Anxiety

I tell you what, I have this crazy way of not getting excited about things by keeping myself really busy all the time. I make lists and lists of things that need to be done and there is nothing so satisfying as being able to cross each and every one of my tasks off as they get done. I do a LOT of this when I am particularly excited or anxious about something. I think I do this because otherwise I really turn into a mess waiting around for something. I hate it. I'll sit around being totally preoccupied to the point that nothing gets done, I get kind of edgy, and I just get a little depressed. What a healthy way of coping with stress, right? Either total shut-down or extreme energy and denial. (Wendie really likes the saying "Everyone is somebody else's weirdo." :) I think that fits this situation!)

Anyway, throughout this pregnancy, I have kept myself really busy. From a month before I got pregnant, our lives have been totally turned upside-down by circumstances out of my control and some that I've had total control over. First, Nels got told that he needed to find some real work when his colleague could no longer fund him in making the movie. From that point, we thought we were moving to Spokane for a job, applied for another job at BYUI and moved from Idaho Falls, putting all our stuff in storage, to Bountiful to live with my parents with our 2 kids until we knew for sure where we were going. We thought we would be there for a couple of weeks and ended up there for a month and a half while first the job at BYUI got filled and then the one in Spokane fell through as they didn't have the funds to bring Nels on as they'd promised. We then applied everywhere else in the U.S. and Nels had a promising job interview in Park City and eventually got hired right back in Idaho Falls where we had started. So we moved back into a rental. The week we moved back I started getting sick all the time. This summer we started looking for a house to buy. The weekend before we closed, we took our third trip to Spokane in 6 months for a family vacation with the rest of the Chicks. We closed and moved as soon as we got back and I decided to start up a part time job, just to make myself "useful". The cute little house that we bought has a mess of a yard and was one of the filthiest places we have ever lived. (I say "one of" because we've moved into some real winners in the past 5 years of marriage.) I've spent the entire summer working 21 hours a week, chasing around my 2 VERY active children, running all over with family reunions, and making my all-consuming LISTS of things that need done around our house (mainly deep cleaning every crevice and painting every surface!) All while Nels has spent every spare brain cell and second thinking about and trying to finish an independent film that he and a friend of ours started last May and have FINALLY submitted to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

So in the past two weeks, I've stopped working until after I have the baby, finished all of my major painting jobs I had on my LIST to finish before going into labor, Nels has finished working on the movie, we've cleaned out the garage...and my list is getting smaller and smaller as I can't plan too far ahead because I don't know what the next couple of weeks are going to bring.

In the end, I'm left with contractions all the time that leave me really distracted from my ability to distract myself with working to death and a somewhat-messy house that gets a whirlwind cleaning everytime I start having contractions - again - that end up not getting me anywhere closer to the hospital.

I'm turning into a real mess. Especially with Nels asking me every couple of hours if she's coming yet. He has started doing this because his boss scheduled for him to make a trip up to Moscow, Idaho (close to Spokane & over 9 hours away) this coming weekend to film some footage for a company called Potandon that is biologically engineering new kinds of potatoes. This has been planned for months and I still can't figure out exactly why Nels didn't talk to his boss about the fact that his wife will be a week and a half from her due date during that time - and that both of our other children have come exactly during that time period.

ANYWAY I know that this post really makes me sound like a whiner and you're probably all thinking that I'm 2 weeks from my due date, she's going to be here before you know it, so give it a rest, right? BUT I really felt like getting off my chest the fact that I'm a crazy, pregnant weirdo who is just a LITTLE anxious and REALLY ready to not be pregnant anymore and probably really just needs to sit down and make some new "lists" and kick myself in the fanny to get them done and stop thinking that I'm going to have the baby anytime in the next month at all.

(((DEEP Breath))) I'm feeling much better now. I'm sure that it's no surprise to any of you that I'm a freak running around in disguise --- maybe not a very good disguise . . . we'll have to put working on that on my next list.