I spent pretty much my entire pregnancy convinced I wasn't going to love my child. While other mums-to-be claimed they fell head over heels the minute they saw the plus sign on the EPT, my reaction was ever-so-slightly different — in that I burst into tears, felt like I couldn't catch a full breath and demanded that Daylon — at that point, my boyfriend for less than a year — schedule an appointment for an abortion immediately (note that up until this moment, I'd always said I would never, ever be able to have an abortion, no matter what the circumstances).
It wasn't that I didn't want kids or that I wasn't sure that Daylon was the person I would eventually have them with. It was more that none of my friends were talking babies yet. I was only 28 years old and had just moved in with Daylon and I was enjoying our new life together. In my mind, kids were still many years away.
As we were on the first day of a week-long Caribbean vacation when I found out I was pregnant, there wasn't much to do besides stop drinking margaritas and wait until we got home (the fact that I immediately stopped drinking makes me wonder if I was REALLY so sure I didn't want the pregnancy, although at the time, I told myself it was only because Daylon was having such a hard time hiding his excitement — I had to at least PRETEND to weigh the options).
The next day I started spotting. And weirdly, I was devastated. Hold on. Shouldn't I have felt some relief over a potential miscarriage? Yet somehow, it again felt like I wasn't being given any choice in the matter — I had in no way wanted to get pregnant, but I also hadn't definitively made up my mind to abort the little lima bean. (Of course, I thought that I HAD made up my mind, right up until the blood showed up on the toilet paper.)
In the end, I didn't have a miscarriage, and I decided to marry Daylon and have the baby. But still, I fretted about the lack of real affection I felt towards the fetus as the trimesters slipped by.
During my ninth month of pregnancy, Daylon assured me that if I didn't love our son, I could leave and he'd raise him and wouldn't even hold it against me. I hate to admit that this possible out gave me some comfort.