(no subject)

[altarflame]

I've become really ambivalent about livejournal and fantasized about deleting my lj without a backwards glance. I was writing about this in a letter to rainingkisses when I realized that it's because I don't feel like I can be honest here anymore.

I don't lie. But I don't give the whole story, either; I don't have the same time or energy to give to blogging that I used to and so it usually seems like a lot to get into to tell the rest.


Basically, I've had really bad, sudden spurts of anger that are so deep and viscious that they freak me out, for several months now. Times that I have to grit my teeth and curse under my breath. I've never gotten angry like that in my life. Ever. I'm EXTREMELY NOT ANGRY under normal circumstances.

I have horrible recurring nightmares two to three times per week, for several months now. Really bad nightmares. I'm scared to go to sleep pretty often. They're all themed the same way.

I'm bursting with short story ideas. They flow out rapidly whenever I get a chance to write one. And they're gripping and engaging and well-written and nothing like anything I'd normally write. Or read. They're "not to my taste" and more than once I've said, "I don't know where these stories are coming from". They're about suicide as a freeing, liberating experience, or self-mutilation, neither of which I have any experience with, among other similar veins.

And, ok, all mothers get overwhelmed, right? And I have a lot on my plate, right? Right, except that normally, I DON'T get overwhelmed nearly as easily as other people do, that's why I'm generally speaking a very happy person with several small, closely spaced kids, and we do things like take road trips and go out to dinner with all of them regularly. But I get overwhelmed sometimes, now. In the past two months especially, I get deeply, crazily overwhelmed to where I feel hopeless, and helpless, and miserable. Of course there have been times in the past when Isaac wouldn't sleep for what seemed like a week straight or when we just added a new baby that I had that hopeless miserable feeling for the length of a crying jag or "the witching hour" moms complain about right before dinner, but now that feeling can last an entire day and I have to just go through the motions. And those days can come four in a week. Sometimes one right after the other, "still" rather than "again". While by normal standards we don't have any help, by OUR standards we have more help than ever before, as Grant Sr and Teresa are both willing to stay with the oldest four for an afternoon and my sister has re-opened periodic babysitting as an option, including Elise. Also, Grant has a much more family-oriented schedule than he did before. And, Elise is over a year old, all the other ones are a year older, as I'm writing this I haven't heart peep one out of any of them, they're all on the other side of the house playing independantly. It just seems like things should seem easier now, not harder. But they're harder anyway.


It's hit me as a realization that should have been more obvious, that I'm screwed up in the head from our last year and a half. Or longer.

Does anyone realize how hard I tried to have JAKE naturally? Driving an hour north to the birth center for every appointment, health food store supplements for my platelets, bananas every freaking day getting choked down for my platelets, overdue by weeks, THREE FUCKING DAYS OF HARD LABOR? Jake. That botched up surgery with the lopsided extra long scar and the screwed up bladder and him getting an infection and ending up in the NICU, in the NICU during a hurricane, hematoma on my spine and waiting to see if they'd have to operate on my BACK, that was then. All that was separate and before my deliberations with Elise's pregnancy even started, calling and emailing and calling and emailing DOZENS and dozens of people and thinking we'd fly someone in who had a stroke at the last minute, wanting so badly to keep her out of the NICU where Isaac and Jake had ended up, wanting to not die on an operating table after everyone told me I should never have another c-section, 3 should be the maximum, we sold my old car. We had a yard sale. We put our whole tax check towards it and cleared it with a dozen different clients and had people going to check places out for us, and drove 3 days to live two months in the SLEET, the freaking snow and hail and sleet with 3 layers of clothes on everyone in an apartment where people called the police if Jake ran across the floor....with my stupid little bracelets on that meant people were rooting for me and my stupid little candles all lined up on the dresser and this STUPID FUCKING BLOG for the whole world to watch...working on myself, affirmations, blessingway and belly cast. It looks different from this angle, let me tell you.

Nancy thinks I should be a midwife. I laugh at her when she says it. Everytime I see a baby born on tv or hear a birth story or read a birth story I'm some kind of wreck. I'm not going to live in that headspace as a career.


All that stuff with Elise? All that "Everything that makes a person an individual destroyed", will she open her eyes, "Mrs Walker you need to wait out here the nurse will come out and explain things to you in a minute" stuff? I've never hurt like that before. I've never wanted to take pain killers to dull emotional pain. I've never slept to escape hurt. I've never felt like the whole world was just turned upside down and couldn't be real. I feel like she took years off of my life, sitting up nights watching for seizures and spending the night at the hospital for a fever and...I don't know what to say about it. But it was so all consuming and deep and difficult that I totally ignored my own physical pain until it was debilitating, and then I kept trudging on with therapies for her and lessons for A and A and carting everyone to ballet and karate and AWANA all for a whole month while I was actually DYING. I have paper journals expressing my confusion and depression that I felt I was dying, but how could that be, what would be causing it, the dermatogist said my moles weren't cancer and the surgeon said my hernia wasn't intestinal and the md said my thyroid was fine...I remember Laura acting worried, saying I was pale and me telling her, one day you'll come over and I'll have my hand over my forehead and I'll be singing "Swing Low Sweet Chariot". AND I WAS RIGHT! HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN RIGHT? What a lot of nonsense to have actually been dying, but yeah, I waited until two more days would have been, you know, death. Because of Elise. I couldn't leave Elise and go to the hospital. Flawed weird mother logic, but who else was going to watch her for seizures at night, make her appointments, do her therapies all day long, nurse her and wear her and love her and *make sure she was ok*? I never had any idea if she even WAS ok.

So yeah. Thinking I might die in THAT surgery, having my surgeon tell me he was really surprised by how well it went because he thought I was going to die or at least need a colostomy bag, but that was weeks later after I woke up in the ICU full of tubes and surrounded by nurses who were constantly looking at the heart monitors with worried expressions. Grant brought Annie to see me and I was so upset because I couldn't stay all the way awake, I couldn't smile and talk normal and I could tell she was fraid of all the STUFF...

Until I came home, pale and hobbling and swollen, to see Elise for the first time in 10 days, and have her BIGGER, doing new things, amivalent to me, and me unable to lift or hold her for WEEKS afterward. Just yelling for someone else to come whenever she raised her arms to me, or fell and got hurt. Asking people to lower her into my lap so she could nurse. Trying to somehow let down the wall I'd put up in my mind, against all of my kids, while they acted nervous about me, scared of my belly, and asked other people for anything they needed. I waited to be able to go to the bathroom and panicked whenever it was hard and got my wound packed regularly for the second time in a year and, you know, sometimes there would be really incredible moments when I was so glad to be alive.

I found gray hairs for the first time last year. I know I can die, now. Sometimes I feel like I'm living on borrowed time, like I'm dead in some alternate reality, like this is all very surreal. Laura told me a month after I was discharged that I still wasn't really back home yet. I get bitter now, periodically, whereas prior to 2007 I couldn't even relate to the idea of bitterness, and thought it was almost comical. When I imagine ever getting pregnant again - like through a condom even though I'm not ovulating, or post-vasectomy as the .whatever% - I'm sad to find that I'd really wish I were more capable of considering an abortion, and that I WILL NOT ever hope for a natural birth again, period. That is over for me.


I don't give myself a lot of credit, you know, it doesn't make sense to me that I should be "having problems" now, when "everything is fine". I mean, you know, Elise - she walks and talks! She figures out problems, her attachments seem in order, she's beautiful and advanced in all skill sets across the board. And me...I'm scarred up and have to wear this stupid thing, and I might have problems down the line or need future surgery...ok, I'm going to stop with the qualifiers because they undermine the whole "but basically I'm fine!" thing, don't they? We are basically fine. And way better off financially, we own a house! We have new cars! We have no debt!

I don't know why it's so hard to just wipe the sweat off my forehead, go "Whew! That was all close!" and then move on with my life. But it is. I mean apparently it is. I move on as best I can, I play with my kids, we go places, they make me laugh, I have a sex drive and a very happy marriage and I cook good food, albeit a little less often.

But I have these nightmares. And gray hairs. And this awareness of how often I go to the bathroom. And this bitterness. And when I start to (not lj, creatively) write, really grotesque psychodrama spills out onto the page. I get angry, I get overwhelmed.


Grant and I were both really thrown for a loop by Isaac being admitted and having surgery last month. So soon after Brian's seizure had me up at Miami Children's with Laura. Nothing in this life seems certain to me, not one little bit. Assuming made an ass out of me, ha ha ha. When Isaac was back home and vomiting green bile and we were on the phone with the surgeon in the middle of the night trying to figure out whether he'd need to be rushed back and opened up for real (not just laparoscopic)...you wanna talk about nervous wrecks. Grant was nauseus, he left and came back, he paced and cried and he's been the strong one, you know, for me to lean on for over a year now.

That is a big focus of my thoughts lately: strength. Everyone says I'm so strong, but I find myself feeling very burdened by my own standards. I am smothering under my own inability to send the kids to bed without being read to. I sometimes LONG to be able to drop Ananda, Aaron and Isaac off at public school without a second thought every day, and go pick them up 7 hours later, educated, excercised and socialized and ready for some time to veg out in front of the tv. I didn't snap at the kids when Elise was in the NICU. Because they were far from home and had just had me dissapear into the hospital for 6 days. I didn't snap at them or stop cooking them good dinners when I was in terrible, TERRIBLE pain and septic, because Daddy was gone working almost all the time and we'd had a new baby and they deserve _______. I felt guilty that Ananda missed ballet during my hospitalization and recovery, because it made the recital really hard for her at the end of the year. I fantasize often, lately, of making Jake and Elise go to sleep in their own damn beds whether they like it or not, when *I* say it's bedtime.

And I have a BIG pet peeve, lately, about attachment parents who try to say it's easier to AP. Because it IS NOT. It's natural. It has benefits for mom, too. It's better for the kids, and it is worth it, but it is also work. I feel like AP'ers are trying to sell AP, so they want to make a case for how convenient it is. Like the Christians who try to sell God with loud bands, fun services, cake afterwards, promises of riches if you have faith, and nary a mention of repentance or Hell in sight.

Anyway. I don't know who I am anymore. I'm having an identity crisis. I can't hold a train of thought. All of my judgements and ideals seem fluid. My faith in God is forever changed: I believe He's there, and in charge, and listening, and I even believe He loves me, but I also understand in a very concrete and somewhat infuriating way that what He has planned may not be what I want, like, or feel prepared to deal with. So I will still pray, and worship, and be thankful, but I get kind of resigned and confused about the whole "asking for what you want" part of it. I still feel like I was led to Boston, I really think he "used" Elise, after having so, so many people tell me that she and other's generosity in reference to her sparked or reignited their faith in God. But I have some issues with being used that way, I can't deny it. I try not to, I don't want to, we talk about it, let's say that :p I feel burdened by being someone who would never stop believing and trusting in the same way I feel burdened by being a mother that mothers through it all: I wish very much sometimes, lately, that I could be like Mindy or Jackie and just drop them off somewhere for the afternoon and then come back a week later to get them. Or even a parent with options like my mother had, to drop the kids off at a Grandparent's house for the weekend. I wonder what it must be like to be a Christian who can just renounce it all when the going gets tough. I wonder how thin I can freaking stretch, without rips.

Comments

[sandramort.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it helps at all but considering how much you've been through, I still think you're holding it all together remarkably well. Absolutely nothing you said up there sounds abnormal -- you're only able to handle so much stress before you react to it, kwim? You're thinking about writing stories about hurting yourself, not actually DOING it. That seems like a safe outlet for those feelings to ME. But I'd also say that finding time for therapy could be helpful or talking to your (pastor? minister? I get those words mixed up). Leaning on your Faith at a time like this is a good thing, IMO. Or both. And if you have someone who can hold down the fort, maybe it would be a good time to have some Me Time to help you destress. Exercise classes maybe? Some creative art classes so you can work through those feelings?

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Thank you, for all of this.

My time to write helps, the excercise I've been getting helps...I'm trying to work in more "me" now that Elise is older, and I think that is part of what's opened the floodgates, so to speak.

We're going to try to work in some kind of therapy. *sigh* ...It's not going to be easy, we're trying to "work in" a LOT.

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_delphiki_/]

Anyway. I don't know who I am anymore. I'm having an identity crisis. I can't hold a train of thought. All of my judgements and ideals seem fluid.

I called yesterday to talk about this exact thing. I think the way you feel is normal. The last year has been a rough one for us too and 7 weeks ago I gave consent for life support to be removed from my grandmother (with the rest of my family but I was the last to give consent)- something I know has forever altered me. I've never been this scary angry in my life- where I feel like I could scream and scream and never touch the end of the anger.

I wonder about God, which I talked to you about.

I really hope you can be gentle with yourself and I do think this is normal. Especially this anger you are dealing with.

I'll be thinking about you.

[zulupetalz.livejournal.com]

Do you think that part of the reason that these feelings are bubbling up to the surface now is because you don't have enough time to sit and reflect on things that have happened? I mean, you must be so busy every minute of the day. Just speculating that maybe you need some "me" time. You've been through a lot.

[yolen.livejournal.com]

You've been through a HELL of a lot. I don't blame you for bing angry and sad. I know you are tremendously busy, but would it be feasible for you to go to a therapist? Perhaps you could use an unbiased person to vent to? And talk through all the things you've been through and are feeling? I don't know what else to say other than, I think you are an amazing person. Really. And I sincerely hope that in time you will less angry and more at peace.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I was actually theorizing to Grant that maybe all of this is getting suddenly harder to deal with BECAUSE I have a tiny bit more time to myself and so I'm allowing myself to deal with it...Elise being bigger and stabilized, us having a bit more help and him more time at home, this and that.

I am going to try to make time. He's very on board with it, which validates me big time and also helps with practicalities...not that I'd expect anything less from him, but you know, I'm hard on myself some time and just feel like now is not the time I need help, now everything is fine - you know?

Thank you, btw.

[bicrim.livejournal.com]

You have PTSD. It's not just some catchphrase, it's a real psychiatric diagnosis, and I'm pretty damn sure you have it. It won't get better on it's own, it gets entrenched with time, not better. Please find a good therapist, one with trauma experience, preferably EMDR experience. This is serious. It's a normal reaction to abnormal events, and your life has been one abnormal event after another for a long, long time now. As you are becoming aware, there is only so long that you will be able to hide this, and the symptoms tend to get worse when they are pushed down and not dealt with.

I'm a therapist myself, and I've seen people go through a hell of a lot less than you have and be seriously fucked up from it. It's a wonder you are as sane as you are.

I would be happy to talk to you about this if you want. -Kristin

[brighidh.livejournal.com]

I agree with the suggestion of PTSD. I was also diagnosed with it and also went through EMDR this past fall and winter. It's difficult and intense, but it worked.

[psyko-kitty.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this. <3

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

In theory, I can and have accepted that the greater good of inspiring faith in so many was a worthwhile reason to put Elise and Grant and I through Elise's ordeal. I can even feel she's "special", and that her name was well chosen and put in my head for a reason, and be grateful that throughout the whole thing, I was reassured she would be alright in the end by a VERY uncanny devotional book, my incredible husband, and God just staying very, very close. In reality, I sometimes still take issue with it. I have always said that I wouldn't change anything in my life because the events have made me who I am, bad and good, and I want to still feel that way, but really...if I could go back in time and give birth in that apartment and come home with no complications for either of us, well, that would be awfully tempting.

As for me? The sponge? I don't know, man. I'll tell you something I've never told anyone on the internet before, and with the internet "Watching" - when they told me that there was a sponge missing and they had to go get the x-ray machine to make sure it wasn't in me, before I could leave the OR...I felt I could not handle it, if I had to be opened up again. I had just been whisked out of my apartment nad to the ER in the middle of the night, for the next surgery I was so afraid of, that happened as an emergency situation, I was shaking in transition, scared to death for my SILENT baby that had been rushed away...and they wanted to pull out my fresh stitches and cut it all apart again? I was horrified beyond all reason, and I prayed harder than I think I ever had before, to please please please if there was a sponge in there, hide it, just don't let them see it there and go in again, no matter what. Like a mantra with every bit of my will and concentration - I even told Grant, They can leave it, I don't care, I'll live with a sponge inside me but I'm not getting cut on a cut. He thought I was kidding.

But yeah. This little confession, I know this sounds dorky, but it made me feel guilty about the whole lawsuit thing. I didn't want the sponge to be found, I didn't want to be opened up again, I begged that they would miss it...how could I sue? Doctors, nurses, friends, family, Grant and the resulting medical bills convinced me otherwise, I guess. Though I did contact them directly and accept a settlement with no lawyer involved, in the end.

So! Isn't that nuts? Does that change the "fate" part any? Or the God who loves me? I don't know.

Something that has given me some closure about it being "worth it", is the incredible things we've been able to do for other people since we got the settlement. The settlement itself, NO HOW NO WAY does it make up for even a little...but all the aid for people in developing nations, the private donations to people who needed it that I care about, the giving back to churches that have been there for us...maybe that makes it worth it.

[heavynleigh.livejournal.com]

Once again I am amazed at the parallel of our emotions. I was going to say you have no idea, but you really do. I wish I could tell you how to fix it but I have no idea. I'm barely treading water most days.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I always just want to hug you when you talk about birth frustrations, really I do.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I haven't ever actually directly fantasized about suicide...prior to last year I didn't relate to suicidal thoughts AT ALL, and I still haven't gotten that far myself...there was a point, in the ICU, with the pain so bad and the tube so irritating down my throat and the recovery just seeming like such a mountain to climb after a month of pain and a year of hell...that I prayed, and said, I want to live. But if I have to die from this, can it please be RIGHT NOW. Not in an hour or tomorrow or next week, but either years and years away, or right now, no more, let me rest.

That was what I consider the lowest point in my whole life. I've never put it on the internet before because it was really hard even to admit to Grant, for me, for some reason. Like I gave up on them, or something.



Anyway, the stories aren't actually about me, they're fictional third person stories, but I mean...it's pathetically obvious where the material is coming from, sometimes. At least to me.

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

I'm here. I'm praying.

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

I don't really know this pain. I won't pretend that I do. But i do know pain. And I understand the anger. I understand the bitterness.

The night after I found out the truth about Brad....I had a knife in my hands, Tina. I held it in my hands and rubbed in over my arms and wrists and fantasized.

After Leslie was murdered and I had a miscarriage in the same week....I wondered again. About how to escape this uncertainty and anger and just...how could God let this happen? I know cliche, but... I know about those dark, dark, dark places.

Anyway, I'm praying. And I want to call you and talk, but I don't want to bug you so...let me know if you want that. Or not.

[julieannie.livejournal.com]

I second the thought of PTSD. I come from a completely different end of the spectrum. I had cancer. I lived. I survived. And I can't move on. I have so much anger and rage and seeing you type it out makes me wonder why I still can't show that anger. I just build it up inside and become bitter and depressed. My doctor diagnosed me and I just don't like the thought of it but I hate my regular thoughts more too. To overcome a hard life obstacle isn't the end. Surviving and living with it and thinking about it can sometimes be harder than the initial event. I just want to cry seeing myself in your words and knowing how it's not fair for either of us to feel that way.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind my asking, do you have any lasting ramifications? Like inch long hair, scars, ongoing appointments, restricted activities? I think sometimes that that is a big part of my struggle...getting up and putting on this support garment with it's 25 hard to close hook and eyes down my middle every day, and only being able to wear clothes that hide it's thick straps and high back, and getting nervous anytime I'm a little bloated, all that sort of bs.

In a way I know what you mean, but I don't mean to belittle cancer, because, well damn. That is terrifying...but...I think I have SOME idea of how it would be. Like when you meet someone now you would feel they don't really know you at all unless they know you had cancer, as if you had to tell them right away so they get who they're talking to. It's really bizarre, at least, for me to talk to people at the playground or in PATH who are new, who look at Elise and I and just have no idea she isn't a baby who's always been fine and figure I've been raising her as a normal healthy mom since she was born.

...Of course, it's totally bizarre in a totally different way when I found out they DO know what we've been through because they were reading this since they got some mass email, but that's a whole other thing :p

[rollingsuitcase.livejournal.com]

I think i'm going through something similar. i wish i was as verbal as you are so that i could try and explain it, but I understand. Whatever the case, i'm really glad you're still around, anger and all. I hope you're able to get out of the dark place soon. But, write, write away. I know when I'm there drawing about it helps so much.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I often look at your drawings with great fascination because you manage to capture your feelings...I wish I could do that sometimes. I wish I could dig my hands into wet squishy paint and smear the story into paper without any words to get in the way. I don't know how to express any other way, though.

[brighidh.livejournal.com]

Not reading the other comments, but I hope you don't leave LJ.

I had traumatic births and ironically as Nancy has suggested and my own midwife suggested.... I became a midwife. I've since witnessed difficult births that sent me into an emotional tailspin the like of which you have described accurately in this journal entry. The trauma, the depression, the frustration, the neverending edginess, the fear, the inability to cope, to get on with it. I came to a dead standstill this past fall and had to go into therapy to deal with it.

Attachment parenting is work, plain and simple ... when you boil it down. Great for everyone, yeah...but a lot of work. And we don't have the community to help wean the kids into everyone else's niche as is the way with other cultures. The kids don't become part of the AP community that teaches and nurtures and such, because it doesn't exist. We still live isolated from everyone else. I've left off a bit of it because my husband isn't here anymore (took a job elsewhere until we can move to join him) and I can't deal with my job and my 3 kids and never being able to come up for air or have a few minutes to myself. I nearly hoped a recent encounter between us had proved a conception, but I'm afraid of this path again and I'd have to voluntarily pursue another c-section. I lost faith in my body, too.

My faith in 'God' has been severely challenged. I very much understand that. I can't call myself a Christian anymore and haven't for a long while.

Anyway, I'm writing to say that while I've not been on death's door with the sort of issues you have personally faced nor had an event such as the entire situation around Elise's birth, I do have some small glimpse into it. And not being honest in your journal is the least of your issues, really -- or perhaps a symptom of the continued expectations you put on yourself. When I caught myself not being honest, I backed up, took a breath and dove in to start over again with the sheer brutal honesty that is my life and ... to some degree, your's.

I encourage you to continue here..it's an outlet, a connection and it's the truth of existence to share that folks have difficulties. Not necessarily that it is your burden to educate the masses, but knowledge is what helps us all. And does form the 'tie that binds'. If it is at all possible for you to see a counselor, I suggest it.

Just some thoughts....

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

The lack of community is HUGE. Just having my sister to talk to on the phone and hang out with many days is such a lifesaver, for she and I both. And both of us just freaking CLING to things like PATH or LLL meetings where we can interact with other like-minded moms. It's really hard to tune yourself into your kids and devote yourselves to them so wholeheartedly, in a world that sees little value in that and is operating on a totally different set of priorities. It may take a village but it's seen as very presumptuous to assume anyone but you should be "responsible" in any way for kids you chose to have, and if you need a break because you're doing things other people think are superfluous or "punishing yourself", there aren't exactly volunteers knocking down the door...

And, don't worry...I was at a kind of crossroads, like, am I going to leave LJ or write it all out? And I wrote it. So, here I am.

[eiretamicha.livejournal.com]

♥

[neurotic-orchid.livejournal.com]

You're in my thought and prayers.

from eBirdie

[(Anonymous)]

I will pray for you. None of that is easy stuff and no wonder you feel the things you do!

[hearts-refuge.livejournal.com]

.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I am really touched by your first line, because I recently read you saying you skim often and thought, damnitt, I'm sure she skims me then because I'm long-winded as hell :p

There is definitely a sense of belonging and security, I think, that comes from being in a large family...Elise has a lot less "Affection from mom" time just because she's off playing with the other kids. I actually sometimes realize, if I'm making dinner or updating this thing, that I haven't seen her in like 20 minutes or a half hour O_o

Typically we've had kids out of the bed sometime between 8 and 18 months, depending on the child. But, Jake was an exception because of several factors: he was the first one to not be a pain in the butt about it, meaning he slept through in his own little space after nursing to sleep, didn't kick or hog or otherwise disturb us, and we were all just happy with the arrangement. And, we didn't have a bed or a place for a bed to put him in. So, it seemed obvious to not put him and I both through the sadness of separation just to stick him out on the couch or something. We just upgraded to a king size bed soon after Elise was born. Now, I'm starting to want him out, just because he's getting big and taking up more space and he's starting to have a bed-wetting problem that's getting old fast. But, I actually do nurse him to sleep on the couch about half the time anyway, and then he comes to us at like 4-5 am to sleep the rest of the time in bed...Ananda, Aaron and Isaac share another room and have since Isaac was 2, prior to which he had a porta crib in our room from about 16 months.

I don't know, the biggest thing that kills me really about AP'ing at this point is that I can't MAKE them take naps. I have to go through this gradual process of nursing them down that may or may not work. I remind myself of how A and A were forced to take naps whether they liked it or not, in beds they couldn't get out of, at these ages, and how awesome it was for me to sit and watch Oprah with a sandwhich undisturbed, and how A and A are JUST FINE, but I just...can't do it :/

I cherish the nights too, they just happen FAR too late for me and at the expense of rest.

[julierocket.livejournal.com]

I read this a few times. The page has been sitting open for abour half an hour now while I try to think of what to say in response.

I guess I don't really have one. I just want you to know that I read all of this, and I feel somewhat guilty that I was sitting here all this time thinking, "Wow, Tina's just got it all together, how incredible!" and never really thought about if you actually DID or not, and asked how you really, truly, actually were. It's so hard to see these things through the computer but still, I never really thought about it.

I'm working on a project for you now. Trying to figure out what it will be, exactly, but I feel like I want to GIVE you something, and I can't think of anything to buy, so I default to "make." I'll send it to you when it's ready.

Much love to you. ♥

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Well, I do and I don't, I suppose? I mean there are so many perspectives to look at anything with. Typical day goes like:

-get up at new earlier time with our better schedules, get the kids up one by one with lots of talk and cuddling, some nursing and some picking up the kids' room. It's a happy good time, often adorable.
-check my email, read my comments, have A and A do their chores, get us some breakfast, brush teeth
-clean up a lot of the living room, dishes, start some laundry, answer questions, feel glad we're on a better schedule
-talk to my sister/mom/Grant on the phone, get a little neurotic from feeling overwhelmed with the day but laugh some, as well
-depending on what day it is, go to PATH up at the park and socialize with cool moms, or LLL, or Game Night in the evening that's a little frustrating because Jake and Elise go crazy, or drop the kids at AWANA, or whatever day it is...if not a "day", go for a long walk or grocery shopping or who knows, all feeling a little more sensitive than I should while out and more likely to turn up the music and say "No more questions right now, talk amongst yourselves" in the van than I used to be...but we're still out, with all our supplies, with shoes on everyone and clothes that mostly match
-mail comes, often lately involving packages, letters or cards, medical bills, legal things with new cars and houses, etc; I usually also need to send some email, make some phone call, or something like that, re: the new house
-sit and do schoolwork with A and A, maybe while doing dinner prep or maybe in between chores or maybe with a baby on my hip...feel frustrated and tedious but also validated and proud, definitely don't lose my temper during this time
-Crazy dinner time, where deciding what to have makes me feel like I want to hit something or run away, making it around everyone gets really difficult, and I feel as though I've been busy all day and need a break now, please and thank you...Grant is home and I go crazy knowing he has to go to bed soon, major anxiety trying to get to kid reading in time to allow for grown up time of any sort before he's sleeping. Kid reading time is a great time for me, though, that I really enjoy and feel relaxed during.
-Extreme feelings of hopelessness and desperation when he's asleep, Jake and Elise are still awake, I barely saw him, they're not even tired, the kitchen and dining room are still a wreck, clothes are still in the washer, I'm DONE with motherhood for the day but it's just too bad, etc etc. I stomp around and grit my teeth and curse at this point, sometimes end up crying in Grant's arms for a few minutes while he falls asleep, sometimes slam the fridge door and count with my eyes closed or go outside alone for a couple of minutes of quiet, pacing...eventually cycle through nursing, feeling sorry and loving them, getting mad again (in a private way, they don't really get it directed at them), enjoying late night tv on the couch with one of them, struggling to stay awake in bed with one of them drifting off slooooooowly, doing the dishes feeling creeped out alone awake in the house, updating the lj or link hopping far too late as I savor the quiet, possibly enjoying writing letters or postcards to people
-doing my wash face, brush and floss teeth, moisturizer and deodorant routine and praying and generally avoiding bed until I get to it, sit up, prop myself, toss and turn, try to wake up Grant and get him to be nice to me, pray again, wish Elise would wake up and want my attention, etc etc because I'm scared that I'll have horrible nightmares when I fall asleep.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

yeah, i know...

[(Anonymous)]

I feel that way ( like a wreck) after I see or hear about natural births.....for example those shows on Discovery Health, where the woman goes into labor and seemingly effortlessly gives birth in a lovely pool of water, surrounded by supportive friends and family...ugh. It makes me cry and shake a little...privately of course.
Did you know Fiona ate some of Justin's anti-psychotics? She did it when she was 7 months old...she almost died. She was in a drug induced coma for 24 hours, she was in the hospital for 4 days. I died a little bit (a lot actually) when that happened. I have horrible dreams about it...I cry about it all the time. I cry about the other baby nightly. I make myself sick over it...
when I pulled into the clinic there was a man dressed in scrubs, covered in fake blood holding a poster of mutilated fetuses.....I see that in my haed nightly. I also see the colorless, pale, pale, pale thin doctor with the clammy hands...I see him looming over me asking me if I knew what was about to happen...
ugh, life is hard Tina. You could talk to me about this stuff....
-Sarah

Re: yeah, i know...

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

HOLY SHIT DUDE. OMG. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, damn. No, I had no idea. Geez. Yeah. And the other baby, oh Sarah, I wish I could hug you.

I said something once, that some childless people might find offensive, but it gets quoted around LJ now...I said "You think you know what it's like for your heart to break, before you're a mother, but really I don't think you even know how much heart you HAVE, for breaking, before you're a mother."

Anyway, yeah. Life is hard. Ugh.

[xxsuraynaxx.livejournal.com]

OMG I feel like I could have written that same post about a year after my youngest was born. You are not alone! Five children are a lot of children in todays standards. The world just isn't set up for it any more. It takes work... way more work than a lot of people realize.

I promise you that it gets better. I won't say easier, because as they grow there are more "things" that go on, but as they grow they are also easier to talk to, reason with, and really enjoy as their personalities grow into young adults.

Our oldest is now leaving the nest at 19. She is joining the army. The rest of ours are 17, 16, 14, and 9. The baby/toddler years were the hardest. I look back now and have NO IDEA how I got through them. I remember feeling like I couldn't be honest with how I really felt for fear some one would think I was totally nuts and undeserving of raising these kids.

Be easy on yourself... remember that there are other parents out here that totally understand what you are going through. We realize how much you love your kids. We also know how incredibly hard it is to raise so many of them. That doesn't mean we don't want to raise so many... it's just hard some times. We need places we can vent and not feel like the whole world is judging us.

*hugs* to you... and know that there are those of us who will not judge you, and who totally understand that life isn't always peachy and rosey, but that doesn't mean we would trade our lives for anything in the world.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

While I totally appreciate where you're coming from, I'm kind of weirded out by this comment because the five kids part isn't the hard part of all...it's the last year and a half's nonstop terrifying medical disasters. Jake slipped in so easily and I was doing great with four; I feel like five is wonderful, too, and we would have went on to have more if not for all these crappy circumstances...

ETA: I'm sorry if that sounded snippy, I was just trying to explain but when I reread I felt really bitchy, and didn't originally intend it that way. It IS hard to make the time to deal with the hard stuff because of the kids, so in that way it does get frustrating, and like I said in the post I did have my "length of a crying jag" spells in the past, too, because everyone gets overwhelmed sometimes.

[tikizeekbaby.livejournal.com]

You have to do what is right for you.

I agree that you're undoubtedly dealing with a crazy compounded PTSD, that you would have easily had with any ONE of the events you've gone through in the past couple years.

What also springs to mind is this may be the first time in a long time you're coming out of a "babymoon" without going right back into a pregnancy, so to add to your already overloaded psychological and emotional plate, the hormones that normally help us handle small kids screaming all night with a smile are lowering and for the first time in a long time, you're having to assimilate having 5 kids instead of being able to have the "down time" where you're figuring out how to handle the stress after each addition.

Write those stories, I'm thinking your mind is finding it's own way to purge about the demons you've been dealing with... maybe they will become something you'd want to publish or perhaps you'll just find that at the end of each one you feel that a pressure has been released.

If you need to delete, delete, if you need to go private, go private, anything that helps your healing, your supporters are going to respect.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm not sure if I've written about it here, but this is a very transitional feeling time to me because I haven't ever had a baby turn 1 without getting pregnant, before.

When Annie turned 1, I was almost due with Aaron.
When Aaron turned 1, I was just over a HORRIBLE second trimester miscarriage.
When Isaac turned 1, I was about 2 months pregnant with Jake.
When Jake turned 1, I had just got pregnant with Elise.

And it does FEEL real now in a way it hasn't before, that we're saying "no more babies". Like I can step back and say, "ok...this is my family" in a way I couldn't before, before it was a work in progress. It ties in with buying a house for us as we are and not as we would grow to be, actually.

[failstoexist.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're feeling this way. you've had a LOT going on recently, and it's so absolutely understandable that it's going to take a long time to process. You've been so busy you really haven't been able to.

but if sending the kids to a class, or putting the little ones into their own bed, or giving yourself a break in some way will help...then do it. you deserve a break. it doesn't need to be all the time, and it doesn't erase everything else you're doing AP-wise. If you're being so completely stressed and everything about the arrangement, it might not be doing the family as a whole enough good to be worth risking your sanity.

But ultimately, what I think might help you is having someone to talk to--a therapist, perhaps. Someone who is NOT going through all this crap with you, whose feelings and needs you don't need to consider. I see you posting SO worried about how Ananda's going to react to you going to the hospital, can you be away from Elise, etc...but you can't just worry about yourself, your experience, and what you need. You've been through some seriously traumatic stuff. It's so much to handle even with help-you don't need to do it alone.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I've always had a sort of complex that way, I could stand up for my little brother or sister so easily and without a thought, if people were picking on them, but got beat up or teased with no defenses, myself.

I am persuing therapy, for sure...because, yeah, I can talk to Grant forever, but he is going through it to and I do think there is a difference there.