I, too, am new to this site and cannnot tell you the relief I feel at finding this threadsince the OP's feelings echo so many of my own. I am 38 years old and 8 weeks pregnant and never, ever, ever, thought that I would be a mother. My husband has always been open to the idea of children, is quite wonderful around the house and would make the much better parent, there is no doubt. He helped raise his much younger brother and sister, and, remarkably, rather than act as a deterrent, it seems to have made him want children more. However, he has always been aware of my own nonmaternal feelings, honored them and never pressured me. But now I find myself pregnant (due to a highly irregular cycle) and am utterly and completely terrified. I feel I have practically TORTURED my husband with all of my fears, my misgivings and my distaste for the entire experience. It has been very hard on him, and hurtful, since he cannot truly seperate the fears and misgivings I have towards this growing fetus from the feelings I have for him. He feels, deep down, that if I truly loved him, I would love his child. He has also said to me that since we are "grown-ups" that he feels we should learn to deal accordingly, but again, says that it's my body and that I have the last say. I have told him that I don't think having a baby is an act of maturity (let's face it teen pregnancy rules that out), and that I felt the way I do at 16, 25, 32, and 38, and would probably continue to feel this way until the very day I died. So, suffice to say, my petrified response to this has already been very hard on our marriage, and my greatest fear, really, even greater than being a horrible mother to an innocent child, is that I would go on to lose my dh as well, simply because he would be so horrified by what a truly bad and unmaternal mother I turned out to be. He is so much more certain than I am that it is all going to work out, but I fear I would be one of those for whom there is never a "click" or rush of motherly love, and that I would simply be tolerating (and resenting) it. That is our biggest difference: my husband views parenthood as something to enjoy, while I view it as something to be endured, even survived. Admittedly, it is hard for me to seperate my own fear of being a horrible mother (which is considerable) from the pressure to become the sort of uber-mommy that we have around here (in a liberal, metropolitan, northern part of the U.S.) where everything MUST be organic, green, and good for baby. Breast is best, of course, for two, three, four years even! And it seems that every one I know had not only a midwife but also a doula and equipped the nursery with all the right "learning" toys and in short, became so utterly, tiresomely sanctimonious about the whole damn thing that it just makes my skin crawl. Sometimes I think it is parenthood that I am afraid ofrather than the child itself. That I am more afraid of other parents! (And most of all, of becoming like them!) It is a tremendous relief to hear the words of women like you, who, despite the lack of maternal feelings can reassure one that love does come, will come, somehow, and that you find your own way. I have been going back and forth daily, hourly even, between utter depression and the certainty of termination, to finding these small glimmers of hope that make me think that maybe, maybe, I could pull through. This thread has given me more hope than anything I have read so far-- and believe me, as one of those "overthinkers," I have read a lot. Probably too much for my own good. Thanks in return for reading this.