When the door opens...

So I'm pregnant, you see. I'm trying to come to terms with this, and I'm reminded more and more often because I can't touch the floor anymore without extreme discomfort, and I'm hobbling and wobbling, and because this person who lives inside of me is so absolutely here and part of my life that it's becoming an indisputable truth.
It has been amazing to me to realize the amount of control that I have acquired over the past four years, since my last pregnancy. I have doors in my brain that I can open and shut at will, and it has been of a great relief that I can keep the "panic" door shut most of the time if I work on it. There have been several occasions where I have slipped into this mode in full force, and this is when I am reminded that it's all still in there, even though it's behind a closed door.
For example, last week. I had this ingrown hair on the bottom of my belly, which hurt like the dickens but of course I can neither see nor reach it, so it had to just be what it was. I put some hot compresses on it, and some polysporin cream, and it seemed to abate a little bit. But then! Suddenly, on my ring finger, something else. A raised bump. It looked like a very swollen pimple, but when I burst it, it appeared to be more of an infected finger than your average zit. That was when it hit me-- CELLULITIS! Or was it folliculitis? Either way, this was for sure: left untreated, I would be getting blood poisoning, perhaps within the hour, and doesn't it just kind of stand to reason that if you had blood poisoning it would adversely affect your growing baby? Like even cause it to d**? So that was it-- my fate was sealed. When I realized this it was, of course, after hours so I had to make it through a whole night of this certainty before I was able to procure an emergency visit with my GP to check out the blemishes.
I was so relieved to be there in the waiting room, until I realized that (GASP!) unlike at my midwife's office, there might be sick people here! Even people with swine flu, perhaps, it could be possible, and then I could also become sick and d** along with my baby. I was beginning to regret this visit when I actually looked down at the swollen pustule on my finger and realized that the polysporin I'd applied the night before had kind of worked, and it wasn't really looking that swollen anymore. Upon closer examination in the bathroom where I washed my hands twice with very hot water, neither was the ingrown hair. So here I was, risking acquiring swine flu or some other awful contagious disease that might harm my baby, but it was still possible that I might be getting blood poisoning while I was sitting here, so WHAT is a mother to do?
When I was seen, the doctor didn't exactly laugh at me, although she did humor me by taking a swab of my ingrown hair to check it for bizarre viruses. She also prescribed a very expensive topical ointment which I promptly filled "just to be extra cautious", although I could tell that she didn't really see the need to be extra cautious. But I did.

So there are these moments, where the door to the panic room opens and this is my life, but sometimes I keep it closed, and those days are quite peaceful.

Thank goodness. Because I remember that that day, used to be every day. And for some people it still is.