Peeling the onion

I was sitting in the living room about 4 months after I found out I was going to have my first baby. It wasn't until that moment that I realized how much the abuse/neglect from my own father would now play a role in my life in a whole new way. I had healed from all the obvious pain, but now that I was going be bringing a little girl into this world everything changed.

This would turn out to be several new layers of the same onion I started to peel early in recovery. The father and I were friends who had come together very briefly resulting in a pregnancy. This would be a journey I wasn't necessarily looking forward to taking. I wanted the baby, but not the feelings of uncertainty that came along with it.

My mind raced with thoughts about my past and my baby's future. Would her dad harm her the way I had been harmed? Would he leave her in strange places with strange people? Would he refuse to show up for visitation leaving her to wonder why? For me, the most hurtful question was would she get attached to him and then he decide to walk away?

As a soon-to-be mother I now understood what my mother had told me all my life. I would do anything to prevent my baby from ANY of the pain I had ever endured. In the end I just prayed a lot and shared openly with friends and at meetings. I realized that I had a lot of great male friends in my life and she would have great male role models regardless of her father's desire to be a parent. This gave me the peace that I needed to just focus on being pregnant and become excited for her arrival.

As time goes by more and more layers of this onion are peeled back revealing both joys and sorrow that I had burried for so long. Today I am just glad that I can recognize this and feel those feelings; good or bad. That is the growth that I pray for!