Now that Matt and I are going through the conception process, I find that there are a lot of parallels to the wedding planning process. For one, it can be full of anxiety. In fact, the more of a control freak you are, the more anxiety-producing the process can be.
Take conception, for example. There is a long window of time during which you may or may not be pregnant, and there's very little you can do to figure it out. So being the obsessive planner slash over-analyzer that I am, I find myself constantly asking, "Could I be pregnant? Is this symptom a sign of pregnancy? Let's see what Google has to say." I ask these questions in my head all the time, and then I subject my
best friend and my
partner to the same obsessive questioning: "It's now day 35 of my cycle. My last cycle was 33 days, but the cycle before that was 35 days. But my longest cycle in the past year was 43 days. So what do you think? Am I pregnant?"
Holy moly. I am annoying myself just by recounting all this...
So anyway, I am learning a lesson during this process, that might come in handy for you, when you find yourself getting crazy-obsessive or unnecessarily worried:
Stop talking about it.
I know, I know. It's easier said than done. But here's the thing: The more I think these thoughts, the more I talk about them with others. The more I talk about them with others, the more I think about them. It's a downward spiral that has got to stop.
I may not be able to reign in my crazy thoughts, but I can control my actions in response to that craziness. I can stop myself from talking about it and dragging others into the craziness. I can prevent myself from taking any crazy actions in response to my crazy thoughts (for example, I can stop myself from incessantly peeing on pregnancy tests).
My theory is that the less I talk about the craziness and the less I act on it, the less it will control my life. Also, when I find myself starting to think obsessive thoughts, "Was that cramp a PMS cramp because my period is coming or was it a uterus expanding cramp because I'm pregnant?," I will give myself a little mental nudge to move onto other thoughts. I have lots of other stuff to think about aside from conception.
Now, I'm not saying that we should repress all of our craziness. It's good to get it out. But there is a very distinct line between getting your craziness out by sharing it with someone else and getting their help to work through it, versus talking about it obsessively and making it worse. Those of you who have the kinds of crazy thoughts that I have know what I'm talking about.
So let's stop talking about it, okay?
(Although I do think it would be perfectly suitable for you to talk about it in the comments section to acknowledge what it is that you are going to stop talking about).
