Mass with the Domestic Church. Thoughts about childbirth. Fear

Yesterday evening we went to Mass for the health of our friends’ children. It was a very inspiring experience for me, because our whole Domestic Church circle gathered at that Mass, even though we found out about it quite late. J. and I also decided right away that we’d show up, even though the Mass was at 6:30 PM, so normally right after that we put Młoda to bed, and usually we managed to find some kind of excuses. This time we actually made it, which for me was a testimony to the unity of our community, which prays together and supports each other when something happens.

Today’s evening, on the other hand, we spent at our other friends’ place. She is a doula, and she is also pregnant, so the conversation quickly moved to birth-related and kid-related topics. It gave me a lot of thoughts and ideas, for example whether we would want to have our own midwife during the birth. I’m also thinking more and more about what our life with two children will look like. J. will probably need more help, so I’ll most likely have to spend more time working from home. I’m already starting to worry about how I’ll handle it mentally, with two screaming children behind the wall. I hope we manage to find some babysitter who could help J. a bit, because at this point I can’t imagine how that would work. While working, I won’t be able to help her anyway, and after work I might already be even more exhausted from worrying that I’m not able to help them, and that I’m not able to focus on work. We’ll need to think of something else. And maybe pray. Maybe I need a less worrying approach.

We also talked about other topics, sometimes heavy ones. The more I worry, the more the world seems full of threats and suffering, and the more I start worrying and thinking about whether, by bringing children into this world, I’m not hurting them. It seems unhealthy to me in some way. People have been born and have died for thousands of years. Maybe in our society, which pays attention to increasingly subtle emotions, we are becoming less and less resilient to the very strong ones. In Christianity, there is talk about love that casts out fear. And in general about not being afraid. Maybe I need to dig into this topic more? But how do I actually put it into practice? How do I turn theory into practice? Can I somehow prepare myself for what is coming? Even just by changing my attitude? Is it a matter of prayer? If so, what kind?