Random Thoughts on Health and Money

Just coming out of a busy work period, my last deadline week before I leave to have the kid.

Even writing that makes me wonder if I'm jinxing myself. What if something happens to the baby and there is no baby? What if the kid comes early and I spend weeks in a NICU?

I started going through all my email at work and home yesterday to figure out who should get the announcement we'll send out when the kid will be born (knock wood, that all goes well). And I thought, I know a lot of people. Mr. L. knows a lot of people. We would have to tell a lot of people some terrible news if there's a problem with the baby.

Since last Friday's events, at first I was surprised by the comments I was getting, saying how calm I was during something I thought was an overreaction on some doctors' parts. But then I thought, "I'm no doctor. What do I know about infant heart rates? Am I too blase for my own good?"

As I explained to the Mister, I'm so used to hearing about health catastrophes and things not working right in my own body that I'm not so worried when I hear about something else. When I was first told I had an avocado-sized tumor growing in my abdomen, my first reaction was, "Oh, I'm sure you're just feeling scar tissue from years of taking shots in my stomach." My current Kind Endo, who first felt something odd during my first visit with her a few years ago, told me later she was scared by what she felt, and was amazed that I seemed to take the news in stride. But here I am, years later, wondering how I'll deal with a problem if there's a problem with Baby L.

Baby L. has continued to kick me on a regular basis, and kicky=active=good in the minds of my docs and the techs who give me ultrasounds weekly. But does active mean the kid will have ADHD? Could the kid become autistic? If I feed the kid a bit of formula because I hear breastfeeding is tough, despite my intention to breastfeed the kid as much as I can because it's supposed to be healthier, will that doom the kid to developing type 1 or type 2 down the road?

And again, will the kid be as large as the last reading said it would be, and will that be OK?

Besides the general fear about the kid's happiness and health, I look around and think, I'm supposed to get all this done before April 9? Still reorganizing after the painters left last week, still trying to figure out what bedding to buy for the crib, what to do about cord blood banking (important for the kid's future health needs, or an untested, unproven, expensive waste of time?), and wondering if the current insomnia I have (only got up at 5am today, so things are getting a bit better) will be welcome in a few weeks when I'm up hearing someone scream and cry and moan (and no, not Mister L, though it very easily could be) and I can't figure out how to calm the yeller down.

And unrelated, yesterday I talked to a coworker about a new project she's launching at work. She wanted feedback on how the people in my department would play into her project, and I instinctively thought, "Oh, I could totally do that work freelance from home." I told her as such, but knew to say, "Listen, let me get back in touch with you after my maternity leave is up and maybe we can work something out." She just came back to work after a year off having twins, and has had some good insight about being a new mom and not going back to work and the financial element of that, and dealing with putting your kids in day care and returning to work for both personal and financial reasons. But as always, my instinct was to get excited about a new work project and think about how I might make extra cash doing it. And yet, I know the deadline hours and long commute make me think I'd be crazy to try to return to work full time, but being there full time makes me privy to new assignments and inside scoop. I always wonder about how my new role as a mom is going to interact with my longtime role as an employee and freelancer always looking for new work and income streams.