Mindless

My partner is a planner. I can't tell you how many hours the two of us have spent discussing the details of intricate "what ifs" over my objections that my time is being wasted. The example most immediately available includes the countless hours of research on and discussion of the 20 cities/universities where he felt he was most likely to be offered a faculty position. Of course, the city in which we ended up and, for that matter, even the places where his second round interviews occurred were not included in our list of 20.
Well, given that our pending change in family status is exactly the type of thing one spends a bit of time discussing anyway, I find myself drawn again and again into discussion of the delivery itself. My partner wants to speculate as to the details of the event. Will I scream at him about how he did this to me? How long will it take? Will I end up asking for drugs? How awfully does it hurt anyway?
I begin to feel queasy the second he starts speculating about how it will all play out. Even though I have read countless books on pregnancy and child development in the last few months, I usually skip the delivery part, especially if there are photos. Now, I'm not one to advocate abstention from thinking. However, in this instance, I think the less cognitively involved I am the better. I mean, my body should be designed to get the job done. I don't think about sneezing outside of my awareness that the sneeze is coming on, apart, perhaps, from bringing a hand or tissue up to my face to spare those around me or the computer monitor in front of me. I think the same approach will be best in the case of delivery. It is just too much to think about what my body will be doing.