Mental Health

All The World I’d Give You

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on All The World I’d Give You

He left in the mornings before I woke up and came home soon before I fell asleep, most days. As an actuarial consultant, he traveled a bit as well, but mostly he woke up early to start his hour-and-a-half long commute to from the suburbs of New Jersey to NY, to One Penn Plaza, just across the street from Penn Station, and far enough away to ensure as I grew up I saw him little outside of weekends, holidays, and tired homework help sessions that ran into the weekday nights.

My dad seemed to enjoy his job as an actuary, but I really don’t know what he felt about all of the responsibility to provide for a family, especially after he left his dream of becoming a physicist behind and settled for a stable corporate job using his math talents. I remember going into his office and him proudly showing off the views of the Empire State building, and vaguely recall him introducing me as a child to his colleagues.

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Motherhood

Ethan: 3 weeks old

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Ethan: 3 weeks old

In the minutes between meltdowns, and the moments between staring out at the world in awe and terror, you sleep. You dream. You lie across my chest, the perfect fit, with your little head softly resting against the pillow of my bare breast. You dream intensely — perhaps of memories in the womb, or smile at thoughts of quickly swallowing sweet milk from a bottle, or colors and lights you’ve learned that day. You shiver in fear out of nowhere and then return to contentment. I still wonder how you dream without words or comprehension to tell a cohesive story. To you, life is a constant acid trip, and as I’ve never done acid, I don’t know what that’s like and can only imagine.

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Motherhood

Trying to Hold it Together and Cherish Every Second

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Trying to Hold it Together and Cherish Every Second

How easy it is to fall apart and break down. Even in my moments of strength I find a stray thought can rattle my mind like a tiny bullet fragment finding its way in silently and shattering any semblance of calm, happy, ok.

There is this little person sleeping in my bed. I don’t know who he is and despite certainly being there when he was born I have the sense that he was either adopted or dropped off by a stork in the middle of the night. He doesn’t look much like a baby but instead a miniature person complete with facial expressions one would expect from an old man more than a newborn child. But in the early morning hours when my husband sleeps and I hope this little creature I know deep down that he feels safe in my arms because he is my son. He is the creature that grew from nothing to a human in nine months in my now stretch marked, dangling-skinned stomach that recently was home to this grunting little being.

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Mental Health

3am Silence

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This is the silence that should fill my heart with joy despite exhaustion — the 3am buzz of the persistent fan humming through the air with a tiny human person lying across my chest, nuzzled in my neck in the perfect fit puzzle of mother and child.

I want the night and my mind to be quiet and simple. I want to listen to my baby’s breath as it speeds up and slows down in his dreams of milk and nightmares of not having any. His tiny limbs comforted by my aging ones, our breaths synchronizing together as one.

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Mental Health

Over.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Over.

I’ve always felt I was a disappointment to my father, and he made this clear at many times throughout my life. I know it was his means of tough love — of pushing me to be my best — but the voice in my head that says you are not good enough and you should not think or be different from the accepted norms of society is decidedly his.

Losing our parents is hard and happens at some point to everyone of us. For those with a purely loving relationship this can be filled with only sorrow, grief and fond memories. For others, it’s much more complicated.

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Poetry & Poetrish

Floating Thoughts

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Guilt, when you know you did a lot but not enough, when you know there’s no going back, when you know you tried but you could have tried harder, when you are devastated and angry and feel so alone and want to forget but you can’t because the wound is fresh and you’re trying to focus on happy moments these moments that should be so sweet and precious but instead your mind is lost, caught in an endless nightmare of what ifs what if what if you had followed your gut and didn’t just say something is wrong but instead you somehow made someone listen and you didn’t just wait you didn’t just wait until you went to sleep at 11 at night finally to get some rest for three blissful hours to be woken up at midnight by an emergency call to be told he is gone after all that you tried but you didn’t try hard enough you couldn’t you wanted to but you were tired and sore and focusing on creating life and also trying to save a life from across the country and you know you could have done more but you didn’t and you will forever feel that sick pit of guilt knotted in your stomach where innocence once lived but now it’s filled with the darkness of life and death and wishing you could say you did all you could and everyone else says you tried your best you in fact did all you could but I don’t believe them I don’t think I did I didn’t do enough I could have done more I’ll never forgive myself and I still don’t have the answers I need for closure and I feel so lost and alone and I can’t stop crying and I just need focus on being a good mom which is hard as it is but I’m spiraling each moment like I’m caught in a bad dream and I am just waiting to wake up but I never will because he is gone and I saw him there even though I wasn’t supposed to but then I did I saw him there in the casket and I placed on him the hat my son wore coming home from the hospital and I felt all of the happiness and hope and dreams he felt when he heard my son was born and the anxiety he felt when he heard my son was in the NICU and the thrill of knowing my son was healthy again and that he’d get to meet him one day soon and all the memories that will never be made all the chances to get to know each other even for a few days, weeks, months that are gone and — today I realized I named my son after my father even though I didn’t mean to, as my father’s name means strong eagle and my son’s name means strong and I’ve been calling him “bird” and so my son he is named after my father even if not on purpose and I’m spiraling in circles of thoughts of what if and if only and why didn’t I and there’s nothing I can do now but focus on loving my husband and son and making the most of the moments of life of all that’s fleeting and focus on not wanting anything more than what I have here and simplifying and throwing things out and organizing and trying so desperately to find happiness in all the moments of good and forget so many even though I know I tried I know I did since June since I found you there since I went every day to the hospital and tried to help you but the medical system is so messed up and the coordination is a disaster and I couldn’t advocate for you properly I couldn’t especially not after I came back to the west coast and I feel like I deserted you and you were so scared and all you wanted was to go home and you never got to you never had the chance. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. I’m sorry I couldn’t buy you more time. I’m sorry I told you to trust the doctor when he probably shouldn’t have been trusted. I’m sorry I didn’t do more when I knew you were incapable of asking for help. I’ll carry this guilt with me to my grave — I’ll forever wonder why I didn’t listen to my gut and why I didn’t do more.

Motherhood

Tales from the Pump: Momming, Week 1 & 2 (Part 1 of Many)

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Tales from the Pump: Momming, Week 1 & 2 (Part 1 of Many)

Tales from the Pump is an honest series from a new, 30-something mom — who writes quick posts while pumping for her baby since he isn’t yet latching, and she needs to stop using this time to buy cute things on Amazon since she no longer is getting a full paycheck and blogging doesn’t cost anything and her husband is starting to grow concerned about the number of boxes from Amazon arriving daily — but do you KNOW how many cute frog-related baby things there are on Amazon — do you?

…

While the first two weeks of being a mother were interrupted sadly by the passing of my father, I’m focused now on documenting the happier and less tragically eventful moments of this period of my life since my child left the NICU and we were able to bring him home with us. One day I’ll be able to write about the painful situation with my dad, maybe a whole book on it, but today is not that day.

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Motherhood

Childbirth: Uncensored.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Childbirth: Uncensored.

This story really starts 19 years ago when I was 15 at my first gynecologist appointment, when I was told, due to symptoms I was having, that I should be able to have kids “as long as I have them by age 30.”

Fast forward 18 years, and I’ve already well passed that deadline. Nonetheless, I finally found myself ready to have a child. Being ready didn’t mean my body was ready. But after a few months of fertility treatment the stars aligned and on my 34th birthday I confirmed I was pregnant with my first child.

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Motherhood

Birthing a Baby, Day 2, Little Progress

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Birthing a Baby, Day 2, Little Progress

Having a child is a scary experience no matter what — and at the current moment I’m not sure where my 32 hours spent in L&D fit on the scale of worst case scenerios in giving birth. What I suspect is that on the scale, I’m relatively low down, but I’ve also learned and am trying to come to terms with how this can change at any moment.

Going into L&D when you’re already in labor must be a generally good experience. Going into L&D when your blood pressure is high enough that they can’t medically allow you to go home, and you haven’t actually gone into labor yet, is typically not. Despite it now being my “due date” my body is clearly not ready to have this baby. But for my own health and my child’s health, I have to have baby soon.

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Motherhood

Childbirth is Scary and I’m a Wimp

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Childbirth is Scary and I’m a Wimp

Let’s not discuss that this soon-to-be first-time-mom who is considering an epidural-free birth required an anesthesiologist to, after two failed attempts from well-meaning nurses, get an IV in her arm — that’s a laughing matter for another time. The reality is that I’m supposed to be sleeping in a triage room at the hospital because I convinced the doctor that they should give me until morning to start their now recommended induction process.

The good news is that as of tomorrow, I’m 39 weeks + 6 days pregnant. In other words, I’m full term, and inducing a baby at this point is a lot lower risk than it would have been, say, a week or two ago. But, I’ve been hoping for an induction-free birth — -and my body just isn’t ready yet, so they want to give me this drug that — as I’ve been reading about all night that I’m supposed to be sleeping — is not even FDA approved for the induction of labor. Got to love how scientific medicine is until it isn’t.

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