I Wanted

To look back on my pregnancy as a joyful, happy, exciting time. And it was for me, because I was doing the most amazing thing in the world, and I loved it, I felt special and important and natural.
But I was let down. I wanted for us to look at eachother in wonder and amazement when the baby kicked, I wanted to celebrate 20 weeks and then the beginning of the third trimester. I wanted back rubs and foot rubs, I wanted to go on walks and hold hands and talk about our upcoming life with baby. I wanted us to plan the nursery together and have long talks about names and how we would raise her. I wanted us to cuddle up together in the winter and keep eachother warm, and to relax in the sun together in the summer; to picnic and laugh and be excited about life. I wanted, each week, to read together what was happing inside me, how big she was, what development was happening.
But I was alone. He shut down and wanted nothing to do with it. So I dreamt alone, I celebrated within, I lay holding my belly, feeling her kick, and smiled to myself. I fantasized about what she would look like, act like, smell like. I spent hours alone in the house washing and folding and refolding her tiny clothes, organizing her nursery, preparing for her arrival. I went to yoga each week to get away from him and be around other women who were pregnant too, and at least partially understood. Pregnancy can be isolating, and he made it so much more so.
And I had her, and we didn't look in eachother's teary eyes in amazement at what WE did. We looked at eachother, but it wasn't there. But I looked at her with joy and amazement, and she made me. She began me- who I am now, who I've always meant to be.
He went back to work, and I took care of her. I read the books, did the research, made the choices. I created her nap schedule, her feedings, took her to her doctor's appointments, watched her development. He waited to be told what was going on. He followed, or agreed from a distance.
He was never there, in body or mind. He was never a part of it all. He let it happen from a distance, and reaped the benefits.
I wanted a family who rejoiced in the tiny wonders, who grew old together, who made more children, built a house in which they would grow up, went on vacations together, marveled at their love for one another and their amazing children.
But you can't, you don't, always get what you want. You rarely have happily ever after, and you certainly can't let someone else make your happiness. But you can make it yourself, and you can find it within.