Yesterday I had some painful cramping, and it crossed my mind that having a miscarriage would not be 100% bad. Today when I have felt even queasier than usual all day, and the twins have seemed especially baby-like and difficult to manage emotionally and logistically, and the pregnancy stretches long before me with all its impending discomforts (“Oh, that ‘can’t breathe’ feeling–I forgot that’s coming up soon”), it crosses my mind again. Then I feel worse, imagining how I’ll feel later, when the dear, dear baby is born and irreplaceable, and I’m looking down at it thinking, “I thought a miscarriage might in some ways be welcome.”

It’s such a neverending feeling of “doing it wrong,” this parenting thing. I remember back when I was pregnant with my first, thinking things like, “Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. Maybe we should have gone with the other plan, the one where we have cats and tulips and money and we spend weekends at Barnes & Noble.” When I was pregnant with my second, I was thinking, “The spacing is all wrong. We should have gone with the other plan, the one where we waited until Robert was in kindergarten, or until he was 3-1/2, or until NEVER.” When I was pregnant with the twins, I was thinking, “We should have stopped at two. Something will go wrong, and everyone will say, ‘You just HAD to keep going, you just COULDN’T be happy with the national average.’ Also, now we can’t have a sedan, we’re going to have to get a minivan.”

Now I’m pregnant for a fourth time, and I didn’t mean to be, and that raises even more of these feelings and thoughts. Thoughts like, “This baby wasn’t supposed to happen.” Thoughts like, “Maybe we’ve wrecked our Exactly Right family, and we’ll always think so, and always wish we hadn’t.”

Fortunately these thoughts are balanced by other thoughts, thoughts from the part of me that isn’t under siege by hormones that attack with barfing and emotions. Thoughts from my usual self, the self that says, “These things usually work out fine in the end, after a brief panicky adjustment period” and “One day in the future, you’ll look back and won’t be able to believe you didn’t know this baby was coming all along” and “Oooh goodie, a BABY!!”