You Never Stop Worrying

The one thing I've realized with both pregnancies is that you start being a parent to that growing child inside of you from the second you find out you're pregnant. You do the best you can to be healthy to your body so that you can nourish that little life growing inside you the best way possible. You avoid anything that might be dangerous to the little being...everything from giving up alcohol and sushi to blocking your stomach when you have toddler's leg is heading at it with a kick. The other thing you do as a parent is never stop worrying.

The pregnancy time line is tricky and has slightly different experiences for each person with each different pregnancy. As with child development, there's always a range when things start\stop happening to you. When you aren't right on the calendar, though, you start to worry. Folks have started asking me if I've felt flutters and I haven't (gas probably, flutters not so much). I start getting paranoid that something might be wrong. In between doctor's appointments, there's not much assurance that everything's ok either.

So, leading up to my appointment this week I started getting worried (every appointment really). Maybe that one box I lifted that made my belly feel strained did some damage. Maybe I'm not feeling the baby because it's not alive anymore....the paranoia will drive a girl nuts! I think those appointments every 4 weeks are probably much more reassuring for the mother than the doctor. Yesterday, I had a check up and held my breath until the doppler was moved into the place where I did get to hear a healthy baby's heartbeat. And, the doctor reassured me it's still too early to be feeling the baby move. It being my second pregnancy I may start feeling it around 18 weeks (still a couple away). He also said that my fundal height measurement (a very advance test where they literally take a tape measure and put it on your belly to measure the uterus size) is right on track. Whew! Everything is a-okay! Yay!

But, until this little baby is out of me, I'm not going to stop worrying that everything's going well for the little bugger. There's so much that can happen during a pregnancy and you get very few signs of reassurance along the way that nothing is out of sorts. And other than taking care of myself the best I can, there's no control I have over keeping the baby thriving. The lack of control is not an easy thing for a semi control freak (I've been down graded from the full on control freak I was a couple of years ago...motherhood will do that to you too) to deal with on a day to day basis.

The cruelest irony of all is that the worry I'm feeling now doesn't go away when the baby comes out. It only gets worse. Much, much worse!