One thing that happens during this 3rd phase of pregnancy (24-32 weeks) is that you can have more anxiety for your baby … and sometimes your baby’s mother. There may be nothing bad happening at all yet in your mind you can imagine terrible things. This is where the quality of kindness excels at helping you face your fears and face the future with hope. Prior to getting pregnant you might not have thought much about death. Perhaps people in your intimate circle of family and friends have passed away and you have experienced deep sorrow. The thought of your child dying or being injured can almost be paralyzing with protectiveness … an often helplessness.
One of the changes that occur during pregnancy for both mothers and fathers is this realization of death, illness, and injury. And here is where kindness to your own thoughts, to your baby and its mother, comes in handy.
You must respect that part of the maturing into the role of being a father or mother is the rising inside of the protective nature of ‘parent’. A parent would give his/her life for her child. A parent fears for the child and yet has to let the child experience life without too much restriction.
It is in this phase that you are most likely to forgive your parents for not being the god perfect ‘parent’ you once blamed them for not being. You come to the realization that they did the best they could and that they, like you, are human and full of fears and pride.
Protective and anxiety
Kindness helps you create a balance between protectiveness and encouragement to test the world. Kindness will help you also approach any challenges with maturity and an ability to move through these challenges with resilience. Resilience is not white-knuckling things. That may occur for a while if something unpleasant or tragic does happen to your child.
Until the advent of antibiotics and immunizations worldwide, there was an accepted expectation that up to 30% of children died before the age of 5. This is how the population was kept in check. Now everyone expects everyone to live forever.
During this phase, you come face to face with your fears and excitement. Your excitement is ‘life’. Your fears are ‘death’ and also exercising your intuitive and instinctive powers.
This is the time to let your life be full of excitement. It’s also the time to look at death and ask yourself how you would deal with something being the matter with your child or its mother. Dr. Phil has a book about preparing for some of Life’s challenging events.
Parents learn how to live in the present and enjoy life in the now. If nothing bad is happening now then live life without a shadow of fear. This is what parents learn when they have matured these qualities. Parents know bad things can happen but a mature parent doesn’t live with the fear of that. It’s too exhausting.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t overly protective parents. There are many parents who live with fear. This just means they have not yet matured the quality of kindness within their minds. For a person to mature so they do not fear what is not happening now, kindness to one’s emotions must be exercised. You must see and feel the negative yet kindly know that this is our active imagination and the maturing of our protective nature. We learn to activate our protective nature when its needed and not because of our imagination.
Parents who are always afraid never truly enjoy all the times when nothing bad is happening. They believe bad is a potential yet waste every nano-second, second, minute, hour, day, week, month and years when life was ok.
Your bottom line
If you find yourself fearful with an active imagination then be kind to yourself. If your pregnant partner talks to you about her fears, listen well and be kind.
Head to Udemy for all the Fathers-to-be Pregnancy Academy courses. Then at 24 weeks of pregnancy, come back here for the online birthing classes and start with the birth preparation and birth-coaching skills … all developed by hundreds of dads and moms.
Birthing Better skills are housed in Common Knowledge Trust.