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I’m pregnant. There. I said it. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant and I’m terrified.

It was planned. This baby was conceived in an act of love and joy and pleasure and hope. But that doesn’t help the fear that has set in now that hope is reality. That sense of ‘What have I done?’ What madness took over my brain to think that having a baby, now, was a sensible thing to do?

My youngest is five. Five! It’s been five years since I’ve had to deal with 3 hourly breast feeds, and waking numerous times a night, slightly less since I’ve had to deal with nappies. I’ve been semi-independent for a couple of years now, as my oldest has been at school and the previously mentioned youngest has had pre-kinder and kinder, and is happy to play independently while I steal some time to write.

When baby is here, she will be six. She will also be in school full time, and for the first time in approximately eight years I will have five whole days a week, all to myself. Five whole days to devote to developing my writing career. Correction – I would have had five days a week to work on my writing career.

Okay, so I will still have that time for about six months, assuming all goes well and baby doesn’t come early. But then what will happen to my writing schedule? How many hours will I be able to squeeze in during nap times and between feeds? Will I be able to type and feed at the same time? I’ve done the one-handed thing before – when I injured my left arm early this year I was forced to write one handed for a little while, and I know it’s do-able, but at the time my other arm was in a sling – not holding a baby. Will I even be able to hold a baby one-handed? Perhaps I should spend the next 6 ½ months working on my upper-body strength to help me through? Will I even want to write, or will I spend all my spare time sleeping?

How long will it be before I can devote the same amount of time to writing as I can now?

When I take a deep breath, and calm my thoughts, I remember I’ve done this before. When my youngest was six months old I took part in National Novel Writing Month for the first time.  Every night, once she and her older brother were safely tucked up in bed, I wrote. And I won – I managed the 50,000 words in 30 days that I was aiming for – with a toddler and a baby. This time around, I’ll have helpers. This time there won’t only be a very supportive father to help out, this time there’ll be older siblings: older siblings who are excited about the prospect of a baby brother or sister; older siblings who are eager to help – to feed and bathe, and yes, even change baby’s nappies (we’ll see how long that lasts for!).

So now I’ve got all that off my chest? Well… now I’m feeling a little better, excited even. Life is an adventure after all, and now another adventure awaits!

*Update 5 Dec 2014 – It’s been a year since I wrote this! And my beautiful baby girl is here, and in reality I’m still getting much the same amount of writing done – it’s just that now there is less time spent procrastinating on facebook on the like! I still managed to ‘win’ Nanowrimo this year (see this post), and the older siblings love her to bits, and do help out with all the things – even changing nappies occasionally!