When

I have a bad habit of telling myself I can relax when a certain event is over, when specific test results are back, when a particularly daunting task is completed and wrapped up in a nice little bow. I've lost track over the years of how many times I have said to myself, "Ok, just power through this and you can relax when..." What seems like forever ago, it was "Oh I will relax when I graduate and finally have my BS." Funny how that seems like it was several lifetimes ago now. After finishing up at the U of U, it became "Oh I can relax when I find a job and pay off some student loans and other debt." I will relax when I land a Child Life internship and am on my way to my dream career. And on and on and on...

Needless to say, last year the pregnancy began an entirely new set of "I can relax when..." statements. First it was, I can relax when we see that something is actually in there and I'm not delusional. I crossed that off my list at 5 weeks. Next up was, I will relax when we hear a heartbeat. We reached that milestone at 8 (beautiful) weeks. That quickly became, I can relax after we get to the 12 week landmark. After that it morphed into, I will let myself stop worrying when she will be viable outside of the womb. Following this I let myself dream big of making it to 32 weeks. Initially this was my goal all along, and I felt it was even a little too optimistic considering what we were up against. (Just a note, when I refer to "we" when talking about the pregnancy, I mean me, Sookie, Rory, my parents, my family, my doctors, friends, etc. It was definitely a "we" kind of adventure.) And the ironic thing is once I was 32 weeks along, I actually relaxed a little. Then all hell broke loose. December 18th I spent the evening in labor and delivery because I was having regular contractions and they thought I was going into labor. On bed rest I went. Three days before Christmas the horrible gut wrenching words, "Her left ventricle in her heart is measuring small, we want you to have more tests." With those words it became, I WON'T relax until she is in our arms.

Oh and of course I didn't let the worry end there. When she was safely here I told myself, oh you can relax when you get the results back about whether or not she has Cystinosis. Now that was a marvelous day indeed.

I would so love to say now that all of those snags have been conquered that I am a completely relaxed mommy. That even though Sookie is sleeping an average of nine to ten hours a night, (Yes, I am so incredibly lucky.) I still wake up every few hours to check on her.

My point in all of this? (And yes, I do have one. Ha!) I have come to the conclusion that I simply need to stop doing this. It would make so much more sense to tell myself, "Okay, stop with the when avowals and relax already." Life is always going to be throwing something at you and you are much better off trying to find creative ways to catch everything instead of wasting all your time bracing yourself for the next impact.