My first was a surprise baby. We were engaged and knew we wanted to start trying quickly after the wedding. We got careless on vacation and 3 weeks before my wedding, found out we were gonna have a baby.
There was a ton of excitement because my best friend at the time had just had a baby girl like one month beforehand and I was so baby hungry! And I wanted our kids to be close in age. Plus at least two other friends had just announced pregnancies too.
But then I started freaking out, thinking that maybe I'd be a bad mom, or what if I miscarried, or what if there was a birth defect, or what if it was a stillborn, or what if I got postpartum depression and wanted to hurt my child, or what if... [insert a thousand things that every mom is scared about]
And here's what I learned.
You can read as many books as you want. You can read all of the blogs. You can save 250 pins on Pinterest with tips and tricks. You can spend your entire pregnancy on /r/babybumps like I did and still not know what you're in for. Read the blogs and the pins and the posts because there are a lot of things I learned that I'm thankful for.
But you can only prepare so much. Giving birth and becoming a parent is like skydiving - you can spend a ton of time reading about skydiving. You can read the manuals. You can memorize diagrams. You can watch a thousand YouTube videos. You talk to friends who have gone skydiving and absolutely loved it and can't wait to do it again. [Reading about pregnancy and childbirth, and talking to your friends with kids.] And somewhere you find the courage to just do it so you book your appointment with the skydiving company. [You find out your due date.] And you mark that day on your calendar. The day comes. You get in the plane and your heart is pounding, and you wonder if it's too late to back out. [Yes, your water broke, it's about 9 months too late to back out!!] You reach diving altitude and they open the door and you're like HOLY SHIT THIS IS SCARY. [And the OB is in the room with 5 nurses, 4 family members, 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.] But it's time. [It's baby time!] And there is a professional strapped to your back and you trust that they know what they're doing, but the waiver you had to sign talked about all these risks, and the wind is howling and everyone is scrambling to go... And then you jump. And it is the biggest rush of your entire life and you're probably going to be crying during and after the entire thing. But you reach that wonderful ground and you're safe. [And you get to meet this little person who really only looks like a smushed old man, but he's half you and half your husband's genes... he's got some hair and in 2-3 weeks you'll start to notice that he has so-and-so's hair...]
And until they are married adults with kids of their own, you will probably be afraid of EVERYTHING. And feel like you aren't doing good enough. Or that you might have failed them.
When they're a newborn you are scared of anyone who so much as sniffles in a 10-foot radius of your child. Heaven forbid they sneeze or cough.
Then you're afraid of SIDS.
And then you're afraid of them electrocuting themselves, so you buy outlet protectors.
And then they start walking and you realize your entire house is a death trap so you baby proof all the corners and cabinets and stuff.
And then they start running and playing and talking, and your fears turn into things like them running out into the road without looking for cars.
And then they start riding bikes with their friends. And maybe they get broken bones.
Then they start getting their heart broken by girls at school.
And then they start DRIVING.
And then they MOVE OUT, wtf come back, you just learned how to walk!! Oh, time just passed too quickly.
The important thing is that you learn as you go. Step 1 to being a good parent is caring about them. You feed them and you change their diapers and you do your best to make sure they don't fall off your bed or electrocute themselves or drink something poisonous. And the rest, you learn as you go. You will not be a perfect parent. You will have bad days. You will cry. You will scream. You will want to run away to Jamaica and never come back. And then they say "LAV YOU" and you say you love them too, and everything is fine.
You are going to do GREAT. Just keep caring about your kid, and try to help them be happy. Despite what you see on pinterest, nobody is a perfect mom. Even my angel of a mother-in-law is not perfect, and she's probably the most loved person in my entire neighborhood. (Yup, I live by my MIL. But it's okay because she's great!)