Lonely Island

No, I'm not talking about that lonely island.  I'm talking about another one.  The one I keep feeling like I'm on most of the time.  I know, maybe I'm beating a dead horse here, but sometimes it's lonely to experience something pretty much by yourself.  I know that lots of women will tell you all about this "sisterhood of women" that exists and comes out of the woodwork at the mere mention of the word "pregnancy" but I don't find most of those women either comforting or useful.  For the most part, from what I can tell, they all just want to share their stories.  They want to tell you what they went through without much interest in hearing what your thoughts are.  Plus, I find the women who are most readily interested in talking to you about baby-related things are also the sort of women who are a bit baby obsessed and think their children are literally the center of the universe.  I'm not really going to be able to relate to those women, because while I think that motherhood is probably a huge responsibility and raising people who aren't total assholes is pretty important, I don't think it's literally the most important thing I will ever do with my life.  I would like to think of my life as being made up of many important things, and motherhood will just be one of those things.  I want my life to be larger than just successfully getting a toddler to eat their lunch.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that right now, a lot of the time, I feel kind of lonely in all of this.  I don't relate to most other women.  I also don't have any "funny" stories about my pregnancy to share in this "oh, isn't this such a crazy trip!" sisterhood of growing a person.  I don't have stories about puking in weird places that I can laugh off and share with other women who can relate.  I don't have the "oh, I had to pee every ten minutes!" stories to share where someone else can say "I know, that's just the worst!" or whatever.  I don't have anything.  I have a stick that I peed on, and that returned a plus sign, and from there my life didn't really change.  Hell, I didn't even take a picture of the stupid pee stick.  I haven't scanned my ultrasound pictures into Facebook so I can make it "Facebook official", and I don't plan to.  Honestly, if I hadn't peed on the stick, I'd probably be qualifying for one of those shows where the woman doesn't know she's pregnant, because up to this point, nothing has really changed.  If it weren't at the back of my mind, where the nagging voice lives and constantly tells me that I'm going to fuck this up, and that something is going to go wrong, I'd probably be able to forget all together.

I'm not really part of the sisterhood.  I'm also not really sure that anyone I know really wants to hear all of the thoughts that I keep having on this subject.  I find myself increasingly worried that people are going to think I'm reacting wrong, or not being happy enough, or not being motherly enough in this process.  For the most part, I'm still scared about all of the unknowns that are coming up.  The fear makes it hard to be over the moon excited.  At this point, I don't even feel connected to this process.  It hasn't been a process.  For the most part, I just haven't been able to drink (which is a bit of a down side) but that's it.  I'm not sure what sort of mental bonding or connection I should be doing here, but when I read blogs by other women, they all talk about this sense of wonder and excitement they're filled with and I'm just filled with a bit of resentment about not being able to have a glass of wine.  Maybe if I'd been puking for 3 months, or insanely tired, or going through all of those early pregnancy symptoms, I might feel like at this point, I've worked for something and earned it and I'd be more outwardly excited, but in my case I haven't really done anything.  I mean, I guess I have since there's a human growing in there, but I feel like nature's kind of taken the wheel and I've just been keeping the car from veering off the road.  I'm waiting to feel connected.  I keep waiting and thinking "Maybe when I feel it moving, it'll finally seem real" or "maybe when I know if it's a boy or a girl, it'll be easier to picture it as a person".  It's why I feel like I need to find out the gender.  At that point, it begins to have an identity.  It becomes more real.  It becomes a tangible idea instead of this theoretical thing that I can't connect with just yet.

I feel bad for having these thoughts.  I feel like it's the least motherly thing I could be thinking.  I feel like it makes me a bad person, and proves I shouldn't be doing this.  I feel like even posting it here, I'm somehow admitting how awful I am.  I don't hate the tiny seahorse.  I just don't feel connected to it yet.  

And there's a part of me that is afraid I never will.