survivor guilt - mommy edition

i read enough to know that at some point from the moment i saw the word "pregnant" float up on that pee stick until inifinity, i was going to experience feelings of mommy guilt.  you know, i'm-not-spending-enough-time-with-my-baby....i-should-be-at-home-and-not-at-work...why-did-i-lose-my-patience...  all that good stuff.  i expected all of that and therefore have been able to contain it and reason myself out of it when it surfaces. 

what i didn't expect were these feelings of survivor guilt.  at almost 6 months in, i really have nothing to complain about regarding motherhood or parenting or newborns.  dax was an easy baby.  aside from cluster feeding, i really had very few issues during his super-young newborn period.  he is a happy baby.  we can take him anywhere and he adapts quickly and easily.  he can entertain himself.  when he's fussy, it's for a reason, usually because he's hungry, so it can easily be resolved by sticking a bottle or my boob in his face.  i am - we are - insanely lucky.  i am well aware of this fact.  i count my blessings every single day.  many many mothers before me struggled - with breastfeeding, with babies who don't sleep, with colicky babies.  i truly think it is not something that we are doing "right."  i think we just have an easy baby.  matt and i were both easy babies, and we are both laid-back humans.  i think daxon just has those traits from us. 

so when i see my sister struggling with quinn, i feel guilty.  quinn is a biter, so their breastfeeding relationship has been difficult.  he has terrible reflux (far worse than daxon ever did).  the medication he's on for the reflux makes him gassy.  he fusses a lot.  it is hard to be around for more than a few hours.  i don't know how callie does it for days/weeks on end.  especially because anthony travels for work, so there have been times when she's been alone with quinn for days.  they have tons of family around, but i get the impression that she doesn't reach out for help all that often.  so i feel guilty that i'm not closer by to help. 

and then beth, matt's cousin.  liam is now almost 10 weeks old (almost 36 weeks gestation).  he is still in the nicu, and still on the vent.  they have trialed removal of the vent several times, and each time he fails and needs to be reintubated.  apparently the doctors are now saying there is a chance he may never come off the vent.  he still has a pda (a hole in the pulmonary artery and the aorta that hasn't closed, so blood is not getting oxygen from the lungs).  they tried the medication given for pda, but he had a bad reaction to it, so they are basically just bidign their time to see if it closes.  my heart aches for them.  i feel guilty that i have this healthy, happy, full-term little baby, while they are struggling so much in the nicu.  

when daxon was fussing yesterday (because he was hungry) while i was trying to get one more thing done for dinner before taking him up to eat, i got frustrated and snipped at him.  then i thought about beth and how she probably wishes liam could fuss and express his needs so that she can attend to them.  and i felt terrible.  terrible that i yelled at dax, terrible that i didn't appreciate that he's healthy enough to have the lung capacity to yell for his needs, terrible that i'm not appreciating all of that.

i know that none of this can be helped.  i am doing nothing right anymore than they are doing anything wrong.  this is simply the way the cards fell.  babies are different and that's that.  there's nothing that i can do about it.  it is what it is.  i know it's silly to feel this way, but there it is. 

not a good day

this has not been a good day for me, you guys.  i am not in a good head space.  rationally, i know that it is 80% hormonal, but nonetheless, i just spent my entire train ride home fighting tears, only to completely unleash in a full sobbing jag in the car and for the past 15 minutes.

i am so tired of people telling me how big i am.  of people saying, "wait, you're not due till january?!  wow!"  of people exclaiming that i look like i'm ready to pop.  what is it about pregnancy that makes people completely forget their manners?  just because i'm pregnant and i have a legitimate reason for an expanding belly doesn't automatically mean that i'm totally comfortable with the idea of an expanding belly. 

i have gained 17 pounds since i got pregnant.  i have never weighed this much in my life, and while i know that i am gaining weight because i'm creating and nourishing and nurturing a human being, it is unnerving to realize that my little 5'3" body is carrying 17 extra pounds.  i know it's just a number on a scale, but it's a scary number, and one that i've never seen before. 

having people constantly remind me that i'm "so big" is not helping.  i am big for 25 weeks - i know i am.  but i am a little person.  i am short-waisted.  i have nowhere for this baby to go but out.  and i have 15 weeks to go, which means that i am only going to get bigger.  and more uncomfortable. 

i am also tired of people telling me that i'm going to have a big baby.  or that he's going to come early.  a big baby or an early baby are not things that make a mama-to-be happy to hear, despite what you may think.  a big baby terrifies me, for a number of reasons.  the first being that i want him to be healthy.  i am already feeling like i'm having trouble processing sugar, so the idea that my baby is big is extra scary, because all i can think about is gestational diabetes and macrosomia.  the second reason is because i want to have a natural delivery, and i know that if we have a big baby, the chances of that are slim.  the last reason is that i want to have a full-term delivery.  i know that babies are considered full term at 37 weeks, and that's great, but i'd like to keep him cooking for as close to 40 weeks as i can. yes, at this moment, baby is measuring a few days ahead of schedule, but our ultrasound tech assures me that he's still falling well within the normal range and i shouldn't worry. 

and today, i just feel huge.  i am uncomfortable.  my back aches.  my stomach feels so stretched it's like it's trying to detach itself from my body.  i am not a happy pregnant woman today.  and having 3 people tell me i'm ready to pop and that my big baby is coming early is not helping.  i feel overwhelmed and scared and sad.  right now, i just want to crawl into a hole and finish out this pregnancy with just me, matt, and my family.  i want to stop seeing people.  i want to stop having people on the street stare at me like i'm a freak of nature. 

but most of all, i just want people to stop commenting on my belly.  is that too much to ask?

11 years

is it just me, or does 9/11 feel a little different this year with bin ladin rotting in hell?  not that it's any less sad, just...different.

i wrote this post last year on my wedding blog, and i don't really think i could say it any better this year...

My last semester of college.  About to graduate.  About to go out into the world.  So excited.

I woke up and took a shower.  In my towel, I went down into our living room to turn on the tv and check the weather forecast.  My usual Tuesday routine.  Only this time, I turned on the weather channel to a quick local report, then "But we'll get you back to New York, now, since we know you're all wondering about that"  Wondering about what?  They switched over.  The first tower was on fire.  What the...?  Put on CNN.  The second I found CNN, the second tower exploded.  In that instant, I knew - our country was under attack.  A gut feeling.  I just sensed it.  One plane is an accident.  But two?  That's pure malice.

I was glued.  I missed my first class while I watched the towers fall.  Finally, I got dressed and drove to campus.  Went to class.  No one could pay attention.  Professor dismissed us in 20 minutes.  I went back home.  My roommates were there.  We sat, together, in our little house, watching the news all day.  I called my sister - she's fine.  I called my dad - he's fine.  I couldn't get through to my mom, who was traveling.  She finally called me.  She's fine, just "worried about my little social worker and her big heart."  It was true.  I was devastated.  All that loss.  All that fear.  All those poor families.  I burst into tears.  My roommates and I cried together.

The days that followed were sad.  Scary.

The weeks that followed were confusing.

The years that followed have been sad.  Scary.  Confusing.

10 years later, and the images have no less affect on me than they did that day.  I weep for the families who still mourn.  My heart swells with pride in the policemen and firefighters who drove in while everyone else ran out.


9/11/01. our hearts are always with you.

what a friday!

ok, hopefully i'm not jinxing myself by writing this at noon, but it has been a heck of a friday already!  here's what my day has looked like so far:

wake up at my normal time.  go downstairs to feed the cat.  usually after i feed her, we snuggle for a few minutes before i go upstairs to shower, do my makeup, and dry my hair.  this morning, padfoot was feeling particularly rambunctious and wanted no parts of our snuggle session.  fine.

i get out of the shower and start doing my makeup.  i hear padfoot outside the bathroom door crying, so i open the door.  she just stands there, crying.  she wants to go upstairs into the bedroom.  i tell her to hush, several times, and she doesn't.  i try to get her to come into the bathroom with me.  no interest.  so i close her into the guest room so she doesn't wake up matt.  when i finish drying my hair, i let her out and we go upstairs together to wake up matt.

matt and i get into a "discussion" about baby gear.  i get upset because i think he's mad.  then, i go to pet padfoot good-bye and she runs away.  i burst into tears.

i get to work.  i'm here not 5 minutes and a discharge i arranged yesterday is falling apart.  the wife is screaming at me.  for 30 minutes, i listen to her scream at me, scream at her insurance case manager on the phone, and curse us both out.  finally, she agrees to the discharge and she and the patient leave.  come to find out, the wife spit on my unit clerk.  you read that right - spit.  73 years old.

then, as i'm standing by the front desk talking to the unit clerk, i notice a sign on a patient's door.  it is a sign asking for donations to help her pay for her medications because her case manager (that would be me) told her she can't help her.  she has a big sign and an envelope.  it's outrageous.

then, i go through my emails and find out my boss is calling a mandatory meeting at 2pm.  meetings in the middle of the afternoon are always a pain in the ass.  meetings in the middle of the afternoon on a friday are a total fucking nightmare.  no one is really sure what this mandatory meeting is about, so we're all in a little bit of a panic.

so, you know, not a super-fantastic start to the day.

but then.  then, i get the email that changed my day.  honestly, pretty much anything could happen today and it would not dampen my mood.

matt and i live very close to this little theater called the keswick theater.  they have concerts there all the time and matt and i love to go because they get good acts, tickets are reasonable, and it's 5 miles from our house.  i have a friend from high school who is in marketing there.  she emailed me the other day to tell me that they would announcing a new show this week - ben gibbard (lead singer of death cab for cutie).  she said i could either order through the presale (she gave me the presale password) or she would just order them for us.  i asked her to go ahead because i was afraid i'd miss my chance if i tried to do it myself.  she just emailed me back today to tell me that we have 2 tickets for the show - 2nd row, right in the center.  i kid you not, i started screaming.  i am so.freakin.stoked.  i heart ben gibbard in a way that is probably unnatural.  death cab's music changed my life.


seriously, i'm on such a high right now, i feel like almost nothing could bring me down. 

mood

i am in the shittiest mood ever.  i am cranky and pissy and just plain miserable.  i really need to just go home and go back to bed.

i think a lot of it has to do with the fact that my bbt dipped this morning, which is a sign that i'm about to get my period.  which means, of course, that i'm not pregnant.  i still don't have my period, so i guess there's some hope yet, but i'm feeling terribly pessimistic this morning and have pretty much convinced myself that af will be arriving any second now.  to make matters worse, matt is going away on his annual guys' weekend trip on the weekend right before my o day...you know, the most fertile days of my cycle.  he gets back the day before my predicted o day, but i can tell you right now that bd'ing will not happen that day, and probably not the day after.  guys' weekend means a weekend full of boozing, and he usually feels like shit for the entire week after he gets home.  so i can pretty much guarantee that we're not getting pregnant this month, either.  yay.

i just never thought it would take this long.  i mean, i've heard all the stories about people who try for a year or longer, and i always knew in the back of my mind it could take a while.  i just never thought it actually would.  a few years ago, we did get pregnant and it happened because i had to skip my pills.  for a month.  in one month off the pill, we got pregnant.  obviously, the pregnancy didn't last, but that's a whole other issue that i'm not going to get into right now.  maybe some day.  and i know it was 5 years ago and my body was much younger, but still.

i know it's only been 4 months, but it feels like an eternity.  now that i'm ready, i'm ready.  i just want to get pregnant and have a baby and start our family!  in a way, it feels like my body is betraying me.  i'm sad and i'm angry.  i have so many emotions coursing through me, i feel like i'm going to explode.  every little thing feels like a personal attack or like someone has set out with the sole purpose to piss me off.  the intern who can't understand why i didn't see a patient because i spent 1.5 hours of my life wasting my time in rounds today?  yeah, totally bit his head off.  doctor told a patient she can get a cab voucher from us, even though she lives 20 blocks away and could totally afford to pay for a cab herself?  yep, just bit that intern's head off, too.  all these emotions are cranked up inside me and i feel like i'm either going to burst into tears or punch someone.  i'm giving myself a headache, and i feel like if i don't calm down soon, i'm gonna go into full-blown migraine meltdown mode. 

plus, the full moon is on thursday, and that means the hospital is about to take a visit to crazytown, and i'm not looking forward to it.  seriously, patients go nuts around the full moon.  it is 2 days away, and i have 4 psych patients on my floor.  psych placements suck the life out of you.  just one psych placement can take 4-6 hours.  i am looking at probably 2, if not 3, placements.  already.  it's gonna be a fun week.

i need to go home and snuggle with my cat before i hurt someone.