Fear of Commitment

I have started this blog seven times. I have posted things only to erase them the next day. I have changed the name from Preemienitions to Notes on a JohnJohn to SomeonePleaseHelpMeFigureOutWhatTheHellIAmDoing. But nothing ever seemed right. Partially because I am not insane and I know I don't have anything to say that hasn't been said a thousand times before. But mainly because I was afraid of my son. I was afraid of how much I loved him and how close we came to losing him. I would find myself conveniently busy about the house when it came time to feed him or change him or bathe him. Don't get me wrong, I did my part, but my husband was doing the bulk of it. It wasn't post-partum, it was the scars left from having him 12 weeks early. One Friday in May, at 25 weeks 6 days, our happiness faded into sheer...fucking...terror. It was two and a half weeks of bed rest, a c-section at 28 weeks 1 day and seven weeks in the NICU. We went from being blissfully unaware of the painful side of pregnancy to being smothered by the reality of it. By the grace of God we all came out relatively unscathed, with the exception of some developmental delays for Littlest J, overall we had the best of what could have been a really bad situation. I loved him ferociously but I was afraid to commit to being his mother. We were too close to what it would feel like to lose a child and I knew if I let myself love him as much as I did and something happened I would never recover. I was afraid of him getting sick, I was afraid of him being blind, I was afraid of what living in a plastic box for almost two months away from the touch of his mother and father would do to him, I was afraid that he wouldn't know me, dear God was I afraid. I needed an outlet for all of the emotional drama so I thought I would start a blog. But as I said earlier, every time I started it, I never knew what to say. I felt like I had zero room to talk about being pregnant, I mean what did I know, I was pregnant for six months and I didn't find out I even was until I was three months so in all truth I was pregnant for about two seconds. Every time I wrote something about being a mother to a premature child I would read it again and feel like I was just showing the negative side. So, I gave up. Now it's been 4 months since Littlest came home and all of the horrible things I was obsessed with protecting him, and me from haven't surfaced. He isn't blind, he has survived a few bouts with the common cold and he knows who I am. I can be sure of that every time he blesses me with the gift of his little, toothless smile. I've chosen to power through my fear and simply love my son. I've lived my whole life a slave to anxiety and in turn I have missed out on too many things. I will not pass that on. I will not risk my child being able to feel that I was holding back from loving him. He is far too precious. I feel like I've known him all my life, like he is the most familiar friend, a little spirit that has always been with me. He was destined to be mine. So I am no longer afraid of my son. I don't care about all the things I missed in those last three months of pregnancy...I'll pick them up on the second go round. I'm moving on and making up for the weeks we missed. My son is a fighter, a survivor, my lesson in faith and someone I am most fearlessly committed to.