Self-Doubt

I am due to give birth to our third child in just under three months and I find myself wondering whether I can do it. This isn’t the typical brand of motherly angst as the family prepares to undergo a drastic transformation. Instead, I just find that my “nesting” looks much different than that of most of the put-together mothers I know. I read countless blog accounts of pregnant ladies who love washing little clothes in Dreft and lovingly stenciling the baby’s room. These wonderful mommies diligently clean the premises and even design the birth announcement months in advance.

You know what I do? I feverishly read intellectual type non-fiction books, I consume news articles late into the night, I try to edit together years of home videos on our computer, my husband and I watch classic movies and read reviews of them long past when we should be asleep. These tasks seem to be more a by-product of my angst over the impending loss of sleep and personal freedom that come with the arrival of a breast-feeding newborn, than healthy preparation for a new family addition. Don’t get me wrong, we are really excited about our new son. I am taking good care of myself and I love breast-feeding and sling-baby wearing and co-sleeping and all that hippie attachment parenting stuff. Nonetheless, my emotions seem to be a strange blend for a pregnant woman. I am plagued with questions of whether I am right for this God-given vocation of being a stay-at-home mother of a large family, yet I know there is no other path for us. I am excited by our family’s expansion, but I am perplexed by my selfish yearnings in these final months of the pregnancy. I question how I should handle these desires – should I really be reading The Arab Mind right now just because I have been meaning to do so for years or should I be boning up on the basics of natural child birth in order to give it another go?

I don’t know that I have reached any conclusions, instead I spend much of my prayer time asking the Blessed Mother to prepare my heart and disposition for the arrival of our new son in October. Somehow, I think my family is accustomed to the brand of mother that I am, and I think God is so wise that He will continue sending us babies until I am forced to become better at loving self-sacrifice and prioritizing. In the meantime, I sure am learning alot about current events, and The Arab Mind is illuminating and so insightful.