Motherhood With a Side of Paranoia

I took nap with my daughter the other day and when we awoke I noticed she was cross-eyed. Actually it was more like reverse-cross-eyed. One of her eyes was looking at me and the other was drifting off to the left. I immediately wondered if my sleeping with her could have caused this new development.--Caused her to go blind.

I yelled to my husband to have him come look and I held back the tears I could feel forming.

"She always looks like that," he told me.

"She always looks cross-eyed?" I didn't believe it. Anyways, I had stared at her 1000Xs more than he had. I would have noticed.

"She's just tired, she just woke up," he tried to console me, and hide a chuckle.

"What if she's going blind?" My paranoia wouldn't let down.

He snapped his fingers in his direction and she looked over at him. I was satisfied but only later thought of the fact that she could have been reacting to the sound of him snapping and not his fingers moving.

I fed her, and kept watching her eyes and noticed when she was looking normal again. Then I realized this is going to be a long hard journey.

I'm a hypochondriac. I've pretty much always self-diagnoised myself with all sorts of sicknesses and diseases. I claim I have mono when I'm actually just sleepy. I'm convinced I have a heart disease because I watched a special about Marfans on the Health Channel and so many of the symptoms explain my issues. I thought I had cancer when I discovered a lump in my breast (I actually did have to have it surgically removed. Luckily it was benign, but you can imagine my fear when they said it wasn't a cyst).

Now, unfortunately my delusions have carried over with my child. I can't read anything about babies and illness without worrying about Lil' J.

I pray every night that she'll be alive when I wake up and often jump up startled in the middle of the night when I realize I haven't heard her stir in awhile. I googled "green poop" when I saw a diaper full of it this morning. I hate that I'm acting this way but truthfully, I've done this with my dog--So it's only expected that with my own child it's magnified by a thousand.

Some friends told me about baby motion monitors and I'm thinking of getting one. This may put me in the category of "cuckoo" but I think it'll also give me a little piece of mind, and maybe help me sleep a little better.

I've heard a lot of good things about the Angel Care monitor but I'm thinking of getting a Snuza since it's more easily portable and has a vibration that will ring on baby if se doesn't breath or move for 15 seconds. The alarm sounds 5 seconds later if still nothing.

It's not about vanity, it's about my sanity. I'm not sure if I'll ever be sane again--Now that I'm a mom, but at least I can admit I need help.

CNS Stores sells bedroom vanity items, and nursery amenities including a few motion baby monitors and I'm hoping to buy one soon!- Sponsored.

Showers of Love and Fear

My baby shower was Saturday and it was a blast! It was a nice mix of friends from work, church, and even online. My friend Raquel, who I originally met on Twitter came and I was so happy to finally meet her face to face!

I had a couple of sets of baby shower invites for work friends, then family and church friends. Here's one I had made by Storkie. It was fun creating it cause it started out totally different but I was able to select the girl's skin tone, hair color, the balloon color. It was a fun, and I have to give Storkie a big thanks for sponsoring the printing costs! Everyone loved them, they came in the mail SUPER fast, and the process was easy peasy! I recommend them for sure!

When it came to what to wear, I had a big dress dilemma. Remember how I was asking advice for choosing one? Well that dress didn't make it in time, I actually still don't have it. But that's what I get for trying to do it as a review instead of just buying it and getting it in three days. I ended up squeezing into one of my pre-pregnancy dresses, but because of the cut my tummy was able to fit under it just fine.

I got lost of the way to the party, and caught in the rain, but once I got there it was so fun to sit back and enjoy.

My husband was a trooper too. He didn't want to be showered but when I got home I put all of our gifts back in the bags and put the tissue paper over them, then I had him open them up all over again so I could see his reaction.

I have to admit, his reaction wasn't what I was expecting. He was more like "oh, cool" where as I was like "OMG THIS IS SO FREAKING CUTE!!" He asked me why I didn't just show him the stuff, but he was a trooper and played along with my demands request.

Later when I was putting our gifts away I had the strangest feeling come over me... Almost a panic about my daughter surviving. I'm not sure if it's because of all of the sad stories I've read or heard about or what triggered it, or what. I hate feeling like I'm being negative but I can't help it, it's hard to describe.

I wrote a post with a shower summary and explaining more of this feeling on my Parenting blog today, here's a part of it:

Friends threw me a baby shower last weekend, and it was amazing. Friends from different spectrums of my life came to shower me with love and advice. Since we live about a thousand miles from both sides of our family, I didn't have any kin there, but that didn't mean they weren't thinking about us.

Friends from work, friends from church, even a friend I'd made on Twitter celebrated my baby with me.

On the invitation to the party guests were asked to bring a book instead of a card with a cute poem:

"One small request that won't be too hard Please bring a book instead of a card Whether Cat in the Hat or Winnie the Pooh, you can sign the inside cover with a note from you. Baby will become very smart, if my advice you do heed, if we begin early, she'll soon love to read."

I guess my friends thought it was as cute as I did because Baby Girl now has SO many books as a start to her collection. Originally I had planned to put all of the books downstairs on our bookshelf but now I don't have the heart to take them from her room. I'm going to get some new wall bookshelves this week.We played the classic baby shower games: Deciphering melted chocolate from baby diapers, and guessing the size of my belly.One thing I really enjoyed was the advice cards women filled out for me. I smiled as I opened them all later and silently stored the tips one by one in my mind.But as I got home and started unpacking my gifts and organizing Baby Girl's room, the strangest, scariest thought came into my mind: What if she never gets to use these?

A sick feeling swelled in my stomach. I didn't want to think about it.

I've heard of women experiencing postpartum depression and having extreme fear of something bad happening to their child. I all of a sudden am questioning myself for taking gifts out of the box, or pulling the tags off of her clothing items, terrified something bad will happen to her before she ever gets to use it...

This was a part of a post I wrote for my Parenting Magazine Blog on Project Pregnancy. You can read the rest of it here.

I'm really enjoying blogging with them and I'm hoping they keep me on after Spawnie's born so I'd love it if you showed some comment love over there! Thank you!

... And Then I Cried

I told you I kept a journal from the day I got my BFP, here's a scary experience I wrote about the day after my good news.

Written 10/17 but saved for today

Last night, after finding out I was pregnant I went to the bathroom (Again! I was going a lot that day). When I examined the toilet paper I noticed some brown spotting. 'Implantation bleeding' I thought to myself. I asked one of my friends on Twitter about it and she said that could be it... Or it could be my body "trying to start."

Shoot. I was still a day away from my period starting. What if my body was going to reject this forming baby?

And with that... I lost it.

I tried to hide my fears and sadness but I couldn't. I'm not a good actor, and the love of my life can always tell when I'm upset.

Tears kept streaming down my face, and the conversations that took place after that moment made me realize this was something we both wanted more than we knew.

That night I made a promise to God.

The Questions I'm Asking Myself

As I inch closer and closer day by day towards the goal of switching the baby-makin machine "ON", I find myself asking few questions over and over:
"For real?": Am I really going to take the leap to try to change my life FOREVER? To jump off the realms of just regular womanhood into the depths of motherhood?
"Am I ready?": Ok, maybe I'm more "ready" than a lot of people... especially those who have the "oops" cases, oh, and those girls on 16 and Pregnant. But really... Am I ready to be a mom? Mom--I can't imagine being called that! WEIRD!
"What's the rush?": I don't know the answer to this one. I just know I want to be a mom, and I think I'd be a good mom, and that I love my husband and we'd make a good team. Why do all of this now?--I don't know. I know my biological clock isn't exactly ticking. Maybe it's just nature telling me it's time? Of course my pregnant friends don't help any, but hey... I wanted it first!

I'm not sure why I don't want to wait another year or two...Why I feel like I can't. Why is that?! I'm sure once I have a baby I'll look back wondering why I was in such a hurry... Or perhaps I'll wonder why I waited so long. I hope the latter is the case.

And then every once in awhile this question pops into my mind...
"What am I THINKING?!": I don't know. I see the things my friends with new babies are going through. The sleepless nights. The crankiness, the loss of sexual appetite, the loss of romance. And I STILL want to do this?! I hope the occasional fear that crosses into my mind, and sometimes out my mouth diminishes... And that I'm not getting cold feet.

Is this normal?

The Strange Request

I worry a lot, sometimes excessively. I also have a very bad case of "The what-if syndrome." Meaning I start with "what if..." then add an extreme example of a minute possibility, but still feel a definite need to think of how to solve the problem, or answer the question.

One of the questions I have is "What if my husband dies?" While I don't dwell on all of the details of that question the main, immediate problem I see is not about money, or even my sure-to-be life changing rage of depression... No, the thought that crosses my mind is having his babies... Still.

Some of you are probably wondering how that's possible. Others, like me, may be picking up what I'm putting down... And maybe a few of you are several steps ahead of me and already have a freezer full of your man's swimmers.

You read right. I'm talking about saving the goods for later. Storing a little bit of him in case he dies before we have kids. Extreme? Yes. But I think I have good intentions. I really would like to see what OUR kids would look like, and I want to have HIS kids!

I haven't asked him yet, but I'm pretty sure if I do he'll just look at me strange and assume I'm joking. Plus how do I bring something like that up? "Hey baby, here's a cup, do you mind...?"

I think this gives a whole new meaning to family planning.