Archive for February, 2008

Self Doubt

It is the night time when I feel the sense of dread.

When I’m listening with one ear to the baby monitor, but I can’t quite fall asleep because it’s there.. waiting to detonate.
When she keeps me up hour after hour, and I start to think those circular thoughts, “I can’t stand it! Let me go! Somebody get this baby off of my tit!”
Or when I’m sick. When I get up and cry while I rock her, desperate from misery and exhaustion.

There are nights when I fear that I have made a terrible mistake.
That I am not cut out to be a parent.

“If you were the worst mother in the world,” Kris once tried to console me, “Scarlett would not be the happy, glowing child that she is.”

I do worry that I will fail her- every day I find new ways to develop my self doubt. Shouldn’t she be better sleep trained by now? Will I ever wean? How will I know when to potty train? How will I know HOW to potty train?

But I have resources to deal with that fear. I read, I talk to other mothers, and I consult with my sage nanny, Serah.

What I really fear is that I’m not strong enough to survive this experience.

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