"I don't want your stupid jack!"

Years ago, I remember reading a story, probably from the "Ensign", about a man driving down a rural road at night when he got a flat tire. In the attempt to fix the flat, he realized that he didn't have a jack. He did notice a farm house a little way up the road, and decided to walk to the house and ask if they had a jack he could borrow. On the walk, he was beset by doubts: What if no one was home;what if they were in bed; what if they didn't want to help him? By the time he walked up the drive, he had worked himself up to the point where he didn't think the family would want to help him and instead of knocking on the door, yelled, "I don't want your stupid jack, anyway!"

I feel like that a lot, right now. Most of my fears that I am blowing out of proportion are pregnancy related. Something happens (or doesn't happen) and then I plan out a lot of scenarios in my head that don't really come to pass. For example, Monday was President's Day and Ian had the day off so we planned a Valentine's date to go do lunch and a movie. I just had to go to my OB appointment first. Well, on Sunday I was sick. As I was laying in bed Sunday night, I was having all these bad thoughts about how being sick would affect me and that when I went in for my checkup (for my 36 week visit) the doctor would tell me that I would need to have the baby right then. I'll tell you, that in my mind, I was not going to let that happen! I wanted to go out with my husband and I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to have a childless movie date. Especially when I didn't know when the next opportunity would be. In the end, the doctor didn't say anything about rushing things, checked me, said I was barely dilated, and that I needed to have more contractions to get things moving along. Ian and I went to the movie and had a great date with no problems.

My other fears are that I am going to have another large baby (the doctor has already said it is a big baby) with a large head. Or that the baby will come too early (though that fear is pretty much laid to rest as the Dr. told me Monday that 37 weeks is considered full term, and that is only 3 days away). Or that the baby will come too late (meaning that I get to deal with being uncomfortably pregnant for an additional 2 weeks and that Rebecca will have left by then).

Admittedly, the fear that we would still be living in our tiny two-bedroom apartment when the baby came has become a reality. I just realized that we have been looking for a new house for over 9 months, longer than I have been pregnant. And we put an offer in on the house that we really like that would be closer to Ian's new work almost 5 months ago, but because it is a short sale the bank has to respond and accept the offer. And the bank appears not be in any rush to sell the house.

The rational part of my brain knows that everything will turn out all right in the end. That I will be able to cope with whatever comes. But at night when I am trying to get to sleep, my brain seems to work overtime inventing things to worry about.