Having the mind of a crazy person

My little man is just so serious. Don't get me wrong, he smiles and gives us laughs that come straight from his toes but I frequently find an inquisitive look on his face. I often wonder if he can sense my sadness and clings to me knowing that he is a source of comfort. These past few days have been somewhat of a nightmare for me. I almost hesitate to say that because I am afraid of how everyone will take it but that's the only way that I can explain my feelings. On Thursday night I had to work and had a kiddo that was extremely sick and ended up passing away on Friday. It wasn't hard work physically...pretty much we were just providing comfort care. Emotionally it was a little different. I felt very detached. A coping mechanism I'm sure. It was just something that I could not bear to handle at this time. I didn't get anything ready for his passing...no blanket and outfit...no pictures. I was utterly useless in this aspect and feel like I was a little lazy. Emotionally I felt like a dark cloud filled with rain just waiting to downpour...much like it actually did that night outside. Jake had called me because Elijah was beside himself and wouldn't stop crying unless Jake stood with him and bounced him up and down. Of course Jake was exhausted because he had worked that day and needed to go to work on Friday too. It made me feel terrible because there was nothing I could do. I don't understand why he won't go to sleep for Jake the way he will for me. Jake didn't get to sleep until about 1am and then he didn't sleep well because he felt he would awake again at any moment. I worried about them all night long. I felt myself completely detaching myself from my work. I did what was necessary to take care of my patient but I would often find myself spacing out. It was probably a good thing that I ended up being canceled on Friday because they had too many people working. I am not sure how I would have felt. I ended up going with our youth group to Amazing Jake's to eat and play putt-putt. It was a good time for the teens. I wish I could say that I had an "Amazing" time but I found myself staring at other people's babies and longing for mine to be with us (we left him with Jake's mom). I just felt really weird and out of place. At one point I stopped and felt like I was in some kind of movie where you're the only person that's stopped in slow motion and everyone whirls around you and you suddenly realize "what's wrong with this picture?" What's wrong with my life? Why can't I be happy? My mood is effecting Jake and that bothers me. He feels like he's to blame and that's just not the case. I know when I was pregnant I went through phases where I just wanted my old body back. Now I've got it (for the most part) and I would give anything to spring out of the crazy mind that came with it. I thought all of these feelings were going away and now they seem like they are coming back ten fold. It's really hard for me to deal with everything right now. I feel bad because everyone has been so supportive of me. They all want to help but just don't know how. The sad part is I don't know either. All I can say is keep me in your prayers and don't have high expectations of me. I've long ago realized that my focus is so narrow that it's either a clean house or food on the table...and sometimes it's not very good food at that. I think work has pushed me over the edge and I'm now an exhausted basket case. I know there has to be light at the end of the tunnel but the question now is how long is the tunnel?

Memory Lane

I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and post a picture taken almost 14 weeks ago...just 5 days before Elijah was born. He will be 13 weeks old tomorrow. He's getting so big! He's 15 pound and 26 inches. He loves to play with toys now but loves to play with Mommy and Daddy even more. He's still getting the hang of sleeping through the night since our trip back but for the past 4 days he's been going to sleep at 8 or 9 and waking at 4 or 5. I may try the crib thing this weekend since I'll be home Sat-Monday. It's back to work again for me tonight and tomorrow so I thought I'd make sure to post today. Hopefully I start to feel a little more at ease and not so lost. I best be going to get ready and make dinner. Keep us in your prayers!

After Work Update

Friday was my first day back to work. Yuck. I don't know who it was harder on...Jake or me. When I went to tell Elijah goodbye he gave me his pouty lip and started wailing! He didn't stop crying for a long time (45 minutes maybe..I wasn't there, Jake called me). Of course that upset me because he rarely cries let alone for that long. I found it difficult too because I haven't stayed up all night long for 13 weeks! Plus our new unit opened and we went to computer charting about 2 weeks before I went off on leave. A lot of new things to get used to. On Saturday and Sunday I was high risk so I had to go on deliveries. I brought the most kids up to the unit that I ever had. One of the deliveries was not very good either because the kiddo came out very stressed and needed some resuscitation. I was praying it didn't turn into something where we needed our code cart. It's been too long since I've had to do that..thank God. Everything worked out in the end...although getting to eat lunch took a backburner to going to pump. Jake survived it all too. A little sleep deprived but he survived. Of course on Saturday night Elijah woke up at 2am to eat and then he wanted to play...figures he'd do something off the wall when Daddy had him. He wanted to break him in early I guess. Overall I still want to be able to stay home with Elijah but with God's grace I can do the working thing while the family needs me to. I miss him bunches though. I have to hold him tight and breathe him in when I get home. I know others can take care of him but he's just so little and I think he needs his momma. I need him too.
Well, I guess that's all for now. I have a lot to catch up on.
The picture is of my friend, Charity and her son Asher, and Elijah and I. Asher is 2 months older than Elijah and is a big cutie pie! It was great to be able to see them when we were in MI. Too bad we weren't closer b/c they would be great playmates!

Getting Back to Normal

It has taken a bit to get things back to normal. It seems like the first few days after a long trip are spent running around like a crazy person. Laundry, grocery shopping, unpacking, cleaning up...all take precedence over taking a vacation from your vacation. On top of all that Elijah really didn't know what was going on with the time. The time change messed him up a bit. It didn't take long for him to change from AZ time to MI time. He figured it was starting to get dark...time to go to bed (even though it was only 5pm here in AZ). Unfortunately when we got back he felt he should go to bed about 6-7 pm...meaning he then started waking up at 2am. Yeah, not so cool. He's also nursing a lot more than before...every 2-3 hours. He used to go 3-4. That 4 hour stretch was nice b/c it was his afternoon nap time. I could get some stuff done. Now, not so much. Thankfully last night he slept until 5. He woke up again at 7 and unfortunately I had a terrible headache and was nauseous. Icky. I took some medicine and thankfully it went away. I didn't want to spend my last day of maternity leave sick with a migraine...just what I need, right? Sigh...End of maternity leave..back to work tomorrow. No more 24/7 with my two sweetie pies. No more getting dinner done whenever it gets done. No more putting off of things a little later because I have the time. Silly but no more nicely manicured long fingernails. Say hello to rushing around to get dinner on the table so I can eat before I leave for work. Back to a schedule. Double sigh. I have had a lot of trouble dealing with this and as a result Elijah is still not in his crib. I had plans of doing it this week but with the whole time change thing it kind of changed things. Plus I put him in it on Tuesday and he quickly woke up crying. I think he was scared. I held him while we watched a movie...and ended up bawling at the thought of putting him in it again. The past few days have been sad days that I find myself holding him a little longer and a little tighter. I am not quite myself again and have found that a lot of those things I said needed to be done earlier in the posting have taken me a lot longer to get done. I just don't know where to begin and am feeling a little bit lost. I think the thing that gets to me the most is watching his sweet little face while he is asleep. I just can't think of myself leaving it. I also don't want to leave Jake as well. I have become all too familiar with eating a more relaxed dinner, lounging around, and snuggling at night next to him. I am really hoping that the Lord will work out a way that I can go to part time so I can be home more and enjoy being a wife and mother...and maybe work on having some more little ones to be playmates with Elijah. God knows the desire of my heart and I truly believe that it's a Biblical desire and one that He would bless.
The picture is of Elijah with his hands. We find him intertwining them and sucking on them (and his thumb!) all the time now. What a little cutie! His eyes are still very blue...emphasized I'm sure by the blue shirt. I hope he keeps them!

Frankenmuth

While we were in Michigan we wanted to go to the location of our first date almost 7 years ago...Frankenmuth. We were going to take little man but decided that Grandma might like some time with him so we had so we went child-free. We ate lunch at the Bavarian Inn. Instead of getting the usual chicken dinner we each got a dinner with 3 different main courses..one of which was their famous chicken. We still got the whole spread of noodles, cranberry dressing, dressing, coleslaw, cucumber salad, bread...etc. Of course we had the orange sherbert for dessert. It was very yummy. We had to reminisce by getting our pictures taken on the bear chair and by going into the general store for some candy. We saw a onesie that we should have bought Elijah. It said "Poop on Ohio State". I thought it was funny anyway. It was nice to get away and have couple time but I have to admit that I still missed having my little guy. I was getting a little emotional and decided it was time to go back. We needed to get to the rehearsal for Sarah's wedding anyway. I know that Elijah was well taken care of but I just felt so far away from him. I could feel the fact of me going back to work looming over me as well. I wish I could have relaxed a little more. Jake was really looking forward to the time we spent together. All in all we did have fun and enjoyed ourselves.