I don't think I ever sat down and shared the dream I had a couple of months back - and if I did, you get it twice! It warms my heart when I think of it. In my dream I was standing outside of church - looking at the grassy area that separates the church from the office. There was Gretchen (our daughter on her way). I knew it was her, and her back was to me. She had blonde hair and wearing a dress. Then I see Peter walk up to her and say "I love you Gretchen". She reached out her arms and they hugged. I heard her say "I love you too Peter". Then she took a step back and put out her hand. She said "Come on Peter" - he took her hand and together they walked down the sidewalk away from me. When I woke felt so happy!! Truly in my heart it was a sign of things to come. That Peter will always remind her how loved she is.... he will teach her laughter, simplicity, joy and love. She will hold his hand and help him navigate the world, she will love him back and together they will learn. I felt like she was telling me she loves him as much as I do - and that he will be safe.
Despite the warmth that dream gave me, too many days I have not felt warm and fuzzy and safe. I have not felt like the happy mom-to-be basking in the miracle of life. Instead I have been moody, and tired and worn out. At times I have been down right homicidal - and God blessed people around me with survival. I have felt guilt for not singing to the baby, talking to her, playing Beethoven and all those other things "good" and "happy" moms do. I have been so stressed out, and then I stress about being stressed. I drink too much milk and not enough water - and wish I could sleep all day and night. Despite my best of intentions I'm not exercising and after miscalculating my weight gain realized it was 10 more pounds than I had convinced myself.
Throw in H1N1 and the fact that half of Colorado Springs seems to be sick - I feel pressure! To immunize or not??!! Do I take the risk with Peter, Gretchen and me and not immunize? What if we get sick? what if we don't? This vaccine went to market so fast - contradicting information on mercury. It was developed in 38 days.....really? I'm scared to get it - scared to find out a year or five or fifteen down the road that Gretchen was hurt by the vaccine. Will it save us? hurt us? or end up being nothing? At times the pressure in my chest as I think about it is so tight that I feel like I can't breathe! I had a doctor appointment this week and during the drive in the car I had an epiphany on my stress....
I thought back to my pregnancy with Tommy. I was stressed then and traveling like crazy. Then he was finally born. All was supposed to be ok. At three weeks we found he was lower than his birth weight. The world came tumbling down for me. I took four showers a day just so that I could cry. I wanted to hold him all day and reassure him we would be ok, but at the same time I felt like I couldn't care for him. Well intentioned support just tore at my confidence "You're too stressed Catherine.....", "You just need to relax Catherine....", "You're not drinking enough....you're not resting enough.... you're not producing enough....you're not holding him right..... your not latching him on well enough....." AHHH! I just wanted the madness to stop. Then the "Just give it up" or "Obviously you can't do it this time.." or "I'm so sorry (you're failing)" or "breast IS best Catherine ". I seriously wanted to run away into the woods and never see the world again. I ended up breast feeding and formula feeding - we alternated feeds. He thrived, and I felt a bit better - as long as I didn't leave the house. I felt now stuck once again between opposing camps in the mother world. You know what I mean - we mom's like to take firm stands on what is best and God have mercy on anyone doing it differently. Instead of being stuck between the stay-at-homes that judge my working, and the working moms that judge the size of my family - I was now stuck between the breast feeding and not. UGH! Regardless I felt like such a failure that I figured everyone was judging me the same way..... all in my mind no doubt, but none the less not a happy feeling.
Just a few weeks before Tommy's birthday we found out we were pregnant again. Another bundle of joy! My first fear - would I be able to breast feed this baby or would I go through that all over again? My confidence was shaken and I hadn't quite got it back. A few weeks later the doctor at the hospital said "The baby isn't developing normal..." and a few weeks after that the phone call I took in the kitchen. John standing there as a female voice says to me "he has Down syndrome.....I'm sorry!".... followed once again about my "choices" to solve for the problem. Here I was - worried about weight gain, breast feeding and suddenly I'm hit by lightning - none of that matters - it came down to a matter of will he live or not? how bad is his heart? and what in the world can anyone do to save him? Then in those dark sleepless nights - the crazy thoughts we all get (don't tell me you don't!!) - the "what did I do for this to happen to him?" the childish thoughts of "God is punishing him for something I did - this is all my fault". Then during the day the grin and bear it as people avoid you, walk away or move to the other side of the room and hope you don't notice they exist. I got to the point that hearing "I am so sorry" and "How horrible" was more comforting than being alone. Tack on John lost his job, my dad got terribly sick and I couldn't be there, and I wasn't sure if I would have a job or not post merger. I honestly shut down and went into auto-function mode. Checking things off my to-do list became a drug - that sense of satisfaction that I was doing everything I could possibly do before he arrived so that he had the best odds possible. I researched conditions, asked questions, called hospitals around the country for second and third opinions on his heart, I stared at ultra-sound pictures, I interviewed doctors and had plan A through Z figured out. Surely I had done all I could and this would be ok..... well, for all of you who have followed this blog, you know what happened next - almost 8 weeks in the hospital, pulmonary hypertension, kidney failure, unexplained infections, bad blood counts, failure to thrive, feeding tubes, oxygen tubes, open heart surgery, therapy.....let's just say we were as best prepared as we could be, but you sure just can't plan for everything. The world caught up with me when Peter was 17 months and taken off of oxygen during the day. So three years and two months after I thought my world came tumbling down with Tommy not eating well, I finally felt like I could allow myself to break into a thousand pieces and just cry - cry for the stress, cry for the relief that finally some things were behind us, cry for the joy of having survived. Joy that despite it all Tommy still loved me regardless of the failure I felt, and that Peter could finally breathe on his own at least part of the day.
So..... I know that seems like a long way to get to my epiphany this week - but here you go.... I realized that with all we've gone through over the last four years I am having a hard time believing that all is ok with Gretchen. The stress I feel in my shoulders and back is from me constantly being in that bracing mode. Bracing myself for what I don't know.... that fear of what is around the next corner I can't see. That loss of confidence when Peter failed echos and that sense that we were being sucked back into the world of uncertainty. That need to just survive - and not feeling confident I can. Then in the darkness all those horrible little voices in my head....except I wish they would just stay at night..... but now they speak during the day too! UGH! I'm not the wife I thought I would be - happy, encouraging and support....nope, sometimes (often at times) I am the nag, the tears, the complainer. I'm not the mom I thought I would be..... I'm not at home, I don't school my kids - darn, I don't even color, finger paint or make the home made play dough! I don't do fun creative learning things (except we all pile into the kitchen to bake brownies and make ice cream when the good Lord knows if I don't get chocolate the world will end) ....I'm not the ever pulled together mom you see in the magazines with the capacity to be all things to all people and raise perfect kids. Now, to my little defense - I think my kids are great, I do get food on the table and clean clothes on their backs! None the less I dream of being so much more and I feel each day that passes is another day lost. I'm not the friend I thought I would be.... I get too tired to call, fail to invite people over, I forget birthdays and honestly I rarely go out. And yes, since I'm letting it all out...... sometimes I just want the world to go away so that for a day I can have silence!! And selfishly I wish the weight would melt away, my house would self clean, there was always a ton of money in the bank and I had an endless Starbucks gift card! I wish for time, wisdom and confidence to be the mother, daughter, wife and friend I want to be. And while we are at it - I wish for world peace and end to hunger and all the house projects to finally be done!! (All three feel like the same likelihood of being attained!).
So.... I promise I don't need to be committed.....this has been eating at me and on another sleepless night I knew I would feel better if I could just let it all out. As with all of us - I have good days and not so good. Days I feel like I can do it all - and days I feel I can't do a thing. Days I thank God for all the blessings, and other days I am so darn mad at Him that I don't feel like talking. I'm human - you're human - and sometimes I remind myself that even those picture perfect moms in magazines are just pictures and we all have our burdens and blessings. And as if to remind me of this - out of no where tonight an old set of keys I had was on my nightstand. Keys to the old PHS building in the Springs that closed some time ago (I bet I can still get in!). Attached was a keychain I thought was one with my name on it. I turned it over in expectation to see "Catherine" and instead what I saw was "God grant me the serenity to accept things I can not change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference". Yeah.....even when I doubt, He is there whether I choose to accept the grace or not. So here is to hoping for the wisdom I clearly am lacking at times as I try to change the world in all the wrong places - and wisdom to embrace and find the light in what appears the darkest corners. And since I am still on a roll - here is to going back to bed, actually falling asleep and quiet kids in the morning that won't wake me up!!
For those of you that read this far.....thank you for letting me feel like I can just let it all out in the middle of the night and that I'm not alone.
Love - catherine
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