Worrywart

In the past week I have driven a lot of pregnant passengers from the hospital to their homes... yesterday it was a lady who is due the day before me. I find it interesting to talk to these women about their experiences, especially since I don't know many people who are, or were very recently, pregnant. It's nice to talk to people in the same condition, if not situation, and compare "war stories" as it were.

Like... it's nice to know that I'm not the only one getting teary-eyed at the most strange things... car insurance and dog food commercials, for instance. It's impossible to tell, at this point, what or why any particular thing will elicit a pretty intense emotional response.

And it's nice to know that I'm not the only one having to make 3 or 4 trips back home to retrieve important items I've forgotten. Just yesterday I did a photo shoot: the first time I left I got about a mile and realized I'd forgotten my reflector and went back to get it. Then I got a block from the meeting point and realized that I'd forgotten, of all things, my CAMERA!!! so I had to turn around and drive 20 mins home to get it and embarrass myself by admitting that I'd forgotten the one thing I can't do a photo shoot without :) then, after the shoot I realized I'd forgotten my model release forms... I had everything together and ready for the shoot, before I left, and still I managed to forget most everything :)

And most of all it's nice to know that we all worry incessantly about things going wrong with the baby. For me it's mostly worries about her being developmentally disabled or really disabled in most any way. I fear that I could not deal with it if she were... and I don't know what I would be able to do about it. I think that there are people who are able to handle such things, but I'm a person who has always been somewhat uncomfortable around people with severe disabilities... it's not that I dislike them; I think it's mostly that I don't know HOW to deal with them and find it hard to relate. Fortunately I know that the vast majority of infants are born normal and without disability and that we have already taken several tests which screen for the major causes of mental disability and many genetic abnormalities... with nothing abnormal showing up. Other things... I get scared whenever I don't feel her move for a few hours. I feel so helpless; I wouldn't even know if something were terribly wrong with her, likely, until it was too late. I think it's most frightening to feel so powerless to protect and even know if your child is doing ok. Lately, I have not felt her move up high, where her legs are, very much and was worried, for a few days, that something was wrong with her legs. Yesterday I got some strong kicks up high, yay, that eased my mind but it is strange for me to be so worried about things I am completely not in control of.

So I feel like I am becoming a huge worrywart, and I don't know what to think about it. My hope is that I will be able to get back to my mellow self once she's here and I can see her and know what's going on with her (and I think that will be the case).

The lady yesterday helped ease my mind about the worrying. She's pregnant with her 5th child (due Oct. 17) and told me that you worry like that with every pregnancy, though often about different things (she said this time she's scared her baby will be deaf or blind) but that it goes away after the baby comes and you feel like you're more in control of taking care of him/her.

I guess that means I have just a few more months of worry to live through :) then I will maybe one day (years from now) have to consider if all of the discomfort and anxiety of pregnancy is something I want to consider doing over again.