Hypochodria and Pregnancy

     I suppose in my last few posts I could have been a bit more personal and shared that I am expecting ^_^ 27 weeks with my second child, another girl. Ah, two teenage girls at once, something to look forward to, just hope they take after me and prefer video games to partying. because that is NOT happening :P. but anywho.
    When I was pregnant with my first daughter 3 1/2 years ago, I felt no anxiety, no stress, I definitely wasn't paranoid about every little thing. I was just pregnant, and that was that. I went to my desk job, sat there for 9 hours designing window signs/pump toppers/ and whatever else was needed on photoshop. Then packed up and went home, enjoyed the evening talking to my family and then slept.
    However, this time around I have been one big ball of panic, I'm not sure if it's because I'm deathly worried that something will happen to me and my daughter will be without me, or if I just forgot what it was like to have something feeding off of my body and relying on me. Pregnancy, is an amazing thing. I have never felt such a bond before I became a mother. Maybe it's the fact that while I have two (technically) children relying on me, and I'm desperately missing my husband and am starting to feel like...maybe i can't do it alone?
    That last sentence actually PAINED me to say, I have always been an independent woman, but I can honestly say I never knew what "love" was until I opened my eyes and realized my dream man was in front of me for 8 years. alas, I'm getting distracted.
    Every day for about the past 3 weeks, I have been one big ball of fear. A slight cramp in my leg, leads to a few more cramps, 'oh is that a varicose vein? I haven't noticed them before. do i have a blood clot?' *google* 'oh shit, it's DVT.' now i have never gone anywhere and had a doppler run on my legs yet or anything, i guess i just prefer to stress myself out over thing that I'm sure is NOT the problem. I started taking more potassium and the cramps lightened up, who would have guessed.
    Or maybe I'm about to develop pre-eclampsia, which would definitely end up turning into HELLP syndrome, because I have all the luck in the world. Even though I've always had low blood pressure and even now it's 110/61. I do know, however that i need to calm down, or else my BP will go up and I will land my self in a fine state.
    Also, I'm due to fly soon on a 6.5 hour flight, which we all (should) know that DVT is increased while flying, and pregnant. So naturally I've invested in flight socks, and have been practicing my exercises that i will be doing while in flight.
     Then of course I'm worried about the other things that are 'unlikely' to happen to me. My liver taking a break and being like "hey eff you, hahaaha", wouldn't that just be great. I was completely healthy my first pregnancy, I did have a c-section due to them thinking my daughter was going to be bigger. Which she was nearly 7 1/2 lbs and I'm normally 104 lbs, so she was pretty nice-sized for my body. Afterwards I suffered from PPH and thought I was going to die, I hemorrhaged and lost a lot of blood, had to have a blood transfusion and lived on 3 very strong antibiotics for a week in the hospital. it was horrible.
    I, obviously, recovered and have been doing fine. I do have an arrhythmia issue, which i just found out about a few weeks ago. Which my doctor said (naturally) "i've been living with one and I'm just fine, it's no big thing unless there is something else going on at the same time." SWEET. bah, I just hope the rest of this pregnancy (12 1/1 weeks) goes well. I can't wait until we get to meet the little bundle, and I can go back to having my body to myself. I am finding that my anxiety has been letting up, which is normal for me, it comes in swings. I guess I've already over-fretted everything enough to let me settle down. :D 

Riddled with Anxiety

        As I mentioned in my first(very uninteresting) post, I am plagued with anxiety. I don't think that I have "always" been this way. Sure, when I was 5 I was petrified of Jesus and water but i got over that, sort of, and eventually made my way through many years with the normal "will the kids at my new school like me" and "will they notice that I'm wearing too snug for me hand me downs?" woes.

         However, in the past 2 years I have begun to worry about every little thing, including, but not limited to; going out into public, people looking at me, if I'm making my husband happy, if my daughter is getting everything she needs, my health (that's another story unto itself) and a few other oddball things that "normal" people probably have enough confidence about to keep such worries to a minimum.

         Anytime I have ever talked to someone about my anxiety, which is generally someone on a post on some forum because well I am in denial that my anxiety is bad enough to see a shrink over, they always ask me "what happened to you two years ago that could have triggered this?" Meh, well, I got married, quit my job of four years and uprooted 492 miles (our first move) away from my hometown. I am not going to sit here and say "Thank god, because I lived in a shit hole town", even though my hometown is just that, but I will say that I believe it all stemmed from a very small bout of separation anxiety. I am extremely close to the women on my moms side of the family, always have been, and while i was happily living with the love of my life and my daughter there was still the empty feeling inside that my family wasn't right down the street anymore.
         We are now living a whopping 2500 miles away from the nearest relative (gotta love military moves) and it definitely put a larger strain on my mental well being. My husband was deployed once for training for 2 months and then another 2 months after that he left again for a longer stint of 7 months. I use to look at significant others that would say "oh i just feel so alone when they're gone" with a form of disgust, and here I am, now wishing more than anything he was here to annoy the living daylights out of me. I'm slowly becoming the woman I never imagined I would be, of course I'm not saying I don't like how my life panned out. I love how things turned out, I just don't like the current situation, at all.        
       My husband is always asking if I'm happy, which hell yeah I am! Aside from all my worries, I am so completely happy that it frightens me. I also think my anxiety comes from the idea that since I am so happy, it's causing me to have an underlying fear that I'm going to "lose" my happiness. Whether it be from me pushing it away (wouldn't be the first time I've pushed out the positive things in my life), or something happening and destroying what I have, etc.
        One of my biggest fears is that my daughter will soon catch on to my anxiety riddled ways, and blame her self, or begin to have her own attacks of panic. I want her to live a life of confidence, and I know that I'm one of the first she will look to for that. My husband always tells me that I am one of the strongest individuals he has known, I'm pretty good about putting on a mask around others and not letting them know i suffer so much with my own thoughts. Well, I'm sure they know now, since I'm blogging to the whole world after all >.< lol. I don't consider slapping on a mask to be a very "strong" move, if anything it makes me feel weaker.

By the way, if someone, anyone, does ever read this and has maybe some advice or has been/is a victim of anxiety and has found a way to get beyond and over it, please do share ^_^.

      
yet again I feel as though I have managed to write a novel and not really make any points. I'm such a terrible blogger :D. /sigh.

What is blogging?

          Well here I am, doing something that I had never foreseen myself to do. Blogging. Sure, while I love to ramble on and on to my mother and grandmother until they have entered a lethargic state of mind, I’ve never been the type to put myself out there to strangers. I suppose you could say that I almost feel “guilty” spewing my issues, thoughts, burdens, and fears onto people that probably have their own muck to get through. I’m sure my family does too, but that’s what they’re there for, right?
                My name is Stacy, I’m a USMC wife and mother to a beautiful, too smart to be a good thing, 2 year old daughter. I’m currently one of those “stay at home” moms, though it’s never really been my ideal dream. Now I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate and love every second that I get to spend with my daughter, and cleaning up the same things about 25 times a day; but I am a woman who enjoys working and reaping the rewards. I suppose I have yet to find a "routine" that keeps me completely content with being home all the time. Before entering the military life I worked as a graphic designer for almost 4 years, my daughter would be with the sitter at that time and we had a routine. I loved that there was never a day where I didn’t know what would happen(unless of course an emergency came up).
                Now when I awake in the morning, I tend to look at the ceiling and think about what I am to do with my whole day. Dishes were finished last night, so I’ll have to definitely make a few meals to dirty more, and the vacuum was ran two days ago and for some reason dust bunnies are allergic to my house. Which I’m sure most would say is a blessing, but even running the vacuum breaks up the monotony some days and is almost enjoyable. Especially when I get to chase my daughter around with it while she cackles uncontrollably.
                My usual days begin with; breakfast, art and crafts, cleaning up the arts and crafts, and then a little wind down TV time before the long anticipated nap time! Generally, I also take a nap when my daughter does, I ALWAYS sleep better when I know it’ll only last for an hour at most, but when I have days that naps aren’t looking good for me I tend to do other very worn out hobbies; play a video game for about 15 minutes, remember that I beat it years ago 5 times over, re-read a book and then realize that I can recall the whole thing word for word, or I’ll grab one of my canvases, bust out the pencils or acrylics and work on something for my DH or DD.  
                This blog has been one big random cluster of nothing of importance to anyone but myself, but I can I can be honest and say that I'm doing this as a stress relief, an escape from my anxiety, and of course adding a new hobby every now and then is necessary. I suppose with my next blog I'll delve right into the real reasons as to why I'm here, which is all that I just mentioned. Prepare thyselves. :P
               Also, forgive me for the run-on sentences, improper use of ; and :, and I'm also terrible at using wrong words. My mind goes a lot faster than my fingers. Thank you ^_^