Abilify Worries

Today was just like any other average work day. Nothing special to be reported. Your Love, your Light, your Bliss is in Vegas and will be until Tuesday, and for some reason you just have a bad feeling about it. You can't put a finger on why, but you just have a bad feeling.

You also are off of your Abilify. The insurance company needed something signed from the doctor and getting in contact with your doctor is extremely challenging. Since you've just stopped taking abruptly about 3 days ago you've noticed that your anxiety has been through the roof.

Everything has been a source of worry and despair and at night you can't sleep because of all of the thoughts that are racing through your mind. You. Can't. Shut. It. Off. and it's driving you nuts.

Time to worry.

You took a Plan B today. Couldn't find those stupid IUD strings. You don't want a baby right now. You don't think you want to have any more kids, period. Two is enough. More than enough, and just about the maximum that you can handle. Your Love, your Light, your Bliss is just itching to fill you all up with a baby right now, something that you don't quite understand, but don't question either. He's a man madly in love, and madly in love men do and think mad things.

A baby.

You'd have to quit your job immediately, find a new place to live immediately, just do a whole bunch of different things immediately. And you are not ready to take on all of those challenges at once and by yourself.

What else...

Your Love, your Light your Bliss is in Vegas and for some reason, you just have a bad feeling about this whole trip, but we've already been over this, so, moving on.

You keep missing days at work because you just can't mentally deal with it some days, and you're worried that you are going to be fired. That would be catastrophic.

You're still smoking butts which is insanely unhealthy for you and can cause a whole host of unsavory and undesirable reactions. You're paying to shorten your own life. Makes no sense whatsoever.

Your mother is in the middle of radiation treatments and has get to get a feeding tube put in next Wednesday and she'll be in the hospital for a few days. That should be a routine thing, but still, anything involving anesthesia is nerve wracking and it's seems like she's had a shitload of it lately. Fingers crossed, but all should be well on its own.

You worry about your Plumber, your Sweetheart. He makes your heart feel sweet, so Sweetheart it is.
He's so kind.
And handsome.
And intelligent, and witty and just all around amazing to be near. You worry that you won't be able to stay faithful to him with your Love, your Light, your Bliss still around. You have explosive sexual chemistry with both of them and it's quite the confounding thing to experience. You didn't think you could have that kind of chemistry with anyone other than your Love, your Light, your Bliss, but then came your Sweetheart and he rocked your world in a way you hadn't experienced before.

Ah that whole situation. In love with one, and knowing it probably can't work, and hoping for love with the other while your still in love with the first. It won't work. You need to make some decisions and you need to make them fast. Otherwise you're just going to hurt someone. You suppose that one way or another, you are going to hurt someone, and that kills you. This feels like the weirdest de-ja-vu. You were just having to choose between whose heart to break about a month ago, when you dumped your Sweetheart to be with your Love, your Light, your Bliss. Now you have the same dilemma. You've come full circle.

Way to make absolutely no progress on that one.

Oh well.

For now you are tired of worrying so you'll put that to rest for now.

You're going to have David for the entire weekend. You're pretty pumped. You aren't exactly sure what you'll actually do with him, but you look forward to it. You don't look forward to waking up at 6:00 in the morning with him and wish he would just sleep in for once. C'est la vie.

You'll figure out something to do with him. Maybe you'll even be able to go out with your Sweetheart this weekend, but probably not because you'll need to have your parents babysit on Sunday so that you can work. You can't afford to miss anymore days.

Now its time to try to put this spinning little brain to rest.

Slow Dreams

You've been too hard on the Plumber and might have just been having a crazy moment. It happens. Especially in relationships. You tend to over analyze.

You're gonna give him some space and see what happens.

You've also realized that you've been far too preoccupied with men which, in part, has interfered with your parenting. You should be more concerned with becoming the mother that your children deserve. You need to be more patient and more playful. You need to solidify those bonds.

Tonight is just you and little David. He's such a sweet little baby. Yes, he's 19 months old now, but to you he's still a baby. He can count to four and has developed a slew of new phrases to say. Watching him grow into a little boy has truly been one of the most rewarding experiences in your life.

You worry though that you won't be able to provide financially for him and Gabriel. It's a rough job market out there especially for someone with no degree. I suppose I could go back to school, but how long would that take and how much would that cost? I shudder to think.

You're trying to get this writing thing off of the ground. It's a lot of hard work, but you know that you will be able to succeed. It's just a really slow process.

You can't wait for that day where you don't have to have a 9-5 and you can just write all day instead. Maybe eventually you would run out of words, but they would come back to you eventually.

For now though I just have to put my nose to the grindstone, keep taking better care of my kids, and keep on hoping and working hard to achieve my dreams.

Parental Transitions and Prince Charming

You’ve never seen your Love, your Light, your Bliss like this before. He’s completely in love with your new little baby – you’ve even seen him wipe away a few happy tears when they were cuddling and he thought you weren’t looking - and it reminds you of how you felt after your first son, Gabriel, was born.

You’d gone into labor at 6:45 in the morning with Gabriel and within two hours your contractions were strong and steady, happening every four minutes. Your mother picked up you and Gabriel’s father and you couldn’t help but laugh when you saw that she had donned the passenger seat with disposable Chux pads, since your water hadn’t broken yet. Your mind was racing with fear and excitement – fear of the pain and all of the things that could go wrong and if you really had the strength to give birth to a baby and excitement for finally meeting your little son.

You got to the hospital, determined to have a natural child birth, but your little son was positioned sunny side up and by noon you just couldn’t take the mind rattling pain of his bony little head pressing up against your tailbone, so you asked for an epidural. You felt defeated and weak for a moment because women had been having babies with no pain intervention since the dawn of people, and you thought you should’ve been strong enough to do the same. However, pain and experience are far more convincing and demanding than any theories or beliefs that you had about labor and motherhood, and part of being strong is knowing your limits and not pushing them so that you can fit some ideal.

You painlessly labored on and around four in the afternoon, Gabriel’s heart rate started dropping to 80 bpm with every contraction. The nurse called in the mid-wife, who decided to break your water and get him out as soon as possible. The nurse asked if it would be alright if a few of the nursing students came in to watch. At this point you didn’t care, all that mattered was safely delivering little Gabriel. In walked an entire class of nursing students and between your mother, your father, Gabriel’s father, a surgeon, the midwife and a few nurses, there were upwards of twelve people in the room when it came time to push our your little son. The midwife turned off your epidural- she claimed that a first time mother simply couldn’t successfully push without feeling the contractions- and told you to start pushing. You pushed – hard -  and your body was flooded with adrenaline and awe-inspiring pain. You tapped into some internal reserve of something you’d never felt before that gave you the greatest strength and concentration  you’ve ever experienced in your entire life. 

The midwife yelled “STOP!” and you stopped pushing, wondering what was happening. Gabriel had his cord wrapped around his neck, though no one told you at the time. The midwife mumbled something to the surgeon about prepping the OR for a C-section, and then told you that you were going to try to push one more time. Your father whispered in your ear to push with everything you had, and that’s exactly what you did. With that push, he was born. Gabriel was an eerie shade of cadet-blue and didn’t cry. He wasn’t placed on your chest, but rather he was placed under a warming light and had tubes put in his nose and after what felt like hours, but was probably only a minute or two, he let out a grumpy cry and you’d never heard anything more beautiful in your life.

Gabriel’s father placed him in your arms and you couldn’t believe how cute he was – he had a full head of white hair and bright blue eyes. All ten toes and all ten fingers were present and accounted for, and you’d never seen anything so tiny or so marvelous.

You hardly slept during his first few days, convinced that he would just stop breathing or something equally awful if you did. You couldn’t believe that you had been given something so precious and so perfect and couldn’t fathom what you had done to deserve this. Surely something this lovely, warm, fragile and flawless can’t be meant to last.

But he was. And he has. And the only moment that has rivaled the sheer joy and amazement of his birth was the birth of his brother. Both were very different labors and deliveries, but both were equally joyful and life changing. Both are very different children, but both are equally loved and cherished.

In those first few days of his life, you fall in love with your new little son, David. As you watch his father, your Love, your Light, your Bliss, falling in love with his son and transitioning in his own remarkable way into parenthood, you feel like you’re seeing him as a man for the first time, and he’s never been more beautiful, but there is still hurt lingering in your heart.

You hope that this will last forever, because, quite simply, he’s the best man you’ve known, you’ve never loved anyone the way you do him, and you and your children deserve the kind of stability and serenity that a decent loving man can bring to a family. You’re also getting older and your heart isn’t as resilient as it once was, and you feel like if this doesn’t work out then you’re done with love.

For now, you try to just relish these first few days of David’s life, forget about past hurt, and try to re-open your heart again. After all, no one said Prince Charming had to perfect.

Bread Bitch of Peppermint Valley

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Birth, Forgiveness and the 1000 Mile Void

You seethe and cry and scream until you have nothing left in you and come to the realization that you're a 27 year old divorced mother of two, and both from different fathers, who lives at home and doesn't have much going for her so you figure you better make it work with this one. You're not getting any younger and the emotional baggage just keeps piling up.
You rub your enormous belly, and your little boy kicks your hand in response. While you watch him dance and wiggle you decide that you'll ignore how much he's hurt and betrayed you. You'll ignore the fact that you feel like he doesn't deserve you and that you don't deserve to be with yet another man who you just can't trust. You'll just distance yourself as much as you can emotionally from him without completely dissolving the relationship until you think he seems like he's worthy of being trusted. You still haven't reached that point yet. And the void between you feels like 1000 oceans.
Before you know it, you're in labor, huffing and puffing through each contraction wondering when this little guy will just get here already. Your love, your light, your bliss stays with you the whole time, excitedly writing down the exact timing of every contraction. After 12 hours they're still no more frequent than every seven minutes apart and you start to wonder if you’ll be in labor for the rest of your life. Your Love, your Light, your Bliss, is turning in for the night, seemingly disappointed. You are too.
Another 12 hours later and your contractions are  kicking it into high gear, coming at least once every five minutes and stronger. You think it might be a good idea to go to the hospital, especially since you’re now screaming through them. You get to the hospital and the intervals go down, but the intensity remains the same. They tell you that you’re only 3 centimeters dilated and that you may stay like this for a few days so it would be best to leave and return when you’re sure you’re in labor. You mumble  a rather audible “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” and then you almost start crying. If you stay like for DAYS SOMEONE’S gonna get shot – you think. Your Light, your Love, your Bliss seems a little bewildered too, but he tries to stay positive because he knows you’re getting tired and just want this little one to be born already. The nurse suggests you go for a long walk and you glare at her through slitted eyes. You leave, get a gluten free pizza, screaming at your Light, your Love, your Bliss anytime he drives over a pothole that you don’t like. You finally get home and grunt and groan some more, scaring your little son who keeps trying to comfort you, but he’s still too little to understand that mommy’s ok and that this is just part of having a baby. His fear makes you think that maybe you should go back to the hospital. God know it hurts more than it did when you left and if they tell you to leave this time, you’ll tell them EXACTLY where they can go.
You head up to maternity ward and they ask you to sit in the waiting room. You’re grunting and groaning and the other people there- probably waiting for the birth of their little nieces, nephews and grandbabies- are trying politely not to stare as you moan and groan as demurely as a lady can when she’s in labor. A nurse walks by and asks if you are alright. You just stare at her blankly and she rushes away to the desk. A few minutes later they come out to get you and the nurse you spoke to at the front desk says, “I had no idea! You weren’t complaining enough!” She also gets a blank stare. They take you to your room and find that you’re 6 centimeters dilated and baby is definitely on his way. The contractions are happening about every 2 minutes apart and you are moaning like you’ve never moaned before. You’d had an epidural way before this point when you went into labor with your first.
The nurse offers you Nubian to help with the pain until you can have an epidural (sorry – childbirth au-natural is not for me) and you happily agree. The Nubian hits you and the contractions become manageable and you’re actually able to smile for the first time since that morning. Then it either starts to wear off or the contractions are becoming stronger. You can’t tell the difference. All you know is it HURTS. Finally, 31 hours into labor, the anesthesiologist places your catheter (though he did miss the first time and had to stab you twice in the spine which is no pleasure cruise, but in the middle of labor it just feels like a searing unrelenting pinch so that’s one twisted plus to all of that pain) and you are completely numb, cool, calm and collected within 15 minutes. Your Love, your Light, your Bliss holds your hand and rubs your back and seems excited. He’s sitting next to you while you’re trying to sleep and all of sudden you hear a loud BOOM on the Doppler and feel what feels like the biggest kick that this baby has ever kicked. The nurse lifts your blanket and announces that you’re water has broken. She calls in the doctor and after they have you flip around a few times you are ready to push. You tuck your chin to your chest, grab on behind your knees and push with everything you have when the doctor says push and stop when she says stop. Three pushes and he’s out, wailing his beautiful little blonde head off. Any hint of resentment is completely irradiated and is over taken by an all encompassing love and amazement at just how ridiculously cute he is.
The doctor places him on your chest and you just shower him in kisses,- his nose, his cheeks, his lips, his hands – every inch of him is exquisite even with all the newborn gunk still stuck to his hair and skin. Your Love, your Light, your Bliss stands next to you and he has never seemed so over joyed. He almost appears humbled. Like in a single instant he went from a lost boy to a man with a purpose and a destiny. In that moment he is the single most beautiful man you’ve ever met and you just don’t want to meet another. And in that single instant, nothing would ever be the same between you again and  the 1000 ocean void vanished.

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