High anxiety

This pregnancy has produced in us an unfamiliar mixture of joy and anxiety. There's the terror of anticipating the birth: he's getting bigger every day, and he's gotta come out somehow -- and there's the fun of anticipating reading bedtime stories. We worry about mental retardation, SIDS, whether he'll make friends easily -- and we look forward to pushing him around in his stroller in the parks in our neighborhood.

Our friend Liz just gave birth yesterday, and so did Annie, an online friend of Greta's (congratulations, ladies!!). They both gave birth in hospitals; Annie had an epidural, and Liz says she and her husband didn't do a lot of preparation for the birth, putting their trust in their doctors. Both births seem to have gone quite smoothly and the new mothers appear to be ecstatic. Greta said to me, "They did pretty much the opposite of what we're doing, and their births went just fine. Are we crazy to be trying for a natural birth? If labor went so well for them, will it be horrible for me? What if I can't handle it?"

I told her to close her eyes and imagine what the homebirth was going to be like. "The candles ... the music ... I'll be there ... you mother will be there ... the midwife ... the doula ..."

"What if I decide I don't like the doula? We haven't even hired one yet!" she said.

"You just have to focus on the end result. Try to think of some fun things we'll do with Seamus: chasing him around the apartment, pretending to be a monster ..."

"... taking him to the petting zoo in Central Park, to feed the goats ..." she said.

" ... tickling him ... babies are so awesome when they laugh ..." I added.

" ... taking him on hikes ..." she said.

" ... taking him to see fireflies in the summer ..." I said.

Greta was quiet for a minute. And then she was asleep. And now she's fast asleep next to me.