Does the Worrying Ever Stop?

I think probably not...

Even though I started this pregnancy pretty calm and cool, realizing that the success of this pregnancy is pretty much out of my control (except for the obvious dangerous behaviors), but the further we go along, the more and more scared I am becoming that something is going to go terribly wrong. Which seems kind of opposite of how most pregnant women probably feel given how much the odds improve over time.

Before I could feel any movement, I was constantly anticipating it- willing it happen to feel reassured that she was okay. Then around the middle of week 19, the night before our big u/s actually, I started to feel her. Not big movements, but distinct. The movement was very inconsistent, feeling her some days more than others, but always getting stronger. I could rationalize that she was still so small and that this was normal. Then around 22 weeks she had a few days where I didn't feel her much at all, and then finally some good strong movement for days. I rationalized this by thinking she had been going through a growth spurt, plus the fact that I have an anterior placenta.

Since that lull, I have started to see movement on the outside of my belly and have consistently felt her move around when I'm laying in bed at night or in the morning- but not last night, or this morning. Yesterday I only felt some slight movement, very little at night, and I was so tired last night I pretty much passed out. Then I woke up this morning and nothing. I won't lie- I freaked out!!! I laid in bed a few minutes waiting, but worked myself into such a worry that I jumped up to eat something, thinking that our blood sugar must be kind of low. So I downed a bagel, a cookie, some water, and sat down to write. I have felt 2 slight movements in the time I have been writing, so I just poured myself a small glass of coke. Yup, I am attempting to hype up my baby with caffeine to make myself feel better, even given that we just had an u/s on Tuesday where she looked great.

Where does all this crazy come from? Well, there is the obvious- already losing a pregnancy, but that's not all of it. Though, a large portion of worry does come from reading the pregnancy loss boards I used to frequent after the m/c. Since the board didn't have a distinction between early and late loss, there were so many heartbreaking stories of moms who lost their babies long after the statistics said they would. Another part of it comes from knowing too much, coming from a Health Sciences background doesn't help. Trust me, for some things in life ignorance really is bliss. There is so much that can go wrong in pregnancy. In fact, I am still in constant amazement that people even get pregnant "by accident" or that out of the hundreds of babies born every day the large majority of them are healthy. The last portion of crazy is my propensity for almost always seeing the glass as half empty. I usually don't think of myself as a worrier, just a realist but maybe there really isn't that much difference between the two.

For now, the coke has done its job and I have felt a few strong movements, which means J won't have to commit me to the mental ward- at least, not today...