Feeling Overwhelmed

So I am now 17 weeks pregnant and I am feeling good about pregnancy, but now I am sort of feeling overwhelmed.    I was so afraid of miscarriage again, that I did not want to start planning too much, too early.  Now I feel overwhelmed by everything I need to accomplish before this baby decides to arrive.  With a normal pregnancy, you get at least 36 good weeks to prepare for the baby.  For high risk moms to be, the time I get for preparation is so uncertain.    I hope I can make it to 36 weeks, but I also know that even if I do make it that far, I certainly won't be able to do all the things normal women get to do.

I thought weeks 14-20 would be the best-  that is- past the first trimester mark which would reduce my chance of miscarriage and before the dreaded weeks 20-30, which is scariest time for moms who have preeclampsia/HELLP.  So I thought I would enjoy these weeks the most, but that is not the case.  Two weeks ago my daughter accidentially fell off a picnic table bench at the food court at Sam's Club and bumped her head and shoulder.  Luckily, her head was ok.  But she broke her clavicle bone (her collar bone).  It will heal on its own in about 8 weeks, but she has to be out of preschool for 4 weeks because she cannot reinjure it. Needless to say,  I am so glad she is ok and do whatever is necessary to make sure she is ok, but it has just added stress that is not needed. 

I am lucky that my work is understanding and they have allowed me to work from home a few days a week to take care of her.  The bad thing is that my job is demanding and I have a lot of work to do.  So even though I can stay home with her, I still have to get my work done-  even if it is at midnight.  I am tired by 7 pm now, so working productively at midnight is not always the easiest thing to do.  I think everyone else in my life does not understand it or figure out how much stress this adds to my life- the very thing I try to avoid to keep my blood pressure down. 

I still don't think most people understand how I felt after I had my daughter.  It was very traumatic to not know if you or your baby would live through the ordeal and then to put yourself back in a situation that might you get back to that same point.  So you think people would be more understanding, but I don't think even my husband really understands those feelings and obviously they do nothing to help the situation. 

My husband does not have the same flexibility with his job but he has a million vacation/comp days to use.  Unlike my job, which I do not get anything extra for working 60 plus hours a week, he gets comp time to use anytime he works late, etc.   Add to that, that I am usually the one who takes the days off when my 2 year old daughter is sick and I am usually left with no time at the end of the year, while he has a million days to still use.  Yet, getting him to actually use these days is like pulling teeth.  Oh sure, if he wants a day to just relax, he takes them.   But when I ask him to take a day when my DD is sick, or I have a doctors appointment or I need something done, he can never do it.  He always has some big important meeting or conference call or too many people out of the office.  I told him with this situation, he needed to take some days off-  so far he has take 1 1/2 days in 2 weeks time. 

Fine, I'll get over my frustration with that, but Mondays are his usual late days to stay at the office.  You'd figure that since I had to work from home today, the least he could do was come home at a decent hour.  But no, god forbid he thinks of that.  And then he'll wonder why I didn't make dinner and why the house is a mess-  because I am tired and because I had a 2 year old here all day playing.  Plus I still have hours of work to accomplish before going to bed.  You'd think he'd figure this out but he is seemingly amazed each time I point this out to him and ask why he did not come early.  His only answer- "Well you know Mondays are my late night"-  WTF- you know I have been home all day trying to work and take care of a 2 year old, while exhausted and pregnant, but you chose not to do anything to help. 

Forget about the fact that we have nothing ready for the baby, the fact that I have to get my files ready to be transferred to someone else in case I have to go on bedrest, the fact that I am nervous that I will not be able to put up a x-mas tree or get x-mas gifts for my daughter if I am on bedrest or have the baby early.  I just feel overwhelmed by everything I have to do.  Plus I am worried that something will still go wrong with this pregnancy. 

Add to this that people pretend like they want to help and say let me know if you need me to do anything, but when you actually ask them- something always comes up.  So at the end of the day, trying to depend on anyone else besides myself just stresses me out even more.