It's Been A Struggle Lately...

Life has been rough lately, and I've been internally struggling quite a bit.

Working night shift is hard.  Working night shift when you have 2 toddlers is extra hard.  

I want to be a stay at home mom.  But I can't.  It's just not an option for us financially.  I don't think I could even go to dayshift and us be ok financially.  And I'm pretty certain that we do not in anyway live above our means.  We pay our bills, student loans, daycare, mortgage, food, etc.  We hardly have money left over for much else right now.       

And almost everyday that I do ha3ve by myself with the boys, they are way worse for me than they are when their dad stays home with them.  They don't eat very well for me.  They don't nap for me.  They hardly play by themselves and constantly whine to be held.  So then I get discouraged because if I were a stay at home mom, would they get better?  They're almost always great when we go places, so whenever I have them, I usually just end up taking them somewhere (shopping, the park, out to lunch with friends).  Which is fine, but sometimes I'd like to just hang out at home.  

There are so many days (almost every saturday that I work) where I have to wake up at 6am, stay up and watch the boys all day, and then work all night that night.  I end up staying up for 24+ hours.   And then there are days like this weekend.  I woke up at 6am this morning, have had the boys all day, will probably have to work tonight (I'm on call), get to have 3 hours of sleep tomorrow morning while the boys go to church, keep them all afternoon, and return to work again tomorrow night.  So I will get a total of about 3 hours sleep within a 48 hour period.  

This is when I breakdown.  My body is so exhausted.  It's the wee hours at work that is the worst.  All my body wants to do is shut down and collapse, but I can't.  I have to take care of my patients.  And that next day while I'm awake, I tend to lose my temper more with the boys.  I get angry when they won't let me cook dinner.  I get angry when they won't sleep for more than 30 minutes at nap time.  I snap at Jeremy when I feel like he's not trying hard enough to help me out with housework (even though he really does help).  

We have friends that sometimes can help out.  And for that, I'm so thankful.  But when no one can, it sucks.

I'm really trying to change my attitude about it all though.  I'm trying to be content with everything right now, because I can't change any of it.  I know that I don't have it near as bad as some people.  We have a home.  We have clothes.  We have food.  We have so much more.  We have each other.  Some families don't even have the basics.

 I'm thankful that I only work 3 nights a week instead of more.  I'm thankful that even though I have to work all through the night, I have a job that I love.  I'm thankful that I do get to sleep sometimes, even though those hours may be short.  I'm thankful for the time that I do get to spend with my boys, even if I'm completely sleep-deprived and in a zombie-like state.  

Somedays I get so caught up in how awful I feel that I just pity myself.  And I take my frustration out on anything I can find.  That's totally wrong of me.  And then there are days like today where I slap myself out of self-pity, tell myself that this is what needs to be done right now and I need to suck it up.

There are so many other people in this world who have way bigger problems than running on little sleep.  People are dying of disease and hunger every minute.  Families struggle everyday to keep a roof over their children's heads, and their bellies full.  I bet they don't complain about how little sleep they get.

Who am I to complain so much about something so trivial?

**PS.  I'm not looking for any pity or anything here...just blogging about what's on my mind.

Da Bellah

When you think about pregnancy, there is a lot of things to plan out.  You start planning when you want to get pregnant, you go shopping for pregnancy clothes, you get pregnancy pictures taken, you start gathering up things you'll need for when baby(ies) get here, you decide how you want to deliver, and then you try to be prepared for delivery, for bringing baby(ies) home, and how the heck you're suppose to take care of a newborn (or 2).  What I don't think many people really plan for is what happens to your body post partum.  Especially if it's a first pregnancy, you have no idea what you might look like after you've carried a baby in your belly for 9 months.  Sure you might think, "I'll definitely have some extra pounds that I'll want to lose, and I hope I don't have any stretch marks".  Or at least, that's pretty much the extent to which my thoughts about went.

But your body is not the same as it was before you were pregnant, nor will it ever be.  You may see all these teeny tiny women just a few months post partum who look like they've never even given birth-I guarantee their bodies are different, even if you, from the outside, can't tell.  I also know that a lot of people can struggle with body images post partum as well.
There are a lot of encouraging blog posts out there relating to positive images of the post partum body.  Two of my favorites are found here:

Inked in color's "shape of a mother" & Mama Mandolin's "Not Afraid"

Both of these mamas talked about how they are not ashamed of how their bodies look after growing 1+ human beings.  It made me think, and appreciate my body as well.  The little bit of self-consciousness that I struggled with for not having my pre-baby body back was gone.  My body did an awesome thing.  I carried 2 babies in my belly at the same time for 9 months.  My babies were carried completely to term (a good statistic for twins), and they had no complications at birth.  They were born healthy and perfect.

My belly was stretched out like crazy by the end of my pregnancy.  If you saw me in person while I was pregnant, you know just how big it was.  So to think of the way it started out, how big it actually got, what it accomplished in the midst of growing so large, I have nothing to be upset about.  Sure my body is different now.  My boobs are different, my rib circumference is different, my stomach shape is different, my ab muscles are different (still working on getting trying to get those back!), and of course there is that dang c-section scar.  but it's ok.  Because my body did something awesome.

So below are a few photos of how my belly looks now.   

As you can see, the middle of my stomach is a little more wrinkly, with some extra skin from all the stretching.  I'm a little more rounded and squishy in the middle.  And the scar.  I hated it at first, but it's a good reminder.  It's my little reminder of the day my babies joined me in this world, and that, was the Best Day Ever.

On Trying to Find Positives With Occasional Mandatory Insomnia.

It amazes me how much can be done on so little sleep.  When you become a parent, your children become the very center of your universe.  You will do anything to keep your kids safe, healthy and happy.  Some times this "anything" requires getting little sleep (as in 2 hours of sleep in a 48 hour period, having to work for 24 of those hours), and functioning in a zombie sort of state.  

The past few days have been pretty rough.  The boys had a 24 hour virus of some sort (Although it lasted more like 3 days).  Neither had fevers, and neither of them acted sick.  But they both had very liquid diarrhea, and Judah projectile vomited a few times.  Because of this, they were not allowed to go to daycare.  When the boys go to daycare is when I have to sleep before/after working night shift at the hospital.  These few days that they were sick, were a few days where I had to work 3 nights in a row.  the first day, Jeremy called out of work, and stayed home with him.  The next day after I got off of work, I had to stay awake with them, and then return to work again that night.  Luckily we got a last minute sitter to come over for a little while and I was able to get just a few hours of sleep.  Needless to say, coffee was the only thing that kept me going that night.  Then, the following day, I only got to sleep a few hours in the morning before Jeremy had to leave for work and I had to wake up and watch the boys again.

Being a parent is hard, and the little-to-no-sleep portion of it is just a small part that you have to figure out how to push through.  What really makes it all worth it though are the peaceful quiet moments.  As I was putting the boys down for their nap on one of my sleepless days, I realized that at that very moment, I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.  I sat in their room, dimly lit with a crack of sunshine coming through their bedroom window, rocking back and forth in the rocker.  Each of their little heads lay heavy on my chest.  I can feel their little breath blowing softly on my neck.  They talk to each other for a few minutes, and then each doze off.  Their breaths get deeper and slower as they drift off to sleep.  I can feel their chests rise and fall against my own.

 At another time, I might would say that I would rather be in my warm bed, asleep.  But at that moment, I didn't want to be anywhere else.  I didn't care about my bed, or how tired or exhausted I was, or how awful I felt.  All I cared about was freezing time in that moment, where both of my baby boys were sleeping peacefully in my arms.

  

Baby Fever & Inadequacy.

let me start this post off by saying, that WE ARE NOT PREGNANT.

K. Now that that is out of the way, I'll continue on.

I feel like everyone that had a baby around the same time that I had the boys is now beginning to get pregnant again.  I can count 6 people off the top of my head.  I guess when you're kid turns 1 is a common time to start thinking about having more babies.  It makes sense.  At 1, your kid can most likely walk (or close to walking) it's pretty much all table foods that are the same as what you eat, only chopped up (or foods that are relatively easy and quick to prepare).  They can entertain themselves fairly well because they are able to do more.  I can see why people would think that this is an OK time to try and start having another kid.  By the time the new kiddo would be here, the 1 year old will be almost 2, and even more independent than they are now.  I understand.

All that being said, we don't have any plans to get pregnant quite yet.  I am OK with this, but it also makes me feel a little bit sad, and sometimes a little inadequate.  

Sad, because all my friends are going to have a new baby soon, and I'm not.  Yes, I remember how challenging and stressful those first few months are, but I still miss it sometimes.  I miss feeling them kick around in my belly.  I miss the teeny tiny squeals and sleep smiles.  I miss the tiny little fingers grasping onto mine.  I miss 2 tiny babies in the cosleeper next to me at night.  I miss seeing them for the very first time.  

Inadequate, because I feel like if all my friends feel ready to handle another baby, then I should too, right?  But I know it's different, because I have 2 babies, not just one.  I was talking about this to one of my friends, and she said, "Sarah, don't worry, all they will be doing with this second kid is catching up to you".   I found that funny, but true.  I sometimes forget that I had 2 babies at one time, and that's not the normal.  I'm not saying by any means that one baby is easy, but I think it is easier than having 2 at once.  I forget this concept sometimes, because 2 babies is my normal. And my normal is hard. But it doesn't change the fact that sometimes I feel like I should be able to handle another baby right now also. 

But I know we're not ready yet, and I really am ok with it.  I just sometimes have to remind myself of that when baby fever overtakes me.  I'm not looking for sympathy or even affirmation, just sharing some of my feelings as of late.



And what would a blog post be without a cute picture of my boys : )