Time to reorganize

I've been very anxious lately. I hadn't quite realized how anxious until Thursday night, when the relaxation exercise in class started me crying. I can blame pregnancy hormones a little, but only a little; it's my nature to be a worrier. (The instructor handed out a small questionnaire for each couple and on my side was "How good are you at relaxing?" and on Eric's side was "How good is your partner at relaxing?" The options were Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor. We both chose Fair.) Not all of the anxiety has been about L.E.O., but a good deal of it has: how the delivery will go, how we'll figure out how to care for her, how we'll handle our finances to fit in daycare and diapers and college savings, how our lives will stretch and trim and reshape to accommodate her.

(And of course how much time we'll have left before she orders our execution, but we'll be very proud in the intervening time.)

We have sixty days left, approximately, and we're getting more serious about preparing for a baby in our lives: rearranging a bunch of the house to get the bookcases and other things out of the nursery ("You don't think we could leave this in here?" Eric said, brandishing a RenFaire sword), discussing daycare options, filling out insurance and preregistration paperwork, freaking out. Every once in a while Eric or I will grab the other's hand and say "Are we sure we really want to do this?" The other person always says yes (or "Well, it's too late now"). Maybe that's why it's good to have two of us. I was talking to Eric about my anxiety the other day, and I guess it was his turn to be the optimistic, confident one. He said, "What is there to worry about?"

I started enumerating all the potential problems I was thinking about, and--here's the strange part--he shot them all down. Normally this doesn't happen. Normally nothing budges my worrying. But whether I was too tired to disagree or too unsure of my ground to contest or too insecure to deny myself the offered comfort, I found myself thinking that maybe everything would be all right.

That didn't last terribly long, of course. But I remember the feeling, and it helps to know I had it. Maybe everything will be all right. And if it isn't, at least we're getting a nicely reorganized house out of the deal.