Does Motherhood Equal Worry

I go to work every day and talk about Kian's latest antics and the chaos that is my household of 3 dogs, 1 cat, 1 almost three year old, 1 seven month old , and two working parents. All too frequently I also find myself voicing my concerns for Olivia. I talk about her time at Texas Children's with meningitis at seven days old in a cathartic way. I explain how much I worried, how much I still worry, how much I never really got the full gravity of the situation when it was happening and so maybe only now that its all done and over with can I worry as I probably should have seven months ago. I share her latest updates - another round of albuterol, steroids, inhalers, antibiotics, whatever the flavor of the day seems to be. I don't know what the biweekly doctor's visits mean or what they'll lead to next or how to help by baby breath. I look at her and think she is so happy, so smart, so perfect this is all a silly goose chase for a tiny wheeze but then the doctors throw around respiratory failure, pneumonia, emergency response, rescue breathing treatments and, I worry.

Even as I worry I know we're fortunate - she is okay, in my heart I know she is okay, we'll get through this, so many other mothers deal with so much worse but then *my* baby is sick. Maybe worry is what motherhood is all about.

One of my coworkers keeps asking - Do you keep a journal? Are you writing this stuff down? Kids are curious by nature. They'll want to know what happened to them when they were younger. She'll want to know about all of this stuff. So here it is. I'm writing it down. A chronicle of worry and the loads of precious, happy moments that you don't want to slip through your fingers. Now off to check her breathing -- just to be sure -- before I head to bed.