Honestly, I didn’t believe my baby would ever be born.

I was still operating with the belief that the world could end at any moment.

So I couldn’t picture labor and childbirth, couldn’t picture the nugget in my uterus becoming a real person with their own life and personality.

I also couldn’t picture a future for myself. I was living moment to moment.

I wanted the world to end.

It would mean an end to chronic sleep deprivation, an end to the never-ending backlog of work, an end to this “church persona” that I had been forced to adopt but felt so alien to me.

An end to the constant feeling of being tested and judged.

If I talked or even thought about a future, my inner thought police would criticize my faith.