the internet is chewing gum for moms

You're welcome.

And then this popped up on my playlist.  Let's call it a tender mercy.

Blue skies are coming / but I know that it's hard.

in which i am probably too honest

I will start out by saying that I woke up feeling like I'd been hit with a very sad stick.  Though technically, since I don't sleep, it crept in sometime between 2 and 3am this morning.  I theoretically know it's just this lovely PPD demon who will be stopping by frequently, but it's hard to remember that when you're in the thick of it.

Like this morning when I was just trying to find some dark chocolate - ANY dark chocolate so I could face the day - and instead knocked over an entire baby bottle on myself and the floor.  It's hard to not have a massive pity party in a moment like that... especially when it turns out there is no dark chocolate anyway.

I'm slowly trying to accept that I have to slow down.  I can't do everything I was just starting to be able to do again since the Dude is a little older.  The problem is slowing down feels like I'm failing, giving into the darkness that wants me to stop completely   And I KNOW that's not what it means, so I don't need "buck up, you're on the Lord's errand!" pep talk, because I get that.  I honestly believe that.  There are some chemicals in my body that do not, however.

Having a baby really messes with my momentum for two years or so.  Even now, going in public with the Dude means being on high alert because he's trying to run into traffic or touch ALL THE THINGS, but I was starting to feel like a real, functioning member of society again.  I beat myself up every day that I don't have a piano lesson with WonderGirl, or a violin lesson with the Dude, or manage to make my house not look like it is inhabited by squatters.  That's my bare minimum and I can't even manage to do that!  I'm a really capable and accomplished woman, so why can't I accomplish things and be capable after having a baby?  I know I have no control over this PPD, but it likes to tell me I could if I wasn't such a lameoid.

Darn this junk.  

extreme mommy blogging

I complain about tough nights being up with the baby, but I'm always kind of hazy about them in the morning and only remember that it was tough. So last night I decided to live blog the entire experience. This post was written entirely by me with one eye squinting at my phone while feeding Thing 3.

Welcome to to the belly of the beast.



10:47pm First feeding of the night. I was in bed by 8:30pm and fell asleep whenever my head stopped arranging a duet of Jesus Is Risen for bass and an undetermined number of violins. I feel like I've been punched in the left side of my face. Thing 3 sounds a little like what I imagine a pig sounds like while digging for truffles. Huh. After waking me up from a dead sleep, he's decided to only eat half a bottle. This displeases me and I consider adoption. Oh, and he won't burp. How rude.

11:17pm Back to bed. Have some song from the radio stuck in my head. "But with youuuu I feel agaaaaiiiin.". Ugh.

1:04am feeding #2. Now feel like I've been punched in the front of my face. He eats the whole bottle HOORAY!! but still no burp. One big fart though. I am considering keeping him. But I need one burp before the night is over. Just. One. Burp.

1:37am Back to bed. I mentally draft hate mail to Mumford and Sons for writing songs that keep me from being able to sleep, since I have a running loop of "Oh man is a giddy thing" running in my head right now.

3:18am I wake up to the husband unplugging the baby monitor and walking into the baby's room with his pillow. I mumble something about how I can do it, but he's too fast. I hear diaper changing and bottle making. Am now trying to get myself back to sleep but my brain is too busy thinking of ways I want to thank the husband later on today. You hear that, men?? That is FLIPPIN' SEXY right there. I now have the Lumineers singing "You're my sweetheeeeeeaaaaart" stuck in my head, but I don't care.

5:11am Call of the baby again. The husband has a 7am bishopric meeting, so I slip out before he can get up. Baby is only moderately interested in the bottle and is making snorting noises while wriggling so I think this has to do with his refusal to burp earlier. I sit in the dark, rocking and patting him, praying for one good fart. And now I'm wondering how my life has come to this, entreating higher powers for flatulence.

6:21am VERY LOUD BURP HAS BEEN ACHIEVED. MY LIFE AGAIN HAS MEANING. Also, have some song from the radio in my head but I don't know the words, so I'm trying to come up with possible lyrics. Something about gnomes maybe?

6:32am Husband is up so I'm heading to my bed. I never appreciated how awesome my sheets and comforter and everything are. Ahhhhhhh.

6:33am the Dude pokes his head out of his door, turns on all the lights and announces it is morning. Oh well, I can rest next year.

PS After the husband showers, gets dressed in his suit - he has just a few short minutes before racing off to his meeting. He uses them to make blueberry pancakes for the kids. This, my friends, is what I call getting your sexy on. Rowr.

life, instagramed

mmmmmm. hhhhhhmmmmm.

Today did not begin well. Although technically, I don't think yesterday ever ended since I was up almost constantly last night, and when I finally thought he was asleep, 30 seconds later the Dude came out of his room and announced it was morning. And 6:17am kind of is, I guess.

But at least Thing 3 was asleep! Nope. 5 minutes later Down By The Riverside was blasted from the piano downstairs by WonderGirl and her cousin dancing. Cue angry baby. Who then deposited the entire contents of his stomach on my torso.

I decided to try to be positive. Except just now T3 peed all over my legs. So... that ship may have sailed.

Ahhhh. Thanks for the vent. I'll be okay. Maybe tomorrow. As long as I can get T3 to burp or fart. Apparently my happiness or at least my well-relatedness depends on whether he'll do one of those things.

PS. It was also very annoying all night to have Mumford and Sons' Awake My Soul in my head so I couldn't sleep in between baby times. Ugh. Dumb irony.

and yet

No positive thinking can cover the fact that my entire wardrobe is meant for someone 20 lbs less than I am.

I don't think I'll ever wear jeans again.

a few not horrible things

I have antibiotics in my system!!!!! Hoooorrrraaaayyyy!!!!

Tomorrow my incredibly awesome MIL is leaving and my super cool SIL is coming with her 4 daughters to distract me for a few days. I am so overwhelmed by the generosity and kindness of so many people that it gives me hope. I'll make it out the other side of this, I will!

My dear friend Scandalous sent me a smile-a-day calendar as soon as she found out I was pregnant, and today's message was downright psychic.

One day at a time, right?

life, instagram-ed

dagnabit

We've had another setback over here. The husband and the kids have been sick all winter with dumb viruses, hacking their lungs out and being generally miserable. Somehow I didn't get anything until I snagged the bronchitis in the hospital, besides my two bouts of pinkeye, blaaaahh.

The husband had been feeling better, but he's down again with the hacking and the general feeling that he has been punched repeatedly with the sick stick. This is bad. Bad. I'm weak and sick - the kids are coughing all over the place and the only thing keeping Thing 3 alive is my healthy MIL who has been baby tending like a saint.

Can we catch a break please? At least the husband? One of us should be running at at least 80% capacity.

Remember how I said I was having Brazil flashbacks? Thinking about it, i realized they aren't all bad. I feel like our marriage was forged there. I was a mess, he was stressed beyond imagination, and all we had was each other. It was so hard, but I learned to love him more then than I ever could have on blue sky living.

One thing we did during that time was to pray to know what the lessons were that we needed to learn in that situation, so that we could work extra hard on those things and move on as soon as possible. I don't know if that even works, but it was at least an attempt to keep our eyes on the right path.

I wonder what I missed then, seeing as this feels far too similar to that time - at least in terms of the weight of the PPD. I want to ace this test so I don't have to live through it again. I'm back to praying for answers so I can speed up the process... maybe that's my mistake?

Well, regardless of my follies, if you are the praying type, I'd sure appreciate some in behalf of the husband's general health. If he is okay, then I can do anything. Love makes me do crazy things like stop doing the things I know and start doing things I don't, like having babies and devoting my days to parenting. But that love thing? Makes it totally worth it.

dispatches from the battle front

I am still in this body, fighting to regain the majority. But this sadness - this indescribable darkness crashes over me when I least suspect it. This is Brazil-strength PPD. I'm having these horrible flashbacks and I am still in awe that I survived that year.

Do I have another year of this? Less? More? My MIL told me her mantra today and I think I'll be borrowing it for the next while.

I. Can. Choose.

The battle is exhausting, but I still have a little power in me. And with that, I will choose to look ahead. It's really discouraging that I have to look so far away - to a date I don't know - but someday, I'll be better, have 16 arms and think to myself "I've GOT this." I don't know when, but I know it'll be sweet.

blogging through

Readers of a thousand years ago (okay, just over 6) will remember that after I gave birth to WonderGirl, I went through some serious post partum junk.  I wouldn't just call it depression, because there were soooo many factors that went into it.  One of the things that kept me holding on to life was blogging.  People from all over the world -some of whom who I'd never met - sent me the sweetest comments and e.mails, letting me know I wasn't alone.  I blogged through the pain, and eventually came out the other side.

Already this go around, I have gotten e.mails, posts, comments, even gifts from you guys and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for thinking of me.  It has reminded me that I can't retreat into myself, as much as I want to - and I have to play through this.  It's not going to be easy.  But I've got my imaginary world out there where I have invisible hands holding me up and I'm going blog through this mess.  It's the only way I'll survive.

So bearing that in mind, I'm sitting at an actual computer (I've been blogging from my phone for a while) and don't have to pick my words out as carefully.  Let the therapy commence.

The whole my-skin-isn't-big-enough-for-this-engorgement phase is starting to pass.  I'm starting to realize that I just can't escape what is happening.  Every few minutes I have let-down and it feels like I'm being stabbed in the chest - and that's just physically.  Emotionally I feel like everything is wrong and I need to get in the car and drive into oncoming traffic.  And this will happen over and over and over for the next few months while I am trying to handle a 3 year old who is going through a massive life crisis, a 6 year old who is... well... a handful, and a newborn who gives me panic attacks because the lack of control I feel around babies gives me panic attacks, and somewhere in between all of this I'm trying to process what it means that my husband is a bishop.  I'm really scared.

Oh - AND now I have bronchitis!  I can't breathe and when I cough it feels like my lungs are trying to get out.  I drove home from the doctor yesterday screaming and sobbing because I was alone and I just needed to get it out.  I don't know how much more I can take.

I prayed so hard that this time I could skip this, but it doesn't appear that is happening.  I do have my MIL staying longer than I've ever had help before, and the husband has been so sweet and patient.  If I'm not going to have this taken from me, it helps that the people around me have been strengthened to help me up.  In between those those moments where the light goes out of the world, I try to remind myself that even though it isn't the blessing I really want, at least I am being blessed.

And thank you to you.  I love all of you :)

fyi

The adrenalin from trying to survive last week is wearing off, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to die. Soon. Much sooner than my previous plan of dying in my 90s, happily senile and terrorizing the nursing staff at my old folks home.

Seriously. Everything is on fire. I hate my body so much right now.

and so it is done. and so it begins.

Last Monday I went to the doctor and begged him to help me have this baby as soon as possible. "I really have to have him NOW so I can be recovered enough to go to church this Sunday."

He looked at me like I was insane. He was right. But I had my reasons, and he was kind enough to schedule an induction for that evening.

Today has been looming like a big looming thing. The culmination of the craziest week ever. I started it by giving birth to our third child, made my way through recovery, got pinkeye AGAIN, discovered the medication I hoped would work did not (I currently feel like I'm being stabbed in the chest with a thousand tiny knives) - and showed up to church looking slightly more sane than Gary Busey so I could see my husband bless our new baby and become a bishop.

Why yes, the timing IS crazy. Seriously, I have no idea how we survived this week - though to be fair, all I had to do today was just appear in public (doing anything in public 6 days postpartum is a big deal). I honestly don't know why I've been so panicked about today, when the husband had to do all the work, like bless the baby and do the bishop thing. And you'd think he'd be a big ball of stress - but he has been the awesomest, patient angel of a human being. I have no idea how, but I feel like the luckiest girl there is.

And mad props to WonderGirl for keeping a secret for an entire month. That's the real shocker of the whole thing.

and now, in no particular order

My last week, according to instagram.

here.

It has been 4 days since I evicted Thing 3. I'm trying to come up with a cute nickname for him, all I have done so far is call him the Dude's name 95% of the time. The only name that seems to fit so far is Perfection, and that's not terribly manly. But he so is... this boy is so shockingly sweet and kind - I almost am concerned he might not be mine, but he has the same strawberry birthmark on his forehead that both my previous progeny had so there's that.

I'm typing this out on my phone as I lie in bed so I'm limited in verbosity, but I feel like I should type a few things out as I process them.

When WonderGirl was born, it seemed like she was slightly frustrated. I took it to mean she was disappointed with the sub par mother she'd been assigned to, but I learned later it was because
she was frustrated with the immediate limitations of her infant body. The second she could run, talk, open things, learn multiplication, she seized on it and adored the thrill of doing. She has always been a bundle of brains.

When the Dude was born, I was immediately struck by his joy. He was so happy to be here and experience everything humanly possible. Husband summed it up perfectly one day while snuggling him -"It's like he's just genuinely excited to finally be on earth." He takes on life as a full-contact sport and it was obvious from the beginning.

When Thing 3 was placed in my arms, I was struck by one word - sweet. He was so SWEET. I don't know if I can adequately describe it, but he has these searching eyes that radiate a peace and, for lack of another adjective, sweetness. He's not a screamer - although his circumcision and subsequent diaper changes have helped him find his voice - but even then he stops crying as soon as he thinks the situation is under control and looks up at you with patience and hope. Also, he has been eating and sleeping like an absolute angel. Did we actually get a mild-mannered human in this family??? I hope we don't break him...

So we brought a wonderful human into the world. What about the infamous Reva aftermath?

Things are ... going to work out. Eventually. I have to accept that I have no control over the tears and the darkness and fretting about it just makes it worse. Also, I took the medication that we hoped would stop milk production, and the side effects got scarier over the last 3 days. I think today we are going to do a wait-and-see and assess tomorrow how things are feeling. I'm trying to listen to my body and figure out what I need, but that's a hard thing to do when my body has some very bad things to say that I am desperately trying to ignore.

Over the last 9 months I have cried and worried and fretted about how I would handle coming home with 3 children, a severely limited body and a sick mind. It was not easy, and I'm fighting the urge to lock myself in the bathroom and cry or hurt myself - but I'm managing because a miracle has taken place. Despite all the uncertainty, all of the sudden my house is filled with what feels like an army. There are physical soldiers - the husband is more on top of things than I could have ever imagined, and believe me, he's the most capable person I know so I can imagine a LOT already. His parents are here and are this force of nature - as much as I feel like I should worry and cry over my decreased abilities and lack of control and all the darkness I'm trying to keep inside, they have this house filled with a sense of IT'S OKAY. THIS TOO SHALL PASS. That's the opposite of what my body is saying, so I'm trying to stop fighting and allow the notion that the world is not ending permeate my soul. It's a very conscious, difficult thing to do. But being surrounded by physical angels and what I feel like is a host of spiritual angels is giving me the strength to try.

Yesterday I was sitting in my hospital bed, crying over my broken body and how much it hurts to not be in complete control and how I just want to stand up, shake the depression off and get to work RIGHT NOW. The husband sat next to me, held me tight and told me how thankful he was that I was willing to make the sacrifices I have to bring this perfect soul into the world.

I wish this was easier. I wish I didn't have these stupid weaknesses and obstacles. But I can't focus on that. I have to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel - that I will get better. That I will be in control again someday. And that I know that I have a Heavenly Father who knows and loves me, and has surrounded me with angels to get me to that light, as long as I hold on and listen to them.

I'll get there.

welcome to the planet

Blue Steel.

it's on.

I'm about to leave for the hospital to force this boy out. I've never been induced and I'm nervous as all get out. Halp.