat unsupervised with 40 other kids). I feel like we're all missing out on something we love to do. And there us no way to make it work, we've thought of everything. At least the girls will get swimming class still. That makes me feel a little better.

[forumyonly1]

this pregnancy was planned and it's our first girl... which i didnt even think possible after 3 boys.. so i am VERY excited..... BUT ds3 was not planned at all.. and then he was another boy... and i just wasn't excited about being pregnant at all.. once he arrived i was in love.. but it was wierd to feel that way durring the pregnancy since the first two i was the opposite!..

it's normal but i do wonder if it leads to more ppd?!

[mommy2chloerae]

Not planned at all. In fact I should be student teaching and finishing school finally after spending 6 years on my education (having to take time off between kids). My next move was to get a job, we'd have 2 incomes for the first time since we were married.

Now I'm out of school for at least a year (my choice, I do not feel comfortable with infant childcare), so so are all those plans. And now the plans include having another baby to provide for.

Even with all this, I am excited. I feel like I have done everything I can to prepare for this baby and now I'm in the stage where I can sit back and let him be born and take it from there. I was 1 year from an associate's when my second was on his way and I still finished. I will again. He added so much to our lives that I can't imagine not having him and I know that I'll feel the same when this one comes. It took me longer this time because I felt like I was ruining the plans we had, but now I am able to see that we're just changing them a bit.

[bri276]

I don't think DH is even ambivalent, I think he's just plain stressed out and if he could, he'd push a button to delay this another five years. We had TTC for a long time, even done IVF. Lots of loss and failure, and we decided to stop, wait, save a ton of money for egg donation, have DH get his bachelor's (he's almost at his associates), buy a house, it would've been a long time. At least 5 years. Mentally, he moved past it. This was a huuuuuuuuuuge surprise. For me- total miracle. For him- total shock. It's hard being on different pages, but I know he will love this baby as much as he loves DD. I'm going to try to minimize the stress on him. I know he wasn't expecting this and he has so much on his plate with an extremely demanding career, school, and for someone like him with ADD, those are twice as hard.

Life is just weird. DD was totally planned and tried for. If I knew what I knew now? If I could have her, the exact same child, ten years later or so, maybe I would. Maybe I'd never have children at all because sometimes I love her so much it breaks my heart and the worry that something could happen to her is enough to take my breath away. Maybe if I really knew that ahead of time, I'd have chosen to be totally free and do something else with my life altogether- but now that I HAVE her? I could never ever ever wish not to have her, and I think in the end that's how you feel about your kids.

[Sarahfina]

This baby was not planned at all, and while I knew I wanted another, dh was the most certain he's ever been about it not being right for him and he was very unsupportive of continuing the pregnancy. I chose to anyway, after much hard and painful considerations, and here we are. In the time between conception and now, we spent a few months apart as our marriage deteriorated, and we have spent a lot of time in therapy together as we've tried to rebuild things. For me, since its been such an unsupported pregnancy (I've also been very low-key about it to remain emotionally connected to my DH) its been hard to feel much excitement. I have moments of it, but mostly I feel apprehensive. I wonder how my DH will be when baby actually arrives, and I am concerned that all his reasons for not wanting a baby will be so present in our day-to-day reality that he will not feel like he can stay in our family. I've known this may be the case, and I'm as prepared as anyone could be in this situation, but yeah, it sure takes away from any potential excitement.

Having said that, my close friend just had her baby a couple weeks ago and its been such a sweet reminder of whats coming my way. I know I am blessed and in the long run will be so glad for this- I just really have no clue how the next month will unfold...totally different from my last pregnancy, thats for sure!!

Thanks for posting this and making space for us to be honest about it....I think it kind of shocks people if you're NOT super excited...and I think the second, third, fourth etc child, its often a bit harder because you KNOW exactly how much work and change and challenge is ahead of you, along with the joy, love and bliss....the fantasy of life with a newborn is gone and reality stares you in the face!!

Sarahfina

[happysmileylady]

We are happy, we are in SHOCK, DH is excited, I don't know if excited is the right word for me. Although, I am really much more nervous and worried about the health of this one, with no real reason to be.

DH and I tried for 6 years and had to do an IVF to get #2. And then I spent a good deal of her first year dealing with PPD, stressed because of finances, unhappy because she was an unhappy baby for her first like 6 months. And, looking back, I can see now that a substantial part of my PPD DID have to do with a deep deep fear that she was going to be our last. Our financial issues meant saving for another IVF was having to be put off, DH just turned 40 this year so putting off an IVF too long would have put him in an age bracket that neither of us was all that comfortable with in regards to new babies. And we were told that IVF was basically our only option.

The first thing I felt when we got the positive test was shock. Absolute shock. In addition to our IF issues, I had been on ppd meds that were inhibiting ovulation, therefore acting very much like birth control, not to mention that due to stress, ppd, etc, our bedroom activities were VERY limited. I think we had only two or three encounters the entire month I got pg.

So yeah, just complete and total shock...even more so than when I was 17 and got pg while on bcp. And still now, not that she's almost here, I am still in this surreal world of it all. I am not enjoying this pg much at all, but then, I didn't want to be pg for the pregnancy, but for the end result anyway. Once she gets here, I will be more excited, I am sure. I am totally scared about how I am going to handle everything alone while DH is in school full time and working full time, I am totally scared about how our finances will work. But the overridding feeling is just still one of complete shock.

[Illiana]

I'm extremely mixed.. I'm excited about the baby coming but I'm really worried about what it'll do to me emotionally and do to my relationship with DF. We weren't together long before I got pregnant and so far we've been doing wonderfully. What scares me is that i was so baby crazy after dd that i totally put my XH on the back burner. We had alot of problems and i mostly just pushed them and him aside and focused on the baby since i didn't know how to handle it.. I think it was probably 6 months pp before i enjoyed sex at all (and we were like rabbits before she came). SO I"m worried that I'll react the same way this time and push DF aside not because of any real problems but any little thing he may do that will trigger a bad reaction in me. He's been extremely wonderful and supportive of everything i've wanted to do with baby from not circing to planning a UC to BFing to CD. I"m also worried that i'll get sucked in and ignore DD also. I was hoping that she'd be able to start preK this year and that way i'd have my days with baby and then afternoons with both, but since she didn't get in this year i'll have both to juggle during the days until DF gets home. Hes been working long days 7-5 or 6 lately. I'm also worried that he'll freak out once he realizes that he won't have much time to himself if any.. DD is pretty independent. She'll color or do things on her own most of the time, but when DF just gets home thats when she wants to play on him and he's tired and not in the mood about half the time and she doesn't understand that. Also that's when i'll be wanting a break the most esp to give time to cook ect.

sorry to go off in a tangent.. so i have reservations just about different things i guess.

[Marilyn82]

This baby was planned and tried for for 2.5 years. After that long, I guess I just kind of didn't think it was going to happen or something, so when it did...I was really shocked. DH has been much more excited and connected to baby than I have. In fact, the first half of the pregnancy I was really feeling that I'd made a huge mistake and did not want another baby at all! I've been more excited recently (like in the last 2 weeks), but I still feel really nervous about it. I'm worried about connecting with the baby after it's born.

Honestly though, bonding does happen. Sometimes it's immediate and you fall in love as soon as your baby is born. Sometimes it takes a little time. Just go easy on yourself mama, it will all work out. I think if we didn't care, we wouldn't worry, you know? So maybe we feel/care more than we think we do, but we just don't have the mental connection right now.

[Baby~Braatens~Mama]

Our baby was not planned for. We have only known each other a little over a year and were just getting to the comfortable "what do you think about having children, getting married" planning part of our relationship when Caleb became the wonderfull miracle in my belly.

DP is very excited, nervous and worried. He worries about finances, mostly. I am excited, worried and terrified. I worry about how our child will affect our still new and growing relationship and worry that if DP had second thoughts about "us" he would let them slide because he feels this enormous responsibility for his child. I am terrified that in a couple of years, after the glow of our new family starts to wear off, we will both sit down one night and wonder if we had truly done the right thing. Don't get me wrong, I love DP and he quite obviously loves me, but we didn't really get the time together pre-baby that would help us create a bond strong and independant of us with baby, YKWIM?

[JTA Mom]

This little one was unplanned. Actually, all my babies were.

At this point, I think I would be thrown for a loop if I *could* plan a baby.

I am getting excited. Dh is too. I think, in some ways though, losing Joseph has made us very wary of 'not being excited', kwim? Because when I was pregnant with him we had the whole turmoil and ambivalence and well, it didn't turn out so well. Probably all psychological, but still.

I was a bit disappointed though about another boy. So far 3 for 3. But then, I think ds will love having another brother around to wrestle with. But I want a girl too--my appetite for pink lacey embroidered things has only grown with time.

Ami

[mbhf]

This baby was not planned. None of ours have been "planned" really, but we never used birth control and always hoped for a baby. We were always very excited when I got pregnant. This time, we were actually TTA for the first time. My dh is military and I did NOT want to have a baby while he is deployed. I was actually looking forward to getting out of the little baby/toddler phase of life. I cried when I found out I was pregnant. I am excited, I really am, and I know I will love the baby and everything will work out but I am so heartbroken that my dh is gone and that he won't meet his baby until he or she is several months old. Selfishly, I am nervous about giving birth without my dh and the immidiate postpartum period without him. His parents are coming to help as soon as I call them (they live about 500 miles away) and I know I will be better off for the help but I just do not want anyone in my house. I love my ILs, and they are the only people I would even consider having come to stay with me and I appreciate them for it so much but it will be so hard without my dh. I'm excited if I don't think about it too much. If I think about it much I get very overwhelmed, the other night I was getting up to pee and it is such a dance to get out of bed without waking my toddler. I usually have to lay there for a while after waking up to actually sneak out of bed and I have to be so quiet and I just really, really hope I go into labor in the middle of the day or something so I am not alone in hard labor dealing with a crying tired toddler trying to call my midwife and friend to come help with the kids.