Anxiety at Bay. Kind of.

When I was pregnant with Gabriel, a lot of people I knew were pregnant.

Both of my sisters-in-law, two close friends, and then, of course, all the people we met through our birthing classes, some women I met online at a TTC site, etc.

Here I am, I am pregnant again eight years later, and a lot of people I know are pregnant.

Now obviously the population in my daughters’ daycare and pre-school classrooms indicate that there were plenty of pregnant women running (or waddling) around five- and three-plus years ago.

But I didn’t know any of those moms (at the time). One of my SILs was pregnant again, too, when I was pregnant with Kate. That caused me some (extra) anxiety, but everything turned out just fine (her son was born two months after Kate).

Here I am again, trying not to dwell.

It doesn’t mean anything, of course, the number of pregnant women I know personally. Most of them are due in August and September; my coworker gave birth in May; and Stacia gave birth on Mother’s Day; one is due in December (which, technically, I am too); one in January (both Jan. 6 — Kate’s bday — and Jan. 31 — my bday — are lovely days to give birth, Lushie).

And that’s what I keep telling myself.

It doesn’t mean anything. To me. To us. It’s all happy coincidence.

Happy. I want everything to go well for everyone. Everything IS going well, yes?

As you can imagine, the anxious part of me is not wholly convinced.

As an example, I spend time trying not to overthink stupid things. Like being on Twitter yesterday, where many of my tweeps are talking about having their second babies, and there are a lot with a boy having another boy and those with a girl having another girl.

And someone tweets, “I just can’t figure out how most of you arranged to be due at the same time, and with matched sets.”

And someone tweets back, “We’ll have to see what @redpenmama is having to make it official.”

And I tweet, “I already have a matched set!”

And the rest of the night (and STILL) I wish I had added something else. Something like, “Three of a kind beats a pair! :-)” or “We will happily accept a one-off.”

Because I’ve got a paranoid streak. A paranoid streak that insists that the fates are listening, and I can be punished for stupid remarks like that.

And maybe I should be getting some counseling (oh, the irony) or look into pregnancy-safe anti-anxiety drugs.

And this is where prayer comes in. Prayer and deep breathing. And if you felt like kicking in a little of the former, it sure would help a mama out.