The Real Guilt Trip

I thought I’d felt guilt before in my life. And then I became a mom – and it felt like any previous guilty feeling I’d had was a drop in the bucket.

Love at first sight

Then I became a mom of 2 tiny human beings and my world has flipped upside down. I think I have cried more due to guilty feelings than anything else during this first month at home with our newborn and my 3 year old.

No one, and I mean no one, is as good at giving you a guilt trip than an innocent little 3 year old. This morning, I overhear him telling daddy in the next room, “I miss mommy a really lot.” Meanwhile, I’m trying to sleep because I’ve been up multiple times to nurse and soothe baby sister. Guilty as charged.

Now that I’m starting to feel more human again after the debacle of my c-section recovery, I’ve been able to do bath time with Daxton and a few times – I’ve even had enough time to put him to bed as well in between Daykin’s frequent evening nursing sessions. Each time I’ve put Daxton to bed  – the guilt trip starts again. I’m reading him a book, tucking him him and he’ll whisper, “Mommy, will you hold my hand? I miss you.”

I miss you, too, bud. I do.

Our family time on the couch

This whole 2 kid thing is challenging for my body and my heart. Physically – I’m just not able to handle Daxton 100% yet – he’s knocking at 40 pounds door and he is super fast. So I can’t lift him yet and I certainly am not feeling up to running after him. So our time together is watching a tv show or movie while I’m nursing sister. When she’s napping in the evening and he is home – I do my best to be the one to fix him dinner. I ask him to sit next to me so we can snuggle. I remind him who my favorite boy is (it’s him).

But still – that little sweet voice is in my head everyday about how much he misses me and while it’s incredibly sweet – it breaks my already swollen heart. It pulls at my already over plucked heart strings.

Because he’s right – I’m not around as much. I am not the mom to him I was just a few weeks ago and he’s not old enough to really understand the rationale behind that. I am so thankful he hasn’t placed his resentment on his baby sister. We are lucky in that way – things could be so much more difficult. He’s acting out and showing us his independence a lot lately by demonstrating he doesn’t have to do what we say. I hate that the time we do spend together seems to always include him being “in trouble.” I guess that’s why they say we have “threenagers.”

The  biggest challenge so far has just been trying to really “be there” for both my kids in a

Daddy trying to calm Daykin as she demands immediate feeding!

meaningful way. I am the only food source for Daykin, so I have some pretty tight timelines and limitations on what I can do outside of being with her day and night. I know that’s a choice I’m making, but I still stand behind it. And Daxton understands that a little bit – but in the end, when it’s bedtime and he’s holding my hand and she is screaming downstairs with her “feed me NOW” cry – I’m torn into 2 pieces. I want to be in both places, but know I can’t. And then the guilt comes when I have to choose.

I know it will get easier. We’ll find a routine. Eventually Daxton will want nothing to do with me for bedtime – he won’t ask if he can wake me up in the morning time to come and cuddle with me and sister. There will be a day when he’ll be sitting across the table from me and won’t engage in conversation because I’m not cool enough. So I want to be there for him now, I want him to know how much I love him and I never want him to feel like he is second string. It’s a strange phenomenon when you have 2 kids – how you can love them both so incredibly much and there is no first or second – they both own your heart equally.

So I’m working on figuring it out…but I’m nowhere close yet. And this is the part that makes all this really hard despite all the joy both my children bring to me. I keep telling myself this moment in time is just a blip and what he’ll remember is who I am to him consistently over time. He won’t remember this part of his life when mommy can’t be there for him everytime he needs me. Oh, but I will. The mommy guilt is thick.

Well, that’s where I am right now with this whole mother of 2 thing. Caught between grateful and guilt ridden.  

Recovering, finally

It’s true what they say…”the days are long but the years are short.” I am feeling that completely as I realize that today will make 1 month of Daykin being here! I haven’t had any time to write since her arrival – things have been so chaotic. But she is sleeping at the moment so I’m stealing the time to capture some of my thoughts!

Daykin Lennox Manoni arrived on Wednesday, May 11 at 12:01 pm. She was 8.1 oz and 20 inches long. The first thing the doctors commented on was her full head of blonde hair. She arrived bow ready 🙂

I had a planned c-section and the surgery went well. Part of the reason I had to have a c-section was due to a large cyst they found on my right ovary. They wanted to remove it. So on May 11, I delivered an 8 pound baby girl and a 2 pound cyst. Isn’t that crazy? They ended up having to remove my right ovary, but my doctor said based on the cyst size and location – my right ovary hadn’t been functioning in awhile.

My recovery from the c-section has been anything but simple. I’ve had a csection before, so I knew what type of pain to expect…but this time it was worse. I had this really hard “lump” above part of my c-section incision and was suffering from these crazy chills and night sweats. I thought it was all hormonal stuff until about a week later when I was putting Daykin in her PJ’s and looked down at the rug in her room where I was standing and it was covered in blood. I freaked out and started checking her everywhere until I realized I was the one bleeding. It was everywhere and I have never been more glad that my mom was staying at my house with me.

Long story short – my csection incision  re-opened and I had an infection and a hematoma (a solid swelling of clotted blood within the tissues). I had been running a fever for days but again – just thought I was having hormonal hot flashes, etc. I spent the next week going to the doctor’s office every single day.  I had to keep my “wound” packed (which is about as much fun as you think it would be), take an antibiotic 4 times a day which required me to set an alarm in the middle of the night in addition to my wake up times to feed my newborn. I also had to see a wound care specialist who called in Home Health to visit my house several times a week to change out my packing.

For a few days, I had to wear a wound vac, which is a machine that basically suctions onto your wound to help it heal faster. It means you have to carry around this black “purse” where ever you go.

Lastly, I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics which gave me itchy hives all over my body. For those that know me, I already suffer from skin allergies, so this was no joke.

Needless to say, recovery has been a LONG and painful road for me. I am fortunate that the wound vac thing didn’t last for very long and they felt good about canceling home health moving forward as of my last appointment. So I’m now in charge of keeping my wound bandaged and I’ll go to what I’m praying is my last wound center appointment next week.

So, a month into this newborn thing and I’ve been through the ringer. I feel extra proud of myself for still being able to take care of Daykin and keep breastfeeding. She is happy and healthy weighing in at 9 pounds and 9 ounces at her most recent appointment. I figure all this chaos of recovery will be a good story to remind her of when she is causing me grief later in life. I can hear me now..”Daykin, do I need to remind you what I went through in the first month of your life?!”

But look at this face, I’d do it all over again.