Dear Introverted & Expecting
Dear you,
Yes — you.
The one lying awake after everyone else has gone to sleep, replaying conversations, rereading birth stories, wondering if you are doing enough, preparing enough, feeling enough. The one who keeps thinking, “Why does everyone else seem calmer than me?”
I know you well because I have been you.
Pregnancy, people say, is supposed to be glowing and joyful. And sometimes it is. But for an introverted heart — a thoughtful, sensitive, inward-processing heart — pregnancy can also feel loud. Not outwardly loud, but internally so. Your mind fills with questions. Your body changes faster than your understanding can keep up. Everyone suddenly has opinions about something deeply personal happening inside you.
And because you are who you are, you don’t just experience pregnancy — you analyze it.
You notice every sensation.
You research every possibility.
You imagine every outcome.
You are not doing this because you are fragile. You are doing this because you care.
Overthinking, in many ways, is love trying to protect what matters most.
But here is something I wish someone had whispered to me sooner: You are not meant to solve pregnancy. You are meant to live inside it.
There will never be enough information to eliminate uncertainty. You can read every book, listen to every podcast, prepare every list — and still find yourself standing at the edge of the unknown. Birth asks something different from you than certainty.
It asks for participation. And participation does not require perfection.
I know you worry about whether anxiety will somehow shape your baby’s experience. You wonder if calm mothers are doing something you cannot access. You question whether your quiet nature means you are less prepared for something so physical, so unpredictable, so public.
But introversion is not a weakness in pregnancy.
It is a deep well.
You are already practicing the very skills birth and parenting will ask of you: noticing, listening, observing, attuning. You feel deeply, and that depth will become one of your greatest parenting strengths. You will notice subtle cues. You will create safety through presence. You will build a connection not through performance, but through steadiness.
The world often celebrates loud confidence, but babies do not need loud confidence.
They need calm noticing.
They need someone who pauses.
They need you.
There may be days when your thoughts spiral — when you wonder if your body knows what to do, when fear arrives uninvited, when the future feels too big to hold. On those days, you do not need to fix yourself.
You only need to come back to what is true right now.
Right now, your body is growing life without asking for your constant supervision.
Right now, your baby is learning from you from the inside.
Right now, you are already becoming a parent — not by having answers, but by staying present.
Anxiety often tells you that peace will come once everything is certain.
But pregnancy gently teaches the opposite: peace grows alongside uncertainty.
And here is another quiet truth — one that may feel relieving or surprising:
Not every meaningful moment of this journey will happen during labor.
Some parents meet their “edge” long before birth. Others meet it afterward, in the tender work of healing, feeding, learning a newborn’s rhythms, or discovering a new version of themselves. Transformation does not follow one timeline. The messy middle looks different for every family.
There is no single right way to move through this story.
You are not behind if you feel unsure.
You are not failing if you feel afraid.
You are not less capable because you need quiet, reassurance, or space.
You are human, standing at the threshold of change.
And thresholds are sacred precisely because they are uncertain.
If I could sit beside you right now, I would not hand you advice or a checklist. I would remind you to soften your shoulders. To unclench your jaw. To notice your breath moving in and out without effort.
Your body already knows how to sustain life.
Your heart already knows how to love your baby.
And you — thoughtful, sensitive, inward-leaning you — are not doing pregnancy wrong just because you are feeling it deeply.
One day, you may look back and realize that the overthinking was not proof of inadequacy. It was evidence of devotion. It was the mind trying to prepare for a love it could not yet fully imagine.
So tonight, or this morning, or whenever you are reading this, let yourself rest from figuring everything out.
You do not have to hold the whole journey at once.
Just this moment.
Just this breath.
Just this small unfolding.
You are allowed to trust slowly.
From someone who has been where you are — and who learned that becoming a parent is not about quieting your inner world, but learning to live gently inside it.
