Yes I am Neurotic

I am enjoying an episode of I Love Lucy. Little Ricky has yet another bout of tonsillitis and must have his tonsils removed. She is freaking out about leaving him there at the hospital and now she appears to be concocting a plan to sneak back in of course. I do love that show. I haven't seen too many episodes that involved her being a neurotic mom. I followed a blog by that name and knew I'd found a place that definitely described my own personality. I really cannot help it. If my kid has a fever, I hover and spoil them. I always prepare myself for the worst but hope for the best. It's who I am and let's just say getting cancer didn't help me.

Things in my own life have helped me to become who I am. First of all I had my first baby at 21. It wasn't bad. Lexi is my oldest and was a great baby. I was neurotic in checking on her every 5 minutes I swear. I was so bad. I got very little sleep. My second daughter Mikayla came along and I promised myself to NOT be so worried all the time. It worked until she turned one. I got pregnant again not planned and suffered a miscarriage. That devastated me and put the fear in me. I was ok but a couple of weeks later Mikayla started having fainting spells. I think that's what started it all. I became obsessively worried that something was wrong with her, but it was just her personality. She sometimes fainted when hurt or scared. Kids cry when they get hurt right? You know how they shriek at first, then there is silence. You know they are building up for that next ear piercing scream that will shatter your windows. All kids really do this. Fall, scream, silent scream, builds up, builds up, SHRIIIIIIIIIEK! Mikayla didn't do this. She cried, silence, silence, silence, then she would faint. She couldn't catch her breath after that point. She tried and sometimes I noticed her looking scared because you could see she couldn't get that breath. I learned a trick. Blow on her face. If you blow on someones face it makes them suck in a bit of breath involuntarily. My grandmother who had 16 kids told me this and it worked. We had an EKG, sleep study, EEG and all the good stuff done to Mikayla. She was fine. She just is a very nervous, sensitive child. Now that she is older we see that personality in her. She has a nervous stomach too. She is very very visual as well. Don't tell her about some wound you got. She gets nauseated because she can feel it herself. Seriously! She's just so sensitive.

Regardless this is what caused me to be neurotic. I got pregnant with Angelina and since my last pregnancy was a miscarriage I was scared out of my wits. I had the triple marker, or Alpha Feta Protein test (AFP) done and guess what? Yes they called me and informed me my tests showed that I was at a higher risk for having a baby with Down's Syndrome and all kinds of terrible problems. These tests are KNOWN for high false positives. I refused it with Gabbi. I was a nervous insane wreck the entire rest of my pregnancy. I refused amnio because it has it's own risk. We had a high level ultrasound that showed she was fine, which she was...but a few days after birth she began to develop a hemangioma. She had a birthmark on her lip that grew and grew and grew. It was scary, but we got that taken care of as well. I was on the news for that one too. She took prednisone and the birthmark shrank.

Now onto my last pregnancy with Gabbi. Ummm cancer? haha Yeah. Do I need to even go into detail? Would you believe I worried about my pregnancy LESS with Gabbi than I did with Angel? It's true. I just had to have faith. I didn't have to sit around wondering if something was wrong. It was. I just didn't know what the end results would be. I know my sister Cindi if she is reading this is nodding her head yes. She knows I worry about my kids and I really can't help it. I have to say it makes me a better mom though. I would rather worry too much than too little and honestly I think I have earned it. haha!

I just found this episode of I Love Lucy. Read about it here: http://www.clown-ministry.com/index_1.php/articles/nursery_school/.