Looks like tonight is another sleepless night and it has nothing to do with my beautiful baby girl who is an excellent sleeper. I woke up a few minutes ago after having an extremely good and extremely bad dream all in one.
I have been having a really hard time feeding my daughter lately because if I try to give her a bottle when she is awake, she just plays with the nipple and drools out her formula (which is a mommy-shaming topic I will save for another time.). Some people have said she's teething, some have said that she is advanced and is just ready for real food, and a couple people have said that it's something I am doing. Neither my husband not our pediatrician think that it is my fault (though I was told that my going back to work may be partially to blame - another topic for later.)
In addition to the feeding issues, I have experienced a couple of bouts with back pain equivalent to what I experienced during labor which is possibly attributable to the Mirena I had put in a little over a month ago. I did it for my husband's sake, but he has yet to benefit since it is still waging war on my body, trying to establish it's territory.
On top of all of this, I am dealing with the aftermath of the previously mentioned family friend's actions and feeling like I have no family because this person is checking out and my dad is far too occupied with a woman he met at the casino whom I fear is trying to take advantage of him. He doesn't come around much anymore, and when he does he is always in a hurry to go meet up with his newfound friend.
So tonight I dreamt that our daughter was once again having a difficult time eating so I decided to try something new. I pulled the nipple out of the bottle but it tore and before I could get up to get a new one, our baby girl got up on her hands and knees and crawled across the room. I called to my husband to come and look and when he did, our little girl appeared to grow instantly and got up and walked across the room. I decided to hurry and run to get a new nipple before I missed anything else. I opened the door to go to the kitchen and instead found myself in the bathroom. I looked over to the bathtub and saw my mom with her head tilted back under the water and her eyes closed. I pulled her out of the tub and she was cold and lifeless. I tried doing chest compressions and got some water to come out, but she was still lifeless. I screamed and screamed for my dad, but he didn't come. This is when I woke up.
I think that with everything that is going on - raising a beautiful daughter without her here to offer advice; losing friends because of how I choose to parent; and watching my dad drift further and further away - I feel like I'm losing my mom all over again. I miss her every day and it tears me apart that she never got to have a grandchild of her own (blood related) while she was still with us. I know she would have been such a huge part of my baby girl's life that my heart also hurts not just for what I am missing, but for what my precious daughter is missing.
Praying now that putting this all into writing will help it get out of my mind for a little while so that I might get some sleep.
Monday, January 5, 2015
Monday, December 29, 2014
Fired Up
I have been thinking about starting this blog for quite a while and just haven't made the time, but some recent statements made by someone I thought was a friend, or even almost family, have me reeling and unable to sleep. This is a place where I intend to talk about mommy-shaming and the ways that moms, new and old, attack and judge one another rather than supporting each other.
So, here's what prompted me to finally start this blog: We have a family friend who claims herself to be like a mother to me. She came to see my baby girl when she was first born and once a couple of weeks after. A few weeks after that, she offered to come help me out by watching my baby girl for a couple of hours while I worked, but on the day that was supposed to happen, she sent a message to my husband less than two hours before that to tell him that she wasn't feeling up to it. I was kind of disappointed because I had been looking forward to the help, but I wasn't entirely surprised - that's why I had never asked her for help.
Fast forward two months later, this family friend has not seen our baby since mid-September except once very briefly in a public place. She has not made any attempt to contact me since the day she had said she would watch our baby girl, but I didn't worth too much about it because I knew we would see her at Christmas because she had invited us. The week before Christmas she told us she wasn't doing Christmas so we should come see her after. On Friday (the day after Christmas) I sent her a message to see if she would be home to come visit and she said no, but she would be home Saturday evening.
Our baby is a fussy eater a lot of the time, especially in unfamiliar environments, so we rearranged our Saturday schedule to fit this friend in and still be home in time to feed our daughter at home where she is comfortable. I checked with her Saturday afternoon just to make sure they'd still be home and she responded several hours later, right before we were going to head over and said that she was busy cleaning and wanted to make sure she could vacuum dog and cat hair before we came and wanted us to come Sunday after church. I said we already had plans Sunday but invited her to come over to our house if she was concerned about the mess. She declined and accused me of not understanding her struggles, though she had never asked how I was or what I might be going through. There was a lot of back and forth where I foolishly attempted to get her to understand my struggles and she basically accused me of being lazy because I can't always come to her.
So now to the mommy-shaming part... When my husband made the attempt to defend me, she told him that she's known a lot of moms and that I'm the first person she's ever known who thought it was difficult to take a four month old out, which I never actually said. The reality is that we do take her out, and in most cases she does great. But what I did say is that we shouldn't be expected to constantly have her out because that's what is more convenient for someone else. Because I expressed a need for people in my life who are supportive, this person even went so far as to tell my husband that her kids were sometimes fussy too and she never had help (though I doubt that she was trying to simultaneously care for her child and work a production driven office job from home, so I'm not sure why she finds it appropriate to judge me and my abilities as a mother.) I'm sure her own mother would be very disappointed to hear her say that she had never helped. The reality is that I am only trying to do what is best for my baby girl and it hurts to have someone close to me accuse me of being a bad mom because I don't do things her way and because I have admitted that I need help sometimes.
I apologize for the lengthy post and in the future my posts will be focused on more specific mommy-shaming topics.
So, here's what prompted me to finally start this blog: We have a family friend who claims herself to be like a mother to me. She came to see my baby girl when she was first born and once a couple of weeks after. A few weeks after that, she offered to come help me out by watching my baby girl for a couple of hours while I worked, but on the day that was supposed to happen, she sent a message to my husband less than two hours before that to tell him that she wasn't feeling up to it. I was kind of disappointed because I had been looking forward to the help, but I wasn't entirely surprised - that's why I had never asked her for help.
Fast forward two months later, this family friend has not seen our baby since mid-September except once very briefly in a public place. She has not made any attempt to contact me since the day she had said she would watch our baby girl, but I didn't worth too much about it because I knew we would see her at Christmas because she had invited us. The week before Christmas she told us she wasn't doing Christmas so we should come see her after. On Friday (the day after Christmas) I sent her a message to see if she would be home to come visit and she said no, but she would be home Saturday evening.
Our baby is a fussy eater a lot of the time, especially in unfamiliar environments, so we rearranged our Saturday schedule to fit this friend in and still be home in time to feed our daughter at home where she is comfortable. I checked with her Saturday afternoon just to make sure they'd still be home and she responded several hours later, right before we were going to head over and said that she was busy cleaning and wanted to make sure she could vacuum dog and cat hair before we came and wanted us to come Sunday after church. I said we already had plans Sunday but invited her to come over to our house if she was concerned about the mess. She declined and accused me of not understanding her struggles, though she had never asked how I was or what I might be going through. There was a lot of back and forth where I foolishly attempted to get her to understand my struggles and she basically accused me of being lazy because I can't always come to her.
So now to the mommy-shaming part... When my husband made the attempt to defend me, she told him that she's known a lot of moms and that I'm the first person she's ever known who thought it was difficult to take a four month old out, which I never actually said. The reality is that we do take her out, and in most cases she does great. But what I did say is that we shouldn't be expected to constantly have her out because that's what is more convenient for someone else. Because I expressed a need for people in my life who are supportive, this person even went so far as to tell my husband that her kids were sometimes fussy too and she never had help (though I doubt that she was trying to simultaneously care for her child and work a production driven office job from home, so I'm not sure why she finds it appropriate to judge me and my abilities as a mother.) I'm sure her own mother would be very disappointed to hear her say that she had never helped. The reality is that I am only trying to do what is best for my baby girl and it hurts to have someone close to me accuse me of being a bad mom because I don't do things her way and because I have admitted that I need help sometimes.
I apologize for the lengthy post and in the future my posts will be focused on more specific mommy-shaming topics.
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