Wednesday was routine and normal, I finished a long clinic day, came home to put kids to bed with Sean, and lay down on the couch to watch T.V.
I haven't felt great for a couple weeks, but it's been busy, and it can be hard to tell if it's my kidneys or my lower back, or my pelvis, any number of things that seem to ache a little too early this time with little number four. By bedtime all of that seemed to change in a hurry as I felt a warm gush and realized I was bleeding, or maybe more. I've been asked over and over since then, was it all blood, was there fluid, how much, what time? I should have been more observant, instead I melted in to tears and couldn't seem to compose myself.
There is always a fear in me that you can't have the things you want too badly. I am not sure where it is rooted. I simultaneously felt I knew I wouldn't get to have this baby and that this seemed so unfair before we even made our way to the hospital. I thought of all the things, the one's I'd ignored all week like refilling prenatal vitamins, checking to see if I had a kidney infection, checking to see if I could take the same pinworm medication the rest of my family was on because of summer grubs, and if I drink enough water or eat enough food that does not happen to be a lime popsicle.
I've been in limbo hanging on the balance of those thoughts and fears since then. I cried in ultrasound number one because the baby was there moving with a fast beating heart. Then cried when they told me they thought my water had broken and I weighed the implications and felt sick at the decisions we might need to make. I cried in the second ultrasound because the tech kept exclaiming how perfect the baby looked and was taking pictures of five tiny perfect toes linked to perfect little legs and I feel inept to move forward or move at all based on the measurement of fluid today versus what the fluid might be later on.
Today was more of tears over my kids eating lunchables again followed by dinner brought from friends and first gymnastics classes I can't attend as I feel useless in the bed and on the couch while their summer freedom is wasted on tablets and making their own breakfasts while I watch Chopped on Hulu and count at the end of the day to make sure I ate at least one whole meal today because nothing sounds good even though I am watching hours of people making food.
The nurse in me has followed out all the scenarios complete with real life examples to back them up and a longing that this was happening at least 8 weeks from now so that we could be in some realm of viability that I could see my way through.
Most of me just says, not fair, not fair, not fair. While the rest of me thinks what is fair anyways, because there are a lot of people dealing with a lot of not fair all the time.
Monday, June 12, 2017
Thursday, May 11, 2017
For the raising of myself
I've been a nurse since before I could legally drink. I graduated in 2004, youngest in my class, youngest to be hired by Athens Regional Hospital, still a kid. I celebrated my 21st birthday with my coworkers just a few months after I started working.
Nurses raised me. Keri Jo mentored me in high school and through my first early hard losses when I didn't know how to cope with losing someone's uncle on Christmas eve, and later coached me through the first baby lost in a delivery.
Nurses threw me my wedding shower, my baby showers, and every small celebration in between, because you live more of your life with coworkers than family sometimes, and celebrate more holidays with them too. When I couldn't nurse my first baby, and couldn't cope with postpartum depression, my coworkers walked me through it. When we took a leap and moved to Nashville my coworkers paid for our gas and hotels for the trip down.
I have learned to budget, sometimes to coupon, to work hard, to step back from the job, to lead and be led by amazing nurses, amazing friends.
For a long time, becoming a nurse was the only decision I felt really confident in making, and I am grateful that I still love what I do and the people I do it with.
Happy nurses week to all the nurses who raised me, delivered my babies and let me deliver theirs, grieved my miscarriages with me, help me parent and help me wife, and who stay up long hours working with me sometimes more than they get to be with their families!
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
The Fourth Void
We never had a baby that wasn't edging the last baby into toddlerhood just a little sooner than they liked. This is the longest span of time we've not had a newborn since I married my husband. I am simultaneously grateful for this space and filled with an ache to fill it. It is strange to feel the pull of something so strongly, in all the little things of our daily life I see so clearly another child. I long for the chance to relish and enjoy the smallness of infancy that disappears so quickly that we never really seemed to be able to notice because things were so busy.
I feel the fourth void like a missing child. I can so clearly see our family with four kids that it sometimes feels like something is missing, or I am leaving one behind.
I want to barter and bargain by saying I will do it as much on my own as I can, I will sleep less and not care. I will do as much of the house work and child work as I can, give as much space as I can. These won't tip the balance or make the difference. I know our life, we are both all in. I want to promise alone time. I want to promise an addition to our house that will give us much needed space. However, additions are years off and alone time in one and two hour increments is not really enough. I would do anything to have this baby I feel is the perfect ending to this space and time in our family. The problem is, anything isn't in my power to give.
I feel like I will always regret not filling this fourth little void, I am afraid I won't stop wanting this. I am afraid my heart will hold this sadness and I won't get over it. I am afraid it will make me angry and snippy, and short even though I see the opposing side too.
Where do you go when there is no compromise, there is no such thing as half a child. There is no love loss here on the issue, I see the tenderness in my husband as he watches me grieve through this. I also see his feelings of finality that he cannot change. So we sit at an impasse, happily married and in sync in every issue but this one. Years have drifted over this impasse, and still we wait for an answer we can't seem to find. What is more regrettable, the baby never had or the baby hard fought for? I truly don't know anymore
I feel the fourth void like a missing child. I can so clearly see our family with four kids that it sometimes feels like something is missing, or I am leaving one behind.
I want to barter and bargain by saying I will do it as much on my own as I can, I will sleep less and not care. I will do as much of the house work and child work as I can, give as much space as I can. These won't tip the balance or make the difference. I know our life, we are both all in. I want to promise alone time. I want to promise an addition to our house that will give us much needed space. However, additions are years off and alone time in one and two hour increments is not really enough. I would do anything to have this baby I feel is the perfect ending to this space and time in our family. The problem is, anything isn't in my power to give.
I feel like I will always regret not filling this fourth little void, I am afraid I won't stop wanting this. I am afraid my heart will hold this sadness and I won't get over it. I am afraid it will make me angry and snippy, and short even though I see the opposing side too.
Where do you go when there is no compromise, there is no such thing as half a child. There is no love loss here on the issue, I see the tenderness in my husband as he watches me grieve through this. I also see his feelings of finality that he cannot change. So we sit at an impasse, happily married and in sync in every issue but this one. Years have drifted over this impasse, and still we wait for an answer we can't seem to find. What is more regrettable, the baby never had or the baby hard fought for? I truly don't know anymore
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
When my heart is overwhelmed, walking with depression
This week, this month, this year has felt long. This day, very long too. Today I was overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed by kids who left for school and came home from it out of sorts, tearful, and sad/mad on a Tuesday. Overwhelmed with angry neighbors over trees that are too tall, too overstretched, and too weak to be left standing. Overwhelmed with knowledge that today would be a baby day for us. If things had only been different in June. Today would be 2 weeks before my due date and delivery day.
Overwhelmed because on good days my depression feels like a distant angst. On mediocre days like a well known companion that I am able to set aside enough to function. However, on days like today it is a tidal wave of anxiety and sadness that presses down until I eek the kids into bed in time to not see me succumb. It is sleepless exhaustion with the foreknowledge that morning is coming and I will need to get out of this bed to make breakfast, hug my littles in hopes that today is their better day, and carry out the things of daily life.
I find things stacking up inside me with no time to process or even acknowledge them. I also find that parenting through depression often requires me to compartmentalize just enough to make it through the day. There has not been time for what feels like an enormity of emotions I might feel if I allow myself to start. It is an old fear that if I were to begin the task of processing through this grief in me that it would overtake me and place me so deep that I would not be able to find my way back, I would not be able to get out of bed, parent through, or work through. I would succumb to it, as sometimes I want to. I am grateful for a husband who is patient with me. Who puts me to rest when I don't feel well, and tempers himself from frustrations I express without knowing the sharpness of my tongue when I am expressing them. I think I am learning to make peace with this struggle, to own it more than I used to, and to start figuring out a better way than just compartmentalizing things enough to get by.
I should warn you when I'm not well
I can tell
There's nothing I can do
To make this easier for you
You're gonna need to be patient with me
How can I warn you when my tongue turns to dust like we've discussed?
It doesn't mean that I don't care
It means I'm partially there
You're gonna need to be patient with me
Overwhelmed by kids who left for school and came home from it out of sorts, tearful, and sad/mad on a Tuesday. Overwhelmed with angry neighbors over trees that are too tall, too overstretched, and too weak to be left standing. Overwhelmed with knowledge that today would be a baby day for us. If things had only been different in June. Today would be 2 weeks before my due date and delivery day.
Overwhelmed because on good days my depression feels like a distant angst. On mediocre days like a well known companion that I am able to set aside enough to function. However, on days like today it is a tidal wave of anxiety and sadness that presses down until I eek the kids into bed in time to not see me succumb. It is sleepless exhaustion with the foreknowledge that morning is coming and I will need to get out of this bed to make breakfast, hug my littles in hopes that today is their better day, and carry out the things of daily life.
I find things stacking up inside me with no time to process or even acknowledge them. I also find that parenting through depression often requires me to compartmentalize just enough to make it through the day. There has not been time for what feels like an enormity of emotions I might feel if I allow myself to start. It is an old fear that if I were to begin the task of processing through this grief in me that it would overtake me and place me so deep that I would not be able to find my way back, I would not be able to get out of bed, parent through, or work through. I would succumb to it, as sometimes I want to. I am grateful for a husband who is patient with me. Who puts me to rest when I don't feel well, and tempers himself from frustrations I express without knowing the sharpness of my tongue when I am expressing them. I think I am learning to make peace with this struggle, to own it more than I used to, and to start figuring out a better way than just compartmentalizing things enough to get by.
I should warn you when I'm not well
I can tell
There's nothing I can do
To make this easier for you
You're gonna need to be patient with me
How can I warn you when my tongue turns to dust like we've discussed?
It doesn't mean that I don't care
It means I'm partially there
You're gonna need to be patient with me
Wilco
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