Re: Fear of birth

You remind me of my best friend when I was a child, she was 8 years old and already terrorized at the idea of the labour. I wasn't and didn't understand really what was all that about (found it out later, when I had one, ahi ahi!). Thing is, my mother had a very quick and easy labour when I was born, while the mother of Lucia longely suffered and ended up with a cesarian section. Could your fear come from some memory of your birth?

Don't have children unless you're really dying for it, it is very difficult to lose your freedom and bear the responsability of another human being. I always wanted a child if I found his father and now I wonder why actually, is it a lot of propaganda that makes us think that having children is supposed to be the nicest thing in the world? My love for my child is progressively outweighing the mourning for my life of before, but he is now 2 1/2 years and since his birth no day has passed without me crying at least a bit. I am not the only one. I think for girls of our generation there is a more neat difference, some really thrive with motherhood, some don't. Our mothers and grandmothers didn't have the same opportunities we have in life, so their choice for motherhood had all a different sense than it has for us. My mother is a doctor, not a housewife, yet I see that for her to have children was much more an obvious desire that it is for me. Things have changed very rapidly for women and we still have to find our shape inside the new conditions.

It can be that the position of your boyfriend is not so solid as it seems. For people without children it is very difficult to imagine how it really is to have children. It is easy to idealize. Some men are really born to be fathers, but others (most) just realize after a couple of months that having children is lovely but exhausting and immediately long for their freedom to do whatever they want instead of playing some game again after a day of hard work (then they do play games even if they are tired, but that is becasue they have no choice). Understandable. Do you have any child in the family to borrow for a couple of weeks? both on vacation (idyllic but full-time) and in normal days (overwhelming when you are stressed or tired, even if for a few hours) and be it at least a couple of weeks. Also, be selfish and let him marinade with the kid. He will be convinced. He could try to say that with your own child it would be all different, but tell him that children are children. If he doesn't get convinced then he's one of those few natural born fathers, and then you'll have to maybe separate your different destinies. (Or you might also find out that you instead are a natural born mother, life is surprising, never say never).