Breaking the Rules

I'm a rule follower. Rules provide structure. Safe paths. A "do these things and you'll be fine" kind of security. If there are guidelines, I follow them. Recommendations? Yep. Done. There are enough things to worry about in life without worrying about what's going to happen if you break a rule. Rules are in place for a reason.

When pregnant, I don't eat lunch meat. Not even heated-up lunch meat. I don't eat soft cheeses or sushi or hot dogs. I don't drink alcohol.  The minuscule chance of harming my unborn child is far and away not worth any temporary enjoyment I could find in any of these things. Like I said--a rule follower.

Last night, TH and I got into a fight, as married folks are wont to do from time to time. I had had a hard day at work, and I had been looking forward to venting to him, and now I couldn't even do that. I was feeling thoroughly sorry for myself and decided that BY GOD, I deserved the find some comfort in a milkshake if I couldn't find it anywhere else.

It wasn't even that good of a milkshake. Milkshakes need to be chocolate, or oreo, but since I'm not doing caffeine, I had to settle for strawberry. It wasn't even real strawberry. They just shot a couple of squirts of strawberry syrup into the cup before adding vanilla soft serve ice cream on top and blending it up.

I drank about 2/3 of it and threw the rest away. It was while I was in the motion of throwing it into the trashcan that the thought struck me. Soft serve ice cream.

I'm not supposed to eat soft serve ice cream.

FUCK.

Immediately I pictured the soft serve machine swimming with listeria bacteria. I mean, those people work at a fast food restaurant. How dedicated and capable can they really be of diligently cleaning those machines. I noticed a funky taste in my mouth, something I likened to soap. I felt sick to my stomach. I thought about making myself throw up, but I knew that whatever was in that shake was already coursing through my body. I plopped down in front of the computer and googled listeria--signs and symptoms, how you get it, what it does.

Fuckfuckfuck.

I cried. A lot. I'm sure that my reaction was made worse by (1) my awesome hormones, (2) my bad day, and (3) the fight we were still working our way through, but guilt blossomed in my body and consumed me. I felt heart cry out to my son, begging him to be okay, apologizing for being so stupid and thoughtless.

This morning I feel 5% better. He's still bopping around in there. I try not to think about what I read saying it could take up to 70 days for the infection to set in. I've held back from calling my OB and tearfully confessing to them my soft serve transgression. I am hyper alert to how I'm feeling, and have to remind myself that the queasiness in my stomach can be fully attributed to the fact that I don't really eat any dairy on a regular basis and I sucked down most of a shake yesterday.

And this, folks, is why I follow the rules. Because I lose my flippin' shit over soft serve ice cream.

If anyone wants to chime in and tell me why it'll be okay, that would be awesome.