I Was Terrified to Love a Baby I Couldn't See Yet

Before this pregnancy, there were losses I do not talk about much. Enough that when the second line appeared this time, I did not feel joy. I felt dread. My first thought was not "a baby" but "please, not again." And so I made a quiet, desperate decision: I would not let myself love this one. Not yet. Not until it was safe. As if love were a tap I could keep turned off.

I did not buy anything. I did not let anyone celebrate. When relatives asked, I gave short answers and changed the subject. My husband wanted to talk about names and I would leave the room. I told myself I was being sensible. Really, I was building a wall, brick by careful brick, so that if the worst happened, the fall would not break me completely.

But the baby did not respect my wall. There was a morning I felt the first flutter, so faint I thought I imagined it. I froze in the kitchen, spoon in hand, and waited. There it was again. A tiny knock from the inside. And something in my chest cracked, just a little, against my will.

I fought it for weeks. Every kick was a negotiation. I would let myself smile, then panic, then pull back. My mother, who had watched me grieve before, finally sat me down. "You think you are protecting yourself," she said. "But you are only making yourself lonely while you are most afraid. Let the baby keep you company."

I started small. I let myself put one hand on my belly at night. I let my husband say the baby's nickname out loud. I bought one tiny soft thing and hid it in a drawer, my secret act of hope. The wall did not come down all at once. It came down the way walls really do, one loosened brick at a time, until one day I realised the love had already filled the room without my permission.

I am still scared. I think I will be scared until I am holding the baby, and probably long after that, because that is what love after loss feels like. But I have stopped pretending I do not love this child. The fear and the love live side by side now. And I have decided that if my heart is going to break either way, it might as well break wide open with loving.