3 Weeks

Roan turned 3 weeks Wednesday morning.  Three weeks feels longer than it is, like a tiny lifetime.  But when I reach back for the memory of pregnancy and extreme discomfort, it's still vivid.  It startles me, as it did the last, the sense of loss and sorrow I feel at not having a baby in me anymore.  But when the baby was there, I wanted nothing more than for him to come out!  Why do we always want the opposite of what we have?

The last three weeks have also brought the threads of my elusive autoimmune illness together.  I hope that we are finally getting somewhere.  In addition to the spells of flu-like body aches in joints and muscles and extreme fatigue, I've had two "attacks" of the gallbladder variety.  I've an ultrasound on Monday to see if that's the case.  The first time it happened, I thought I was having a heart attack and was rushed to the ER.  This pain is as bad as the unfathomably bad contractions I experienced with Roan during labor.  Just different.

Because health and the immune system is sabotaged by stress, I've been more conscious than ever at keeping my anxiety in check.  I've been actively suppressing it, in a healthy way, telling myself mentally to "let it go."  My stress is mainly self-induced.  I get ill, and then I feel like I have to play catch-up, but instead of setting reasonable goals for myself, I make myself feel bad for not being able to accomplish all the things I want to.  I've yet to send out birth announcements.  Afon's birthday is in a few weeks, and I haven't planned anything.  I've thrown myself into a gluten-free diet, desperate to feel better, but haven't been out to the grocery store and am very limited in supplies.  Because of the fist ER C-scan, I can't breastfeed for seven days (three days left!), and have been pumping and making formula.

But I'm very lucky in that I have my parents here to help me.  Roan and I made a nest out of my parents bed--they gave their room to me after surgery because it has a private bathroom.  Afon is looked after so that all I have to do is attend to R.  I have no money whatsoever, but food and clothes and shelter, and so I don't have to worry about what to do with the money I don't have!  (I do need a new purse/diaper bag desperately, but when you can't get it, you just don't!  It's amazing what it doesn't kill you not to have.)

More than anything, I've been trying not to get wrapped up in the should-do's and being present in Roan's infancy.  Afon's infancy was a very sad time for me, and instead of experiencing it, I wasted those precious days feeling sorry for myself and crying and wishing I had a little bit of money so I could hire a baby photographer like those other parents, to capture him as a newborn in a still photo forever instead of living and breathing it.  How silly.

I do feel better this time around, emotionally.  But I could still use all the prayers I can get.