Struggle

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You never know what people are going through.

Some hide it with a smile

Some hide it with achieving great things

Some hide it by being the centre of attention, on stage

Most quietly go through their struggles, alone.

The older I get and the more I actually talk with people about what is really happening in their lives, I realise that we all have baggage of some sort. Some of it we acknowledge because it’s painstakingly clear, but some is so obscure and its like we unintentionally continue to act it out without awareness.

I have met so very many people in my life from all over the world due to living and working on popular destinations and from living abroad. I never really knew about the struggles that people were going through. I always kept it light and tried to just be present with what was going on at the time.

Now that I’ve gone through and am still going through my own struggles relating to the emotional pain I experienced leading up and birthing my son, I notice that more people open up to me about their own struggles. I had this happen as well after the head on collision, but not in the same way, now it is so raw, it is an emotional wound that I and other women that I have been speaking to, carry within themselves, not for show in the outside world, like a scar across the face.

Part of me thinks that the internal struggle that none can physically see is the harder to bear. At least when having a scar exposed, the topic is already on the table. However, for an internal scar, a wound that maybe hasn’t healed yet, it needs to be talked about in a loving space.

For most things in life I think that its best to just move on and focus on whats happening now and by doing so, life will automatically readjust to be the best for you. However, now having experienced this major internal trauma, I find it absolutely essential to talk about it, to feel all the emotions in order to process it as best as we can, and then allow time to lessen the burn.

I found myself bawling in a mother’s group that I am a part of yesterday as another woman shared her traumatic birthing experience, it felt all so real, and I know that we were so close to being like her, losing her baby at the final moment due to the same placental abruption that I had gone through with Baby A.

I felt the pain as it was so fresh, the wound was wide open. Some days I think I have been able to come to peace with it, and then other days I am completely amidst the throes of the memory. When Baby A came down with a cold around Mother’s Day all of those same painful emotions and fears came rushing back. I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t prepared for it, but all I could do was try to stay present, as present as possible.

My method of staying present when the feelings come rushing in when I am taking care of bubs and cannot have the time alone to really feel the feelings to let the go, I bring it back to right now, I remind myself that we are safe, we are alive, we are healthy, this is now, and I find some way to smile, to laugh.

I need to remember this, that everyone is struggling in some way the next time I get mad at someone on the road, or get frustrated with the way I see people behaving with their children. We all have something. We all have something to learn and grow from.

 

Dean Potter

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Today I learned of a Yosemite icon passing away

dying

doing what he loved doing

climbing the granite walls he spent so many years getting to know.

I met him really only once or twice

The most recent time was a few years ago

at a Climbing week in the park

He was humble, he got so much flack for getting sponsored for making money to do what he loved.

He was so drunk, didn’t really know how to handle being out and about

or maybe it was just all too much, who knows, I don’t. Drunk in Yosemite is commonplace, it is.

He was a hero though.

He broke records, he did the impossible, he was a true trailblazer in all senses.

He would free climb without any ropes up the massive walls of the valley

He would base jump in a flying squirrel like suit soaring down back to earth

An adventurer, someone who always pushed it

It’s no surprise that someone who always goes hard burns out in one way or another

dying while doing some extreme sport isn’t something new

However, I feel the loss of Dean Potter.

The image of the helicopter with body bags tied to the end of the rope

flying past Half Dome is with me.

May he rest in peace and may others still be inspired by his courageousness.

Baby: Tongue Tasting

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When I lean in and play with Baby A, getting my head in close to his chest, he then pulls me in with both hands, sticks his tongue out and tastes my forehead. It’s funny that this is his way of exploring things around him.

He love to look out over my shoulder, or at least have his eyes over my shoulders. When he is up there and I have a bare shoulder, he tastes the entire length sometimes. Its so funny how he becomes entranced with it too, just going back and forth like a typerwriter.

 

Finding His Feet

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Baby A is 4.5 months corrected, 6.5 physical age; 21 weeks corrected or 29 weeks physical.

The paediatrician said that I should only go by his corrected due date because it doesn’t matter if he was in the humidicrib or in the womb, he was still developing and wasn’t ready to be out yet! He also said that 2 months is a big time frame when you have only been alive for six months. Same goes for one year, and even two years, then it starts to even out a bit.

So now at 21 weeks he touches his toes and grabs his feet! He had casually done it before, but now he does it with such a sense of discovery and joy. His favourite time to really play with them is when he is on the change table, diaper free! He puts his cute plump short legs into the air and reaches his hands up and pulls on his feet and toes! The cutest thing ever! He lights up with his eyes taking it all in, and a huge smile paints his face with joy.

I love getting to watch his grow and discover!

First Mother’s Day

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Today was my first Mother’s Day as a mother. Poor Baby A was sick, sneezy, coughy, snotty with a hoarse voice and not feeling well. My husband was at work for a long 12 hour shift. Motherhood is not a glamourous affair. It is challenging, it takes all that I have.

My intention is not to come across as being ungrateful for the gift that I have, I know I am lucky to have a baby, to have a husband, to have a family. I just think that all too often, people gloss over the hardships that also go with having a baby. The sleepless nights, the sleep deprivation that becomes the new normal, the constant laundry due to slobber, vomit, pee, poo, for both bub and us. The necessity of always looking after someone else and having them be completely dependent upon you. The comforting of a bub when all you really want to do is crawl into bed and sleep yourself, but you cannot, you will not because someone else is counting on you. There are so many sacrifices that happen and I think we just jump to “well at least you have a healthy baby” comment or the half hearted threat that if you don’t enjoy this time now then you’ve missed out on the supposed glory days that you create by having a child, a baby.

There are so many really sweet quiet times. There are moments when I just hold baby and marvel at how perfect he is. There are times when his smile just melts my heart. There are times when we are looking into the mirror and I see him see himself and see him smile at himself because he’s now discovering who he is apart from me. The new discoveries he makes regularly keep it so interesting and precious. All of it is so precious.

So even though my husband was away and my baby was sick and I was at home all day with him, it was still a good Mother’s Day because I am a mother and this is how life is now. <3

Holding My Little Person

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I’ve just put my little person, our baby, Baby A to bed. He’s nearly 5 months corrected age and he’s been alive for nearly 7 months now. Alive… that’s actually not true, he’s been alive for a lot longer, he was alive within me before his first gasp of air nearly 7 months ago.

I rocked him to sleep and as I held him close I could feel my heart in the centre of my chest beating, expanding, deepening. My love for him has blossomed and continues to grow as the days pass. I held him in my arms and I just listened to him breathing, his sweet little breaths in and out. I felt his body with complete trust being held in my arms. I gazed upon his sweet innocent face looking so peaceful. I felt so much love. I still feel so much love.

Still I feel so tender from the NICU experience, about having him so early, about all of the complications in my pregnancy and with his birth. I am hoping that time will help heal this wounded heart of mine.

I am grateful that we made it out alive. I am grateful that we are healthy. I am grateful that we are a family. I am grateful that I continue to know love in ways that I never knew before.

 

Baby: Tired Signs

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Something I’ve learned is to put baby down at the first signs of being tired. These tired signs include:

fussiness

rubbing eyes

red eyebrows

general crankiness

Otherwise, if I don’t put him down then he becomes “overtired” and then he is nearly inconsolable. He will then cry and refuse to sleep.

NICU

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Prior to Baby A, I had no idea what a NICU was. Now I have full experience with the NeoNatal Intensive Care Unit which is for premature babies or babies who need special care.

He was 8 weeks early. 2 months. Born at 32 weeks of gestation. He was sent directly to the NICU within 15 minutes of being “born”. I use born in quotations because he was “born” through an emergency cesarian section after his heartbeat dropped. It was all so scary. Leading up to it was scary too. I had been in hospital on and off for 3 weeks. We had just gotten back to the city and the very next day I was in hospital.

These are things you don’t plan. They just happen. We planned on having Baby A and with full intention we created him on our wedding day. The plan was to have a water birth in the countryside in the regional hospital with a midwife that I had already been seeing. Then things went pear shaped.

It’s still hard for me to talk about but I know I need to. I still shed a tear hear or there when I hear about birth stories, or if someone really asks about mine. It’s brought up regularly since Baby A is developmentally 2 months younger than his actual physical age. Thankfully he has filled out quite a bit so he doesn’t have that skinny premie look anymore.

Baby A ended up staying in the NICU for 5 weeks after he was born. My husband and I had to leave the hospital without him. We returned to the hospital at least twice a day for those 5 weeks. I expressed milk so he would have breast milk to be tubed into his stomach instead of the formula. We could only get one cuddle a day in the beginning, when he was in the humidicrib, which looks like some space alien contraption with two holes to put your arms in. He needed help breathing even though I took the steroid shots before he was born to help with his lung development. He had cords and wires and tubes all hooked up to him, it was disheartening, disorienting and very surreal to see my baby like that.

 

So Scorpio

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Having a baby and becoming a mother has been very scorpio to me.

To simultaneously love something and not know if you can go further, but somehow do.

The crying, the laughter, the crying, the tears, the smiles, the poo.

The tired eyes, the exhaustion, the elated joy.

Going the distance for someone else.

Abandoned any sense of selfishness. It doesn’t exist as a mother.

Merging with bub because there is no other way, he is from me.

Sleep Deprivation

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Wondering if sleep will ever be something that I can do for hours at a time again. Wondering if parents actually just get used to not sleeping? Wondering how I somehow continue to cope with the lack of sleep and relatively function during the day.

I know it has a profound effect upon my brain and my ability to think and problem solve. I know it has a major effect upon the amount of caffeine I have been drinking to stay awake. A decaf latte and a herbal tea just aren’t cutting it for me these days.

Ready for baby to sleep through, or at least get four to five hours minimum in a row at night. Please.