So this is what anxiety feels like

Pregnancy is a time of great excitement. It’s also a time of complete and utter terror. The closer I get to my due date, the more freaked out I get. And not just about obvious things, like if I’ll make it through labor or if my daughter will have all her limbs when she’s born. There’s other things too. Like, what if she robs a liquor store at age 15? What if she winds up in one of those polygamist compounds? Or on a reality TV show? What if she drops out of college to become a swimsuit model, or never understands the difference between “your” and “you’re”? What if she marries a NASCAR driver and buys all her clothes at Wal-mart? I could go on and on.

All of these concerns seem to result in the same scenario, which involves Jeff and I sitting in front of a psychologist who tells me I should have eaten more broccoli and watched less Bachelor Pad while pregnant. I’m not even playing Mozart for her in the womb! (Don’t worry, I already called social services on myself.)

That being said, there are a couple things that make me feel better about this whole parenting thing. The first is having Jeff around. Not only will he be a great father, but apparently was a very “spirited” child… meaning he’ll know how to handle it if our kid drives our car at age 12 and parks it on the wrong side of the street, getting the cops involved (yes, this actually happened, and no, I don’t know how Jeff’s parents managed to produce a relatively normal adult from this sort of monster).

The second is looking at this ultrasound picture. Something about it makes me smile every time I see it, and suddenly I stop worrying about all the ways we could screw up our baby. Instead, I start wondering what color her hair will be and what her laugh will sound like and whether she’ll be the first female president. The possibilities are simply mind-boggling, aren’t they?