By Angela Williams Glenn 
After two kids, two miscarriages, and a journey through postpartum depression, I was afraid to keep trying for the third baby I always knew I wanted. As I looked at the second negative pregnancy test, I felt a familiar range of emotions.
I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. Did I feel relief because for another month I could avoid the daily fear of worrying I might miscarry again and spare the girls, my husband, and me from getting our hopes up just to have them crushed again? Did I feel relief because I was scared of going through the early phases of motherhood again? Maybe I wasn’t ready to take on the emotional rollercoaster I anticipated coming with another baby.
Was I disappointed because I had always imagined myself with three or four kids, and a baby boy eventually, and it just didn’t seem like it was in the cards? Was I disappointed because I imagined myself with more children by now?
Experiencing a full range of conflicting emotions has been my experience of motherhood. It’s never tidy or black and white. I wanted another baby, but I feared having another baby. I was relieved not to be pregnant again, but I also felt disappointed.
Colicky babies, postpartum depression, miscarriages—it all left me terrified of pregnancy and what came after. It was much easier to want a baby when I didn’t know the havoc it wrecked on my emotions. My last miscarriage was particularly devastating, and I didn’t think I could handle a third loss so soon. I also knew a third miscarriage would be the last as it would be the point where I gave up hope of growing our family.
But I remembered how I felt when I became a mother for the first time at age 27. I always wanted a big family, and I imagined experiencing that surreal moment of meeting my baby for the first time at least a few more times. When I welcomed my second baby, I didn’t look at her firsts as my lasts, because I assumed there would be more after her.
Would I be letting myself down if we didn’t have the third child we always thought we’d have? I realized then that fear was holding me back. As a mother of two, I feared motherhood more than I had the first time around. I understood how it could strip you down to your rawest emotions.
Ultimately, I decided it was time to face my fears. We tried again for that third baby. I didn’t want to go through losing another pregnancy. I didn’t want to lose the sense of balance I fought so hard to regain as a working mom with two small children. Though I knew motherhood was harder and more terrifying than my younger self could have imagined, I also knew it was some of the best parts of what my life had become.
When that precious third baby—my first and only boy—was placed in my arms, I knew facing my fears was worth it. Sometimes when I hold him I remember how he was almost the boy I let get away. I almost let fear keep us from ever meeting. Now he’s here and I’m so glad I didn’t let fear hold me back.
by Leticia Carpenter 
by Jenny Albers 
