The Trouble with Joy

It’s been eighteen weeks since I felt the foreign twinge in my lower abdomen while driving to the store on my lunch break. As I shifted in my seat to get more comfortable, I felt it again, and my mind jumped in to overdrive. Within seconds of mentally compiling months of internet research, dates, timing and new physical sensations in my body, my brain spit out the answer – you’re pregnant. The knowing hit me instantly, only a millisecond before the seeds of doubt. It’s wishful thinking. It’s too soon to know. Don’t get your hopes up. But it was already too late; I recognized my little knowing as truth and it was not to be shaken.

I made the quick decision to forget about it, knowing that even if I was right, it would be another week before the possibility of a positive pregnancy test. So I shoved down my nerves and excitement, tucked away my little secret and waited. It seemed unfair to rope Charlie in with so much uncertainty, so I decided to leave him in peaceful ignorance. And the truth was I’d always imagined keeping the news to myself for a while, letting it sink in slowly and savoring those first special moments – the only time it would ever be just the two of us with awareness of the other’s existence. I’d dreamt of this moment for so long, expecting an instant warm and fuzzy connection with the new little life inside. But as with most expectations, reality was something very different.

I waited four days to take my test – the last one I had. It was Saturday morning and Charlie was leaving to play in a tennis tournament. Just as I heard the garage door close, I rushed to the bathroom. I was used to this process – the waiting and hoping, the pep talk I gave myself after a negative result – but this time felt different. I’d never had my knowing with me before as I watched and waited for the little blue line to appear, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when this time, it did. I closed my eyes and waited for the rush of emotion to follow, but it didn’t. I found myself feeling something far better – a calm reassurance that my intuition could be trusted and that everything in my life was just as it should be.

Right on cue, doubt and uncertainty were close behind, and I began to think my eyes were playing tricks on me. The line was so faint it was barely there, so I texted a picture of it to my best friend, Nichole. Do you see anything? She confirmed that she did, followed by an OMG, which was just the validation I needed. She sent the Phoebe and Rachel excited jumping gif, I sent back the Liz Lemon panic face and we laughed. Again, I decided not to tell Charlie, explaining to Nichole that he was in a tournament and I didn’t want the news to mess with his head. Good plan, she replied.

The afternoon was a blur as I tried to be productive in the midst of a mild state of shock. It didn’t seem real. It certainly didn’t feel real. Where was my cozy sense of connection? Inside I felt nothing… and the line was so faint, could I trust it? The struggle between what my heart knew and what my mind and eyes could perceive had me completely off balance. I needed more information, more proof before I could believe the news that would change our lives forever. Then, a few hours later, my proof walked in the front door.

Charlie came home that afternoon with a bouquet of cheery flowers in his hands, something he hadn’t done in a long time. They’re mums, he said. I thought they looked pretty and you needed some flowers. Mums. Mums? Tiny chills ran through my entire body as the calm reassurance returned. This was no coincidence, it was a message meant just for me – I was going to be a mum. What color would you call these? I asked Charlie, already receiving the message that confirmed my other intuition. Pink, he said.

I asked Charlie about his match as we sat on the couch. Then I told him about the faint blue line, followed by several disclaimers about it being so early and maybe too soon to tell. I was surprised at myself for not allowing my voice to match the excitement I felt inside. I sounded like I was telling him the chance of rain. Following my lead, his response was equally measured, though I could sense our joy brewing underneath the surface. My instinct was to protect us, but from what? From feeling happiness? I didn’t believe in repressing my feelings – it was something I’d worked hard on – and yet there I was, suppressing the most excitement I’d ever felt. I didn’t understand the disconnect, but we decided to play it cool. I would take another test in a few days and go from there.

After a couple more tests, each with dark blue lines, it seemed safe to let my mind believe what my heart already knew – we were pregnant. I called my doctor and almost choked when my first appointment was scheduled for five weeks outs, which by pregnancy math would actually be week nine. What was I supposed to do for five weeks? Just go about my day like normal and not tell anyone I was growing a tiny human – one I couldn’t see, hear or feel? How would I know if it was alright in there? What if it needed something? It all seemed impossible. I wasn’t used to feeling anxiety, but suddenly the stakes were so much higher. I had a new responsibility with no way to care for it other than caring for myself. Luckily, I’d worked hard on that as well, I’d just never had someone else’s life depend on it, with no guarantee that doing it well would even be enough.

The weeks that followed were stressful, though I could tell joy was trying to find me. It broke through on a couple occasions when my mind slacked off and wandered somewhere else. One instance happened on my early morning drive to work in heavy Denver traffic, a day after the last pregnancy test. With both hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, I noticed the corner of my mouth had turned up involuntarily. When I tried to relax it, the other side curled up and I suddenly felt a strange grin on my face. Rather than fight it, I let it be. Let yourself have this, I thought, at which point my entire face erupted into a huge, uncontrollable, ear-to-ear smile. My eyes filled with tears as my heart swelled so big I thought it might burst. Pure elation coursed through my veins for a miraculous few moments before my mind returned to duty and chased it away.

Suddenly I could see the pattern. Joy was there – more than I’d ever felt – and yet my fear was there to match it. I couldn’t separate them. The experience reminded me of something I’d heard before – that joy is the hardest emotion to feel. Brené Brown says, “Joy is the most vulnerable emotion we experience, and if you cannot tolerate joy, what you do is you start dress rehearsing tragedy.” It was true. Thoughts of the baby instantly turned to visions of car crashes, cancer diagnoses and terrible accidents in my mind. I couldn’t shake obsessive thoughts of something happening to Charlie or to my family before I could tell them the happy news. Knowing it was irrational made no difference. My body felt it as real and I cried real tears each time it happened.

Overnight, the baby had expanded my capacity to feel joy to a level beyond my reach and I was drowning in vulnerability. Rather than feeling gratitude, I was terrified of everything good in my life being taken away. Thankfully, being able to see it for what it was, and understanding that “foreboding joy” is a normal reaction, eased my anxiety enough to hear my inner voice more clearly: Let yourself have this. I knew that, for me, this was likely a once in a lifetime experience I could never re-live. While I had no way to control the outcome, I had life-enriching moments right in front of me to appreciate – moments I could never get back – moments I would lose if I could not tolerate and accept the vulnerability that comes with tremendous joy.

It’s taken some practice to let myself feel as happy as I am – to let my inside self show on the outside without chasing it away because I feel vulnerable. The thoughts of something going wrong are still there but I refuse to let them steal my joy. No matter what happens, right now I have a miracle and she has already changed me for the better. In just a few short months, I’ve experienced deeper moments of appreciation and soul-shaking awe than I have in the past 38 years. I will never forget the way my heart jumped in to my throat and choked me the first time I heard her little heartbeat. Or the tears I couldn’t restrain as I watched her precious hiccups and counted her tiny toes on the ultrasound. I have moments each day when I stop and remember that I have something so much more important to care about than any pettiness going on around me.

I can see how loving a child adds a whole new dimension to life, one that also includes hard moments that will stretch and challenge me in the same ways. I know I’m not prepared and that I’m not supposed to be. Lessons reveal themselves when it’s time to learn them, and she is already teaching me what I need to know.