Fear.

So I'd intended to get home and write about our wonderful vacation, our fabulous pictures, and the great story of how I told my mom.

Instead, I woke up in a panic. My boobs aren't agony to touch. They don't feel as tender and heavy and full. It was 7:00. I didn't have to get up to pee in the middle of the night. And I didn't feel tired or exhausted, even though I haven't had enough rest the last few nights. No signs of gas or bloat either.

In other words, I woke feeling that most of my pregnancy symptoms were gone.

Panic set in, and I frantically started grabbing and kneading my boobs, something that would have been horribly painful two days ago. Nope, they definitely didn't hurt like they used to. I went to the bathroom and peed. It wasn't the urgency I'd been feeling. I checked my cervix - it wasn't the very low, spongy soft cervix it was yesterday or the day before. Of course that was at night, and it's lower then. . . I went back to bed to try to fall asleep again, and noticed I didn't feel the same relief cramping I'd been feeling after peeing. Tentatively, I poked my boobs again, and again, they felt perfectly normal.

I felt like I was choking on anxiety. I woke up DH. "Honey, my boobs don't hurt anymore."

"That's great baby," he mumbles, half asleep.

"No! No it's not! And I didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to pee. What does it mean?" Dh is more awake now, and looking slightly afraid of this crazy person that took over his pregnant wife's body and made her symptoms disappear.

He speaks in a tired, calm, soothing, slow voice (like they tell hostage negotiators to use). "Hon, it means your boobs are less sore and you didn't drink anything close to bed."

"But I did!" I wail. "I drank a bottle of water last night after dinner, remember? This is a bad sign isn't it?" He eyes me warily and then pats his side of the bed, and I sit down next to him.

"Honey, you know perfectly well that symptoms can come and go. You know that your boobs are less sore in the morning anyway. You know you aren't having bad cramps or spotting. I know you are anxious, but you need to calm down."

It comes out as a whisper, a pitiful and quiet admission that I've been trying to avoid making. "I'm scared."

He says, "I know."

And that's where we are.

I'm scared today. I'm beyond scared. I'm utterly terrified. All the statistics I know, all the things I know about pregnancy and symptoms and what they mean and don't mean - well all of that means very little in the face of this consuming anxiety that Something.Is.Wrong. I don't have any reason to think that. No earthly reason to feel that, and yet, I am utterly terrified. My mind is doing the mental equivalent of hiding underneath or behind a large piece of furntiure, rocking back and forth, humming tunelessly.

I have wanted to have a positive attitude all along. To appreciate as many symptoms as possible and to stay upbeat despite the agony that has been taking off my bra. To revel in each day of pregnancy, and enjoy each moment that I am given with this baby. I have wanted to be able to say at the end of my pregnancy - whether that is in 35 weeks or 35 days - to say that I had no regrets and I loved that special time with that child.

But thinking that and hoping for it and the crippling fear I feel now are difficult to reconcile. I don't know how to turn the switch off again and just enjoy this. I know that my appointment tomorrow is causing some of this anxiety. I'm afraid she will tell me I'm not pregnant, or that my bloodwork will come back with levels that are really low or off and that this is not a viable pregnancy.

I've never believed in jinxes before, but I worry that I have jinxed things by telling my mom and other people so early. That taking pictures with a sign announcing our pregnancy (though we've got no intention of sending them out until December) has tipped the universe against us or something. Nothing feels wrong with my body - no odd feelings, no unusual aches or pains, no severe cramping, no bleeding or spotting of any kind. I just feel this wave of doom and I am filled with fear.

I've even tried to pray. Now, I believe in God. I consider myself a Christian, and I believe in Christ. The Nicene creed? I believe that. I don't follow tenets as I ought though, because I've been so turned off of organized religion. And I'll admit, I've been angry with God about a few things and that has changed me from someone who used to pray daily to someone who doesn't. But I still feel God in my life and I still believe in Him. So I prayed this morning. And I rememer that I prayed after sex this time. I know, that seems weird and maybe a little icky, and definitely wasn't something I did all the time. It's something I'd forgotten about, honestly. I just remember feeling so full of love and so hopeful near ovulation, that I found myself just saying a little prayer - "Please, God, let this be the one. Please God, give us a child." And now I'm pregnant.

Only I'm filled with fear. I prayed and prayed hard today and things feel a little better. I feel less like I'm drowning in fear and like I can more easily accept that this is going to go according to a plan I can't see. I hate to be all 'God's plan' about it, because I mean that differently than I think a lot of folks do. But I do believe what is in my header - which is what my friend wrote back to me after I emailed her in my panic - and so I'm repeating that over and over and trying hard to remember that in the end, all will be well. And all will be well. And all manner of things will be well.