I’m pleased to be bringing you this Pregnant Pause post live on location in beautiful, downtown Lake Las Vegas.
Dan and I are delighted to be celebrating our 8th anniversary and third Babymoon here, and a little bit shell-shocked at the prospect of being footloose and child-free for the next five days. (Sometimes I think that all the chaos of having kids and staying home with them is worth it just for the joy of leaving them behind for a week in the care of a loved one once every three years.)
Mostly, though, I’m just happy the plane didn’t crash.
I’m severely flight phobic. Have been for years. I’ve tried it all – behavioral therapy, immersion therapy, regular therapy... none of it worked. Normally, the only way you can get me on a plane is with copious doses of alcohol and anxiolytics, but since my blossoming belly precludes the ingestion of any teratogenic mind-altering help, I went straight-edge this time. Okay, I’m lying. I did take one teeny tiny Gravol, but my doctor said it was okay.
It’s not my fault.
Dan doesn’t believe this, but I was supposed to be on a doomed airliner when I was a mere six months old – the ill-fated Eastern Flight 401 that crashed into the Everglades on December 29, 1972, on its way from New York to Miami. It was to be the second leg of our journey south from Montreal, but my parents changed our tickets at the last minute so we could stay in New York to celebrate New Year’s with family friends before continuing on to Florida.
Above 30,000 feet, I fear I’ll forever be doomed to panic attacks, abject terror and intrusive images of jets doing fiery cartwheels off the ends of runways every time I hear a noise or see a flight attendant pout. But I guess if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. As for right now, I’m just happy it wasn’t meant to be on my way to Vegas. Crashing on the way home sounds far more appealing...