The Joke of a Stress Free Pregnancy

This has been one hell of a month. One month ago today was the day that Marv was attacked by the three neighboring great Danes, sending our world into a tailspin of emotional trauma and possible legalities. I am still sad when I think about him and can't bring myself to remove the screen shot from my computer screen, but always get more sad when I see his puppy-dog eyes staring at me each time I flick open the screen. Last week we met with a lawyer, who said that we had a "decent" case to sue for the neighbors to put up a fence and pay the vet bills and possibly for "emotional trauma", although I'm not how they would put a dollar amount on that. Unfortunately, she did say that the case wasn't solid. Plus, her fees were probably comparable to us just putting up a fence ourselves.

On Monday, this issue took a large step towards resolution. A fence was in place, put there by the neighbors. It seemed like we might finally able to move on and having the baby shower at my parent's home will be a good step in this direction. I want this house to be a place where we feel safe and comfortable. I want it to be filled with joyous memories, not sorry and anger.

This morning, on my way into work, I was in a car accident. It was rush hour and rainy. The cars ahead slammed on their breaks for some unknown reason and so I also broke hard to avoid hitting them. I did avoid them, but the car behind me wasn't as lucky. She is a young girl, twenty at most, and very shaken up. Her SUV seemed relatively unscathed but my sedan had a really large dent and some cracks in the rear bumper. The police were called to file a report, but all cars were drive-able. Luckily she has insurance so hopefully that will not be an issue. It's just one more thing to deal with.

File a police report. Call in late for work. Reschedule my patients for the morning. Call the insurance company. Figure out a time to take the car in to be fixed.

Plus, less not forget, I am 22 weeks pregnant. Call the doctor. He wants to see me right away. I wasn't all that worried, until he wanted to see me. Now there is that.

When I was in undergraduate school, I gave myself my first ever panic attack. It was during a course in Human Sexuality and I was up late studying for an exam in my dorm room. In all fairness, my baseline anxiety was probably high, as this was also the period that I was applying to graduate school. I was reading about pregnancy and there was entire chapter (at least according to my memory), devoted to everything that could potentially go wrong with fetal development. It was horrifying. Then, at the end of this chapter, there were a few sentences discussing how maternal stress can exacerbate these problems and make so many of the issues much more likely. This is what threw me over the edge. There are so many possible horrible situations, and my stress can make it all more likely. Don't be stressed. But be aware of the of horrendous outcomes. But don't be stressed. Right.

I have tried to keep the stress in check, especially when thinking about prenatal development. In general, I feel that I do pretty well with this. But then life happens. And sometimes life just sucks.