You Know You May Be a Bad Mother When... in Inside My Head

The baby is moving like crazy. It can get frustrating because I’m almost always uncomfortable (and it’s more than a little weird to have something punch or kick you from the inside of your body) and I’m going to the bathroom about twice an hour. It’s reassuring to know that the baby is really real and that it’s OK.

I’ve been having very disturbing dreams about the baby though. It’s gotten to the point that I’m afraid to go to sleep. In these dreams I actually sell, or attempt to sell my baby. One of the dreams I traded it for a new kitchen. I was feeling depressed after I gave the baby away but then thought “Well, at least I have nice countertops.” I told this to my sister and mother who laughed. Personally, I think it’s so fucked up that I dreamt about selling my child. Even more disturbing is the fact that I was comforted by my kitchen remodel. In a recent dream, I stopped a couple on a street corner. I somehow knew that they were infertile and were desperate for a baby. I said “Look, I’m pretty healthy, I don’t smoke or drink, I eat mostly organic and every test so far shows that the baby is healthy. Want to adopt my baby for 50k?” The man and his wife conferred for awhile and said that they’d consider it. I started planning all the things I would do with the 50k. In the dream, I didn’t even feel bad about selling the baby to strangers on a street corner.

Everyone thinks that these dreams are funny, but I am seriously concerned about my abilities to be a decent mother. What new mother dreams about selling their baby??!! I have a bad temper. I have moderate-severe anxiety since I was a kid. Maybe we rushed into having a baby without any thought to the possibility that maybe we, more more ME, should even be a parent.

I’m an avid follower of Aela Mass. She’s a lesbian writer from Massachusetts who has been dealing with infertility for 2 1/2 years. I stumbled across her writing while perusing Babble.com. I started reading her articles when I had my miscarriage. This article describes what it felt like to go through a miscarriage SO WELL. It’s like she looked inside my head and put my own feelings to words in such an eloquent way that I would never be able to duplicate.

http://www.babble.com/pregnancy/the-one-thought-that-continuously-haunts-you-after-a-miscarriage

Her and her wife seem like amazing people who desperately want a child, but can’t have one. When I read her articles, I feel so unworthy. You would think that after all I’ve gone through to get pregnant this past year that I would be joyfully dreaming happy dreams. Instead, here I am dreaming of selling my baby, and Aela’s still going through this horrible struggle with infertility.

Some days I feel so hopeful and positive that everything will work itself out, and other days like today when I just want to hide somewhere and cry. I’m terrified of the financial hurdles of raising a child, I’m terrified of putting the baby in daycare and that it will feel abandoned and unloved, and I’m really terrified of my parenting skills. I almost want to leave my maternity leave and go back to work just to keep my mind preoccupied.

Artist

Pediaphobia - fear of babies