Calming my concerns

My appointment is only two days away now and after a period of doubts and worries last week I feel calm about it again. Nothing major is going to happen at this appointment, it's just an initial chat and check-up. I've been warned about something the other ladies call dildo-cam - a dildo shaped camera that is put inside you to have a good look at the uterus and ovaries. How it sees them through the cervix I really don't know? I guess I'll find out. Not looking forward to that, but I guess it can't be any worse than a PAP smear - which also happens during the appointment, though there's a risk AF will have arrived in which case they'll leave that until another time. Doesn't stop them wielding dildo-cam though. I guess they've seen worse!

My doubts focussed around two concerns I have. Firstly, one thing I love about my friend's children is how they are a miniature combination their parents looks and sometimes personalities - there are things about them that are immediately recognisable as coming from either their mum or dad. My child won't have that. I'm worried that I'll look at them and not recognise them, that I won't see me or my family I'll just see someone I don't know. I'd like to look at my child and see the man I love, not some stranger looking back at me.

Secondly, in the last couple of weeks I've seen and heard about both V & S struggling with their kids. S had a terrible day where her four month old screamed all day and in the end she lost it and had to call her husband and get him to come home. I've also seen her trying to deal with her toddler's tantrums and wondered how on earth she copes with it day after day. Then the other night V got home from an evening out to find her 18 month old having a major tantrum that her husband couldn't get under control and she was up until 2am trying to get her little one to sleep. They struggled to cope and there was two of them! I know that I'd have help from my friends but there will be times where I'm really on my own - in the middle of the night when perhaps the baby falls ill or I can't settle him or her - and how will I cope then? I will have no-one else right there to help me, no-one else whose responsibility it is to care for my child as well. That frightens me.

However, I'll cope. I've taken a long hard look at myself and I know I have the resources to cope with both of these concerns. It will be tough at time but I will have help and because they know I'm on my own I think some of my friends will be there for me more than they may have been for those who have done it as a couple. The ladies on the SMC site have said I'll be amazed by the help I'll receive that I never would have expected.

It's hard to imagine now but rationally I know that my child will be my child and I'll love it no matter whether it looks like me or my family. What every child looks like is a game of genetic roulette, and their personality is a unpredictable combination of nature and nuture. I could have a child with someone I love and he or she could end up looking like neither of us. The child I have will be the child I'm meant to have.

So, roll on Thursday. I'm ready for this, I really am.