Bubbles

I don't remember what paranoid, panick stricken images crossed my mind during my first pregnancy. Maybe I was too busy working to think about it too much. I think, for the most part, I felt superhuman, as if my unborn child and I were living in this bubble where nothing could touch us.

I vaguely remember the very real fear of SIDS when Rohan was born. In fact, a woman at my work, a new grandmother, lost her grandchild of two months from SIDS. That was too close to home. Also other things such as dropping him, forgetting him in car/house/store....mainly dropping Rohan or Rohan not surviving his infancy were the main concerns (see mama paranoia) of his early months......up to about nowish.

I have now morphed my random images of the negative sort into much more detailed visions. Of losing him in department stores, of turning away at the exact wrong moment and Rohan running into the road at the exact wrong moment (remember pet cemetery, don't watch it if you have a toddler, it will not leave your head). All sorts of massive injuries that I wont be able to handle, such as broken bones, split lips, puncture wounds, these pass through my mind everytime he runs really fast, falls, and I have to catch up to him with bated breath, worst case scenarios running through my head. One of the the worst ones that I have a daily dose of is the concept of a kidnapping. My stomach twists and turns, I can barely breath. I feel so much of what I imagine it would feel like to have a child taken. I feel a loss so great that I cannot imagine what it would feel like to go on. It makes me want to grab Rohan (and trust me, I do do this on occasion) and squeeze him and not let go. These are the times that I would like to construct a large bubble for him and I to live in forever, nobody from the outside able to penetrate its walls, penetrate our lives, hurt us.

Now, with this pregnancy, I have no bubble. I am as vulnerable as I ever was, if not more so, because now I worry about the one within and the one on the outside. The paranoia mama moments I have involve still birth. Random acts of, or the direct result of an injury. The injury? Falling. I cannot get the image of falling on top of my stomach to pass through quickly enough. Sometimes it is an action to save one that becomes the demise of the other, to save Rohan from something I had to let myself fall. Morbid right? I can't help it.

I have rule about all images and scenarios and daydreams (nightmares). I will not allow myself to linger on them, ever. I try my best not to linger on anything negative for too long for fear that the universe will catch it and consider it a wish and not a fear, as if thinking it will manifest it. Nothing lingers in my conscious mind but positive thought (well I try anyway, I have not yet totally perfected this). But even these passing moments feel as if they take a little bit out of me. It is exhausting work, being a mama!