Counting
Admittedly, I am wound a little tightly this pregnancy. Paranoia about something going wrong coupled with my lack of quality sleep makes it harder for me to step back, take a deep breath, and tell myself "everything is fine -- chill the heck out."
My heart knows that there is nothing to worry about.
My brain, on the other hand, is in disaster mode -- creating problems where there are none -- and generally ensuring that I am perpetually waiting for something bad to happen. I am trying to be easy on myself -- there is a history here, so there is a reason I find it hard to get out of this mindset -- but with only 9 weeks to go before my due date, I can't help but mentally track all the things that could still go wrong.
I am a worst-case scenario planner.
I plan for the worst thing I can imagine and then 9 times out of 10 am pleasantly surprised when things turn out better than I expected. This is how I protect myself. Sometimes I am blindsided, though, as with my brother's death in the summer, or proven right, as with my repeat miscarriages -- history makes the waiting harder.
One thing I have been alternately happy and irritated about in this pregnancy is how active my baby is -- she rarely stops moving. Her movements are sharp, strong and sometimes take my breath away, even with 2 more months to go before she arrives. Kick counts have been a bit of a guilty pleasure -- I can stop anytime, count 10 strong kicks, and reassure myself that everything is okay, despite what my brain might be whispering.
Then there are mornings like today.
This morning, I realized around 8:40am that I couldn't remember when I last felt her move. No problem -- a piece of fudge and a drink of sugary juice would solve that and I could go back about my day, right? Except that this time that didn't work as fast as usual. It took more than 30 minutes of me freaking out before I felt the first flutter of little movements.
Do I feel relieved now? Maybe a little, but mostly it just reinforces the tenuousness of my faith in things turning out the way I want. Life, like hope, is fragile. The last couple years have reinforced that for me a few times over and that will always be in the back of my mind.
All I ever have is this moment.
While I try not to dwell on it, that is something very hard for me to forget.