Display A Modal Dialog Without Dispalying Other?

I have a large VB.Net 2008 rich client database app and in it some screens take a bit to load, 1 - 5 seconds and two of them take up to 15 seconds. Right now I have a me.hide in my form load, I do my loading of drop downs and data, then do a me.show. It works decent and gives the impression that the program is quick. What I would like to do however is have a "waiting" or "loading" screen with a animated gif pop up while it's doing its data loads.

So I created a "WaitingForm" that has no border and a single picture box. In the form load of this waiting form it assigns a animated gif to the picture box. I set the form to be top most, no control box, etc.

If I call this waiting from from within my from load events as WaitingForm.show the animation doesn't work and the form only half shows (and in the wrong place on the screen). If I call this form using a WaitingForm.ShowDialog it correctly shows in the center of it's parent and displays the animated icon BUT blocks the calling form from processing and defeats the entire purpose.

How do I display the waiting form like it's a dialog box so it correct centers on it's parent and displays correctly but doesn't block the lower form from processing? Currently when I call the waiting form I give it a integer for how many seconds to display and then a timer on the waiting form counts down and closes itself. Do I need to use a worker thread and if so what is the easiest way to do this so the code is reusable from multiple different screens?