Warning: Pity Party commencing in 3...2...1...
When does it get easier? I'm still waiting for that magical happily ever after. Years of infertility, IVF, therapy, a hard pregnancy, learning halfway through that our child was severely mentally and physically deformed, having to terminate, grief, shame, sadness, more therapy, another hard (and scary) pregnancy, shocking news about his dwarfism just a few weeks before giving birth, relinquishing my goal of a vaginal birth, a hard recovery and infected c-section incision, those impossibly hard first few months with a newborn, continuing to fight post partum depression, trying to adjust to life as a SAHM, dealing with my own back pain as well as Hubs', our dog having behavioral issues since the baby came, in and out of Drs offices with Jack due to all his physical issues, developmental delays, physical therapy, falling behind with milestones, jealousy over everyone else's "normal" babies, getting bad news after bad news with each Dr appt...and now this. When does it get easier?!!
The "this" I am referring to is my husband's anxiety, depression and OCD. It appears he has paternal postnatal depression (PPND). I didn't even know that was a thing. I am the one with the fucked up hormones from giving birth!! But now he's said he feels like he has PTSD from everything - all the IF, our loss, coming to terms with Jack's condition, all the medical issues - all the stuff he apparently hasn't dealt with. After everything we have been through I honestly don't know what has been the hardest. I just know it sure as shit hasn't gotten any easier. When fighting IF I thought that once we finally got PG life would be better. It was what I had wanted for so long. And it finally happened. And it was a nightmare. Losing Petey was so much harder than IF. And then we had Jack and I thought our dream had come true. And it's true we have a beautiful wonderful son now and I am thankful. But he also has special needs and it is SO FUCKING HARD sometimes. And now not only can my husband not help care for him physically due to his back issues, he is no longer here mentally either. I feel so alone in this. It's the hardest thing I have ever done and I have no help. I have a baby with special needs and I have a husband who is needy and depressed and anxious and not sleeping and not eating and I am worried all day and all night. Now I am no longer sleeping either. Now I am eating my emotions and gaining weight. Now I have no energy to take care of Jack and all the house stuff because I am so drained from focusing on Hubs and whether or not he's ok. Now I have to take care of him and Jack and everything else. Now I am unable to take care of myself because I have given every part of myself away. THANK GOD I hired that nanny. Without me being able to look forward to a handful of hours a week where I can get a break, I would have already completely broken apart. But even with that time to "recharge" I really don't know how much longer I can do this.
Hubs is now on meds and in therapy. It's been about two weeks now and no change besides bad side effects from the meds. I need for him to get better. I need my partner back. I don't know how to do this alone.
Hell, I probably need therapy too. Not sure how I'm gonna squeeze that one in. I don't even have time to edit this post.
So there's my update. In a nutshell: Things are not so good around here. #understatement
Monday, September 28, 2015
Thursday, September 17, 2015
To the woman who called me a despicable human being
I have been thinking about writing this for months now so I finally did. I usually make a point to stay out of the pro-choice/pro-life debate but it had been eating at me and I felt the need for my voice to be heard. I wrote it with the intention of submitting it as an article...somewhere
I am interested in your (my trusty readers) honest opinions and critiques of this "article" if you are willing. Here goes:
*****All the trigger warnings. Seriously.*****
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To the woman who called me a despicable human being
Well, not to my face. And not even to me specifically. But that didn't keep me from letting those words eat at me for months.
The words were spewed from behind the safety of her computer screen in an online thread about abortion. Heartless! Monsters! Anyone who could even think about having an abortion is a despicable human being!
Well, I had an abortion. A year and a half ago. At age 32. Happily married and financially secure. After struggling through years of infertility. After enduring in vitro fertilization to finally become pregnant. Never would I have thought I would have an abortion. Becoming pregnant at long last was my dream. It was what my husband and I had tried so hard for and prayed so much for. It was the happiest few months of my life.
Until it wasn't.
Until the doctors told us that this child whom we loved so much was so deformed he likely would not survive; that he would die in my womb and I would deliver a stillborn. And that if he somehow continued to grow enough to reach a very premature delivery he would need immediate brain surgery, spinal surgery, experimental procedures. There was very little chance his small, not yet fully developed body would be able to endure that. And he would suffer. It would be painful. And then, if he somehow miraculously defied all odds and survived he would be severely mentally and physically disabled. Permanently paralyzed. Likely unable to live even a shred of a normal life.
We couldn't cause that pain to our child. Or to ourselves, watching that happen. Or to his future siblings should he defy all odds. To sentence our child to a "life" like that would have been worse than death. We chose instead to terminate. We chose for him to pass away peacefully in his mother's womb, never knowing pain or surgery, never gasping for air that his underdeveloped lungs wouldn't be able to process, never feeling trapped in his jail of a body (if indeed he could think or feel at all). Instead we chose compassion. We chose love. And it was the hardest thing I have ever done.
I hate calling it an abortion. "Abortion" generates thoughts of women abusing the procedure, uncaring, using it as a form of birth control. But an abortion it was; and a late-term one at that. And I am thankful we had the law on our side and could make the choice that we did. My husband and I chose to suffer so that our child wouldn't have to. We certainly didn't make our decision lightly and we didn't make it because we didn't want a child with special needs. In fact, as I hold my second baby in my arms, an amazing little boy who has special needs due to a genetic condition that some choose to terminate for, I feel that we made the right choices for both of our children. We have had hard decisions to make but I feel at peace with them. I was not a monster for terminating that pregnancy. And I am certainly not a despicable human being. Heartless? Absolutely not. I feel the loss of my first child every day. I mourn him every day. And I love him every day.
I am a mother. I made the most difficult decision a mother should (n)ever have to make. But I made it out of love.
So to the woman who called me a despicable human being: Be grateful. Grateful that you have been lucky enough in life to be blissfully ignorant of how wrong your words are and how deeply they hurt. Be grateful that you don't know what it's like to walk in this woman's shoes.
I am interested in your (my trusty readers) honest opinions and critiques of this "article" if you are willing. Here goes:
*****All the trigger warnings. Seriously.*****
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To the woman who called me a despicable human being
Well, not to my face. And not even to me specifically. But that didn't keep me from letting those words eat at me for months.
The words were spewed from behind the safety of her computer screen in an online thread about abortion. Heartless! Monsters! Anyone who could even think about having an abortion is a despicable human being!
Well, I had an abortion. A year and a half ago. At age 32. Happily married and financially secure. After struggling through years of infertility. After enduring in vitro fertilization to finally become pregnant. Never would I have thought I would have an abortion. Becoming pregnant at long last was my dream. It was what my husband and I had tried so hard for and prayed so much for. It was the happiest few months of my life.
Until it wasn't.
Until the doctors told us that this child whom we loved so much was so deformed he likely would not survive; that he would die in my womb and I would deliver a stillborn. And that if he somehow continued to grow enough to reach a very premature delivery he would need immediate brain surgery, spinal surgery, experimental procedures. There was very little chance his small, not yet fully developed body would be able to endure that. And he would suffer. It would be painful. And then, if he somehow miraculously defied all odds and survived he would be severely mentally and physically disabled. Permanently paralyzed. Likely unable to live even a shred of a normal life.
We couldn't cause that pain to our child. Or to ourselves, watching that happen. Or to his future siblings should he defy all odds. To sentence our child to a "life" like that would have been worse than death. We chose instead to terminate. We chose for him to pass away peacefully in his mother's womb, never knowing pain or surgery, never gasping for air that his underdeveloped lungs wouldn't be able to process, never feeling trapped in his jail of a body (if indeed he could think or feel at all). Instead we chose compassion. We chose love. And it was the hardest thing I have ever done.
I hate calling it an abortion. "Abortion" generates thoughts of women abusing the procedure, uncaring, using it as a form of birth control. But an abortion it was; and a late-term one at that. And I am thankful we had the law on our side and could make the choice that we did. My husband and I chose to suffer so that our child wouldn't have to. We certainly didn't make our decision lightly and we didn't make it because we didn't want a child with special needs. In fact, as I hold my second baby in my arms, an amazing little boy who has special needs due to a genetic condition that some choose to terminate for, I feel that we made the right choices for both of our children. We have had hard decisions to make but I feel at peace with them. I was not a monster for terminating that pregnancy. And I am certainly not a despicable human being. Heartless? Absolutely not. I feel the loss of my first child every day. I mourn him every day. And I love him every day.
I am a mother. I made the most difficult decision a mother should (n)ever have to make. But I made it out of love.
So to the woman who called me a despicable human being: Be grateful. Grateful that you have been lucky enough in life to be blissfully ignorant of how wrong your words are and how deeply they hurt. Be grateful that you don't know what it's like to walk in this woman's shoes.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Jack: 5 Months
I can't believe my little guy is already 5 months old. That's almost half a year already! Well, I can and I can't. Half a year sounds like a lot but parts of these past 5 months have felt so long. Having a newborn (especially one with some special needs) is so much harder than I ever thought it would be. It has been AMAZING but also tough.
Here's Jack's 5 month update!
His smile just makes me melt. It is the best part of my day. And thankfully, he's full of smiles these days so I have lots of good parts of each day :-) Five months is a fun age so far. He's so interactive and so inquisitive. Sometimes I look at him and just think to myself: "He's a HUMAN. He's his own person and we MADE him." It's nuts.
Things have gotten better recently because I got some help. Not the therapy kind but the nanny kind. We hired someone to come to our home to take care of Jack a couple hours a day, a few days a week. It has been a wonderful thing for me to have a break. I haven't gotten too deep into it on here but things have been tough on me physically because my husband's chronic back pain keeps him from being able to hold Jack for more than 2-3 minutes at a time so it's been ALL me ALL the time. And due to his Achon, Jack has to be held almost continuously as he can't be put in a swing or bouncer or exersaucer. Carrying around a 15 lb baby all day everyday was not only causing my back to become complete shit but also causing me to have a bit of mental breakdown because I couldn't get ANYTHING done and could never have even one moment to myself. I pee with the kid on my lap most times for God's sake! But Nanny J started last week and I love her and Jack loves her. It was very hard for me to admit that I couldn't do it all myself but once I finally got over that it has been a godsend. I can poop if I need to now! And shave my legs and clean the bathroom and make dinner and go to chiropractor appointments and and and... I even went out to get a pedicure yesterday! I still struggle to not feel selfish about this whole situation but my hubby has encouraged me all along to do this, and to use the time she's here to go out and do things for ME to help my mental state so that I feel like a person again. He feels awful that he can't physically help with Jack. I don't know what to say about that - I feel awful he can't physically help with Jack too. I am envious of those women who can hand the baby off to their husband when he gets home, even if only for an hour, but I can't. I can't ever give Hubs a night feeding, even on the weekends, because he can't physically lift Jack out of his crib. I can't take the dog for a walk in the evening because even if the baby is happily playing on his playmat when I leave, if he starts to cry my husband can't pick him up to soothe him. It's a shitty situation. But there's nothing that can be done about it so Nanny J is the next best thing. Hubs says that he has better days at work now because he knows that I can have a break. It makes him feel good and that makes me feel good. (Getting a pedicure feels pretty good too :-) )
Other that that, not too much to report. I wish I could get on here more often to blog because there are good things that happen all the time that I'd want to write about but now they've just fluttered away out of my useless brain. Over the past month we've had lots of playdates with other baby friends including another LP (little person) playdate with Jack's two dwarf baby friends in the area. He met a ton more family and friends, we spent a lot of time out in the pool during hot days... Stuff happened. It's been good.
Here's a photodump!
I fuckin love this kid.
Here's Jack's 5 month update!
His smile just makes me melt. It is the best part of my day. And thankfully, he's full of smiles these days so I have lots of good parts of each day :-) Five months is a fun age so far. He's so interactive and so inquisitive. Sometimes I look at him and just think to myself: "He's a HUMAN. He's his own person and we MADE him." It's nuts.
Things have gotten better recently because I got some help. Not the therapy kind but the nanny kind. We hired someone to come to our home to take care of Jack a couple hours a day, a few days a week. It has been a wonderful thing for me to have a break. I haven't gotten too deep into it on here but things have been tough on me physically because my husband's chronic back pain keeps him from being able to hold Jack for more than 2-3 minutes at a time so it's been ALL me ALL the time. And due to his Achon, Jack has to be held almost continuously as he can't be put in a swing or bouncer or exersaucer. Carrying around a 15 lb baby all day everyday was not only causing my back to become complete shit but also causing me to have a bit of mental breakdown because I couldn't get ANYTHING done and could never have even one moment to myself. I pee with the kid on my lap most times for God's sake! But Nanny J started last week and I love her and Jack loves her. It was very hard for me to admit that I couldn't do it all myself but once I finally got over that it has been a godsend. I can poop if I need to now! And shave my legs and clean the bathroom and make dinner and go to chiropractor appointments and and and... I even went out to get a pedicure yesterday! I still struggle to not feel selfish about this whole situation but my hubby has encouraged me all along to do this, and to use the time she's here to go out and do things for ME to help my mental state so that I feel like a person again. He feels awful that he can't physically help with Jack. I don't know what to say about that - I feel awful he can't physically help with Jack too. I am envious of those women who can hand the baby off to their husband when he gets home, even if only for an hour, but I can't. I can't ever give Hubs a night feeding, even on the weekends, because he can't physically lift Jack out of his crib. I can't take the dog for a walk in the evening because even if the baby is happily playing on his playmat when I leave, if he starts to cry my husband can't pick him up to soothe him. It's a shitty situation. But there's nothing that can be done about it so Nanny J is the next best thing. Hubs says that he has better days at work now because he knows that I can have a break. It makes him feel good and that makes me feel good. (Getting a pedicure feels pretty good too :-) )
Other that that, not too much to report. I wish I could get on here more often to blog because there are good things that happen all the time that I'd want to write about but now they've just fluttered away out of my useless brain. Over the past month we've had lots of playdates with other baby friends including another LP (little person) playdate with Jack's two dwarf baby friends in the area. He met a ton more family and friends, we spent a lot of time out in the pool during hot days... Stuff happened. It's been good.
Here's a photodump!
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| "Hi mama!" |
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| Learning that hair pulling doesn't feel good LOL |
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| Dr cleared him to be able to sit in his rock n' play for 15 mins per day! Rejoice!! |
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| Still not so sure about this giraffe but learning to accept him. |
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| Drooly monster! |
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| Practicing his modeling poses |
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| Hi! |
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| Deep in conversation with red bird |
I fuckin love this kid.
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