Not really alone.

Around Christmas, I got an email from a friend I'd met, along with her husband, while traveling a couple of years ago. It was just a short message, with holiday wishes and a quick update on their voyages that past year. Due to work commitments, each had had to go alone. Except in her case, she described it as "not really alone but with my baby boy! He is due in May next year!"

There was a bit of a Duchess reaction, and then there was happiness for them. But more than that, what touched me, and what brought regrets for myself, was her sentiment of being always accompanied, never alone. I didn't share that sentiment, at least not with respect to the company of a precious little being; my own state was more like "not really alone but with a huge load of anxiety and fear." But I wanted to; oh, I wanted to, and in my reply, I told her that I would remember those words in the months to come.

And I am still remembering them – even living them, these days. The summit of our fears was the 20-week appointment. After that, the overwhelming worry begin slipping away, slowly, yes, but surely, as each day passed, as each hurdle was neatly and cleanly cleared. Numbers of weeks that we'd been so vigilantly counting up to became numbers of weeks remaining, each diminishing faster than the last, each allowing us to believe more and more.

Belief has been built not only by the passage of time but also by the movement of this little one. Thanks to an anterior placenta, it wasn't until late January that I was sure I could really feel it, and even then there was still a seed of doubt ("We're really going to feel like assholes if we tell the doctor it's moving only to find out it's been dead for weeks," we half-joked before an early February appointment).

Now, if there is a moment of anxiety, I lie down and press my hand to my middle. Shortly afterwards, I feel a tap. I'm here. You're there. Not really alone.

There's also the simple desire just to believe. Half of this pregnancy passed without a single feeling of happiness. There was gratitude and relief, but never happiness. I would like to fill the time that remains with all the joy we didn't – couldn't – feel at the beginning, to soak it in, to push away any remaining or recurring fears, including the one that the arrogancy of these thoughts could incite just what I'm no longer fearing. If I'm not really alone – and I'm not – baby deserves no less than this.