When we went to childbirth classes back in October we were all given a piece of paper to write down our fears about childbirth. Chris and I wrote the exact same thing. We were afraid of our baby girl being born sleeping. Everyone else in the class wrote things like fear of child birth being painful or having a c-section etc. we went straight to the most morbid fear! But was that a result of our infertility and our journey to bring Aviana into our world? Actually everyone else in the room nodded and said yes they too were afraid of losing their baby, they just didn’t write it down!! So maybe we were just honest in our ultimate fears. 

I had a flashback to Aviana’s birth today as I read an article about postpartum C/section bodies. It reminded me of the moments in when I was pushing and Aviana’s heart rate was slowing down after every contraction. This is actually normal to some extent, but her heart was slowing down too much too fast, she wasn’t coping well with the labour. There was talk of having to get her out right now or else it was emergency c-section time. I could hear the heart beats slowing to a point that I was imagining them leading to stopping completely. The doctor had to use the vacuum to help get her out quicker. I hadn’t been pushing for that long and I felt helpless in the moment. Equally, I felt determined that Aviana was going to make it out alive and so I focused on pushing hard, I don’t remember being in pain I was that focused. I do remember being exhausted and barely able to breathe myself. I knew I had to breathe deeply to get her the oxygen she needed but it was hard to find the energy, I was digging deep. But I remember in that moment the complete and utter fear of losing her. It was the most afraid I’ve probably ever been in my life, and I’ve had a few scary moments in my life!

Thinking about that very fear, I hadn’t even really met Aviana and yet I was already afraid of losing her. I loved her before she was even born. Now that Aviana is part of our world that fear has never really disappeared, in fact I’d say it’s even stronger. I can’t imagine ever losing her now that she is here. I imagine this fear is very normal in the parent population, but I wonder how our invested journey to get her here makes that fear higher? But does that even matter? No, not really… a parent is a parent no matter what. Becoming a parent is not only a huge responsibility it’s a huge burden of constant fear in the back of my mind. I imagine my mother right now saying to me – ‘well Danielle, now you finally know how I feel about you going away to dangerous places like Iraq and Afghanistan! Or when you go rock climbing or sky diving or many other types of dangerous activities You partake in etc etc!’. 

….Well here’s to many more years of fearing for my daughter!!! If she’s anything like Chris and I combined we are in for some ‘worrying’ times ahead of us 😋