Pickles and Night Terrors

I have been warned of every symptom.

I have researched every ache and twinge-

“You’ll be so sick! You’re going to crave the weirdest stuff. You’ll get swollen. You’re going to be so tired. Just wait. Just wait. Just wait.” 

None of these happened to me, but something else did-and nobody warned me of it. Instead of horror stories of no sleep, pickles, and round ligament pain, I wish they had warned me of how painful the love and anxiety for my unborn child would be. 

Nobody told me I would count her movements as I googled miscarriage statistics. 

Nobody told me I would lay in bed awake on the days she didn’t move as much, because I’m afraid. 

I’m so afraid and so in love. 

Nobody told me I would look back at my toilet paper even on month six, because I’m so afraid and so in love. 

Nobody told me I would wake up from night terrors because I dreamed of her face and it was too beautiful to possibly ever be real, because I’m so afraid and so in love. 

Nobody told me I would stay awake wondering what I would do if the world was cruel to her, because I’m so afraid and so in love. 

Nobody told me that ensuring her existence would consume me, overshadowing daily tasks, because I’m so afraid and so in love.

Everybody warns you of the physical pain that comes with growing life, but nobody warns you of how painful it is to love someone so much that it terrifies you. 

Forming the intricate parts of her seems secondary in labor-arteries like pathways, vessels like tunnels, and organs like a well-balanced orchestra.

Guaranteeing she will breathe the same air that I breathe on a Saturday morning as her father makes breakfast, that she will feel me push her to touch the sky in a park swing, that she will snuggle me as we watch cartoons- this is the labor, the struggle, the pain. 

I am so in love and so afraid.