Worry Worry
Octogalore left a comment:
I hear you. It gets better! I had an easy pregnancy health-wise but the hardest part was constant paranoia about whether the baby was still alive, as I’d had 2 miscarriages. Everyone told me the worrying would not stop once she came out. Only, it did! Well, I still have bouts of worry, but not about whether she’s breathing.
So far as I’m aware, I’m worrying from now until the day I die.
I worried in the first weeks that it wouldn’t make it to 12 weeks. Then, i got past the 2nd trimester mark, and worried that it wouldn’t make it to 20 (the halfway mark, more or less.) And, yeah… I worry about stillbirth. I worry that something will go terribly wrong at the last second. That I’ll fall over in the bathtub. That I’ll get in a minor car wreck, and then it’ll just stop moving.
Then, of course, I worry about SIDS. Little known fact: I have a sister that died of SIDS.
And, then there’s the “Holy shit, how did we survive childhood?” years. Where in small children jump off roofs, clinging to umbrellas, to see if it works as a parachute. Or, try to jump gaps with bicycles. Or, run out into the street after soccer balls. And, unknown allergens and asthma and who knows what germs lurk at the local school? Tuberculosis, anyone?
And, then there’s high school, with the threat of stupidity with alcohol and clinical depression and learning to drive. Assuming there’s still gasoline around in 16 years.
And, scariest of all is that period right after high school, wherein people move out and then really lose their fucking minds.
So, yeah. I don’t know that the worry train stops anytime soon.
Of course, i”m a worrier by nature… that doesn’t help much.
And, don’t get me started on the autism thing. Yes, I understand that it’s “neurologically different” as opposed to handicapped. But, it’s still a worry. And, the kid is SCREWED in the vision department. We’ll be lucky if it makes it to third grade without glasses. And, dyslexia!! Monkeys attacking from the sky! Killer robots from outer space!
Anything could happen, y’all.
tags: childhood, personal problems
Yeah, I know what you mean. Those first few weeks with the baby are the worst. I can barely keep plants alive and my cats have learned to feed themselves, and here I was in charge of a helpless human
I was certain that she would die horribly due to some oversight of mine. I could see Stone Phillips narrating the story on Dateline NBC.
Now, of course, with a rowdy toddler I yearn for the days when she was a tiny, immobile bundle that slept most of the time. I worry that she’ll break my cell phone. Again.
— Vanessa Aug 9, 02:59 PM #
Oh wow.
I’m pretty sure that I can keep a baby alive, I mean, I can control me. It’s all that uncontrollable stuff that scares me.
— Veronica Aug 9, 03:26 PM #
the following reference is from Chicago Hope (because I get all my references from the great, wise TV. ahem) a mother said to a doctor, after being told not to worry, “you obviously don’t have children. having children is like tearing your heart out of your chest and giving it legs” (something to that effect. don’t remember the exact words but you get the gist) quick history: i raised my sister. for all intents and purposes, she is the child of my heart and let me tell you, even now that she is 25, i never cease worrying that maybe i didn’t teach her enough, that i didn’t prepare her for life. even now i want to walk ahead of her to make sure i can ease her path. of course, i know that’s not possible and i know it’s not right, that she needs to find her own way so despite how hard it is sometimes, i hold back and let her stumble. but, oh man, it’s enough to make me cry sometimes. i know mothers who don’t worry as much as i used to, but i don’t know of any one parent who ever stops worrying.
And, this is a bit of an aside, but i have gone through some frightening moments in my life but there is nothing, NOTHING, more horrible than feeling like you’ve lost your child. one second she’s there before your eyes and the next, poof. oh my god. yeah, heart on legs. totally.
— patricia Aug 9, 04:37 PM #
Worrying is just one of the many things us broads do best.
— (aka) Googie Aug 10, 09:59 AM #
wow, I totally feel you. those outerspace killer robots drive me batshit. and they’re everywhere.
My mom lost a baby to SIDS, back when they called it crib death.
but you know what I bet? I bet you’ll be just fine. I’d say the same thing to you that everyone says to me: you’ll make a great mom, you’re totally smart and compassionate and sensitive and rational and sane, and at the very least you know what not to do.
deep breath. you will all be okay.
— antiprincess Aug 11, 06:52 AM #
Veronica, I didn’t mean to shrug off the worry portion of parenthood—I still do, all the time. It just has relaxed substantially from thinking “she isn’t breathing!” every five minutes, which is how I was for my whole pregnancy.
I am really sorry about what happened to your sister. SIDS is much more rare these days because the approach is more preventative and we know more now. But I know, that doesn’t alleviate all the worry.
I just think that when your beautiful baby is born, you will wind up feeling a decrease in the worry level, that will progress over time as he/she becomes less tiny and vulnerable. It will never completely go away, I don’t think, but it probably won’t be a constant albatross either.
— Octogalore Aug 11, 01:27 PM #
Yes, indeed anything can happen. And no, you don’t ever really quit worrying. I don’t worry about my kids dying of something obscure anymore, but I do worry about some idiot in a Lincoln running them down. You learn to live with the worry, and it becomes a second skin you can sort of ignore. They do seem awful fragile when they’re babies, but look around at all the grownups in the world, They were babies once and made it that far.
— Rootietoot Aug 14, 06:20 AM #
Yeah, now that I have kids, I have often wondered how DID we all survive? My worry is actually directly proportional to the amount of freedom they have. When they were little, I was in control. Now I’m not, and there are idiots out there, and the little darlings think they know everything once 13 hits.
— more cowbell Aug 14, 12:15 PM #