Made of glass

I'm feeling a little trapped by the crazies. Here are some examples:

As mentioned in my last post, I was actually considering lying about made-up symptoms at my next pre-natal appointment.

I've been using the doppler every. single. day. Sometimes twice. No lie.

I hand wash like an obsessive compulsive.

I avoid kisses from my dogs and I've been sleeping in a different bed from DH (and the dogs) while they go through their course of deworming medicine (the dogs, not DH).

I am making my dogs go through a course of deworming medicine that probably isn't necessary since they have both been de-wormed once a month since we got them and both tested negative at our last appointment (I did find a worm on one of them though, hence the medicine).

I'm thinking of cancelling on a fairly important (for my job, for networking, for the organization) volunteer job I committed to in a couple weeks because there will be untold masses gathered in a stuffy room with lots of one-on-one contact and lots of kids and everything I touch will necessarily have to have passed through 4 or so other sets of hands... I never got the flu vaccine and I'm entering "suppressed immune system" territory now so I'm just afraid of people. I love this volunteer job and I'm really starting to be a principal player in this group so I'm afraid of disappointing people. But I'm more protective and paranoid about my baby than afraid of disappointing people.

I'm afraid to go visit my parents 'cause my mom mentioned there are rats living under the house and when they turn on the heat they can smell their, uh, waste (I know, gross, but they do live in the woods). She said it probably wouldn't be good for me to breathe that and said we would just use space heaters when I come and is sure there are no rats in the house. This sounds perfectly fine - in fact, I'm pretty sure there are rats under our house too. But just the suggestion of a possibly harmful thing that could happen somewhere maybe is enough to put me into a panic.

There are some things I could do to mitigate these problems/paranoias:

I could get the flu shots...but really? In March? In California? The verdict is still out on this one. It would be one thing if it was next fall and inoculating myself would protect the baby once it's born too but by the time the kid is born, there will be different viruses haunting the world.

I could put a moratorium on my doppler use. I am doing this one, I'm going to every other day and then hopefully 2-3 times/ week.

I could be straight with my OBG. Tell her my concerns include IC and ask what she's going to do to make sure I don't have it and then just live with her answer which probably will be something along the lines of: "I'm going to do jack sh-- unless you have reason to think you do have it." I'm gaining comfort with this idea. I don't want to lie. And it's not that I have a problem lying to this bitch, it's that I don't feel like I should have to lie or otherwise beat around the bush. I just want to be straight with her and believe she's being straight with me. And what I really want is to believe everything is going to be ok.

That's what this all comes down to. I'm trying to create a world in which the only possible outcome is good. I know it's silly. But I also know that it is on me to take some precautions. Just where does it end? What do you leave up to the cosmos. We're supposed to control what we can and hope for the best as to all the rest, right? Well, when you think about it, there's a LOT we can control...but at what cost? I could live in a bubble for the next five months? Isn't my baby worth that? Sure, but it's CRAZY. And unnecessary. Trying to back down off that idea is where I'm getting hung up. Just exactly how crazy is too crazy. And how paranoid is just paranoid enough?