I can’t stop having vivid(I mean damn near Ally McBeal-type) visions of one of us accidentally dropping my baby over the 4th floor railing right outside of our Embassy Suites hotel room we are staying in. It is terrible. So much so that it kept me up the first night thinking (freaking out, really) about it and I feel like I’m on the verge of a panic attack every time we walk the corridor from our room to the elevator and back unless he is secured in his lower than the railing stroller seat. Ugh. I am sick just typing this. It could happen so easily. I want to get a room on a lower level, but there are none on the first floor, and I really think that giving into this paranoia is a tad unhealthy.
This is not the first time I’ve had these visions. I freaked out and nearly snatched Kendall from Scott’s loving arms to run the opposite direction when we visited Austin last month. Scott HAD to go wait for the farking bats to leave their little bat cave under the Congress Street bridge. Well, after their exodus, we headed back across the bridge, high up over the newly named Lady Bird Lake (I think?), with a herd of others. We had to stick close to the side of the bridge since a busy street runs down the middle of it. All I could think about was how easy it would be for someone to trip, fall into Scott and push him and Kendall over the side of the bridge. It was enough to make me feel like walking down the middle of traffic would be a safer option.
WTF is up with this?? Please. Tell me I am normal. Tell me that all moms now see the world as a series of situations that could seriously injur/kill their child. These visions are so overwhelming.
4 months and… ummm… I think a couple weeks. It’s getting really hard to keep track of this stuff. He’s close to 5 months…. let’s just say that.
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15 comments
Oh my gosh, I have these same awful visions! I have these flashes of accidentally stumbling and dropping my baby, falling down the stairs while holding her, her head hitting the brick edge of our hearth… it’s enough to make a mom crazy! Glad to know I’m not the only one, though…
Well, I can tell you that I walk across a bridge every morning, and have these visions about myself tripping and falling over the railing. So, no, I don’t think you’re crazy. 🙂
I don’t know if it’s normal, but i’ve always been the same way. I think it’s just our overprotective, control freak side. I don’t purposely think about what could happen in a certain situation really, just the worse case scenerio vision pops into my head, then I get all riled up and uneasy and irritated that I think the worse can happen and that there is nothing I can do about it. I guess I feel like it’s my job to protect the kids and it’s so difficult when in any situation freak things could happen to where they could get hurt and I can’t avoid those situations. Every day pulling out of our street I envision a car screeching around the corner and hitting us, and i try to pull out quickly and look both ways like 20 times. It’s a horrible intersection that cars fly around the corner and you can’t see because of trees. Plus we live on a dead end street so it’s the only way to leave the house. ugh.
You are not crazy, or at least if you are crazy then I am too. This past summer I freaked when we were in the Ozarks and we were on a pontoon boat with James. We had a life jacket on him and the boat was not going fast, but I kept having visions of him somehow falling over the side of the boat and going under and us not being able to find him. It made me feel very anxious on the boat the entire time. I felt it again with Matt’s family at the innsbrook house. He was not allowed to get in the lake unless I was down at the dock with him. They all thought I was crazy because I would not let anyone take my son swimming. What should I have done…told them all about the visions I was having ? I didnt, I just let them think that I was being mean and a control freak.
i was just confessing this exact same thing yesterday to a friend of mine. made me feel like a freak, but i had to get it off my chest. glad to know i’m not alone – and you’re not either ^.
I’m the same way! I can’t stand driving behind big-rig trailer trucks b/c I’m convinced their load will become dislodged somehow and run over my car. I’d love to get on Anti-Anxiety drugs, but I don’t think you can while BFing. So, I’m just go on trying to calm myself down and convince myself I’m being irrational!
Austingurl
I don’t have an outside baby yet, and I already feel this way. I worry about certain people holding him/her. I worry about ME dropping it..or dh, but especially others. I am praying for some sort of balance before the baby comes, but from your story, I’m thinking I’ll just get worse!!
I think it’s normal…and if it’s not then we’re both messed up. Ihave these visions with stairs, all stairs. I’m fairly certain that one of these days I’m ging to fall down them with the baby in my arms…sends shivers…
Yikes, me too!!! I guess that means we’re normal. I have this fear of dropping my unborn son down the stairs or falling with him in my arms. I said to my mom the other day I just might have to live upstairs with him the entire time I’m on maternity leave.
I used to have a fear that I would drop Jack in public. I kinda knew that at some point in his life I would drop him- I was just worried it would be in public…on concrete. So far, so good…no drops of an kind.
Makes you wonder about the sanity of Michael Jackson- remember when he held his baby over the railing for all to see? Sick.
I also experience this and know lots of other moms that do. My take on it is that it’s a normal maternal instinct. It’s what keeps you on your toes, ready to defend and protect. We’re the momma bears. Etc etc.
But I know it can make you feel like a freak. We went to the beach in Oregon for a couple of nights and our condo was on the third floor. The first thing I did when we got there was go onto the balcony and look over to see what was below in case he accidentally fell over. There was a whole row of bushy shrubs! Whew! 🙂
Nope…not crazy at all. I have had those same fears, too. The Zoo Balloon in Philadelphia Zoo? Won’t go on it for fear something will happen to my babies 8 and 20 months. Roller coasters? Used to love going on them, but once my son was born, I got freaked about going on them. Little bit better now that his big sister can ride them, but still scary! I don’t go over open sided bridges though!
[…] my inner being was the vision of accidentally dropping Kendall over the top of the railing on the 4th floor of Embassy suites when he was nearly 5 months old. I am not exaggerating when I say that I was shaking in bed that […]
I have visions like that every. single. freaking. day about something happening to my children.
It feels so sick, and it makes me so anxious…no you are not alone.
Everyone does this! Seriously, EVERYONE (every new mom, I mean). When my daughter was 4.5 mo. old we started putting her to bed upstairs at 7 p.m. and then we’d go hang out downstairs (whereas before she’d just sleep in my arms downstairs until we’d all go to bed), and I went upstairs every 1/2 hr or so to check on her and couldn’t stop imagining horrific things happening to her while I was downstairs. You know, like maybe she’d fly off the bed and out the window, or a giant bird would fly in and peck her or something 😛