Mendolonium

When I asked for topics to blog about Hannah suggested “mustering the will to expend great energy on projects”.  Just this week I looked around our backyard and I saw peas to trellis, invading morning glory to fight off, and bare patches that needed re-seeding and I though “Eh, I’m cold and promptly went inside and ate a brownie sundae.”  Yesterday I had a flat of late season strawberries sitting on my kitchen counter and after I got both kids down for a simulnap* I thought about crushing them and starting the jam making process but instead grabbed a down comforter and curled up on my sunny couch to take a nap. And you may recall that I made some grand proclamation about blogging every day during the month of December but it’s looking like every other day.

But for me, all of the above:  coming into the house and taking a break when I got cold, trying to take a nap, and going to bed rather than blogging,  are success rather than failures.  You see, I actually have the opposite problem that Hannah alluded to; I have an overabundance of will and expend far too much energy on projects with the inevitable result that I end up painfully achy and a tired that borders on utter exhaustion.  It sounds like a “good” problem to have, but it’s truly a struggle for me not to overdo life.  Until a couple of years ago I didn’t recognize it as a problem, but the demands of children and a progressive disease (rheumatoid arthritis) have made it impossible to ignore.  Now I am searching for the right balance in life between treating my body kindly in a physical sense and satisfying my, at times obsessive, need to be productive.  It’s often more a battle than a search.  Many people find TV, meditation, a hot bath relaxing but none of those traditional stress relievers work on me.  I find producing something to be one of the ultimate forms of relaxation.  I discovered in college that baking from scratch really soothed me and so to this day I will find my inner peace by baking bread, a cake, or cookies.  I also find being in the garden intensely soothing.  Further compounding the problem is that while I love to sleep and would probably function best with around nine hours a night I am naturally a night owl and find it impossible to go sleep before 11:00 pm.  Adding fuel to the fire is that I seem to have spawned another night owl clone of myself in Thomas.  He is often up until 10:00 or 11:00 with me, happily canning jam or grocery shopping late at night.  Earlier this week we were talking around 10:00 pm, winding Thomas down to go to bed, and got to the subject of Christmas presents.  He wants to make Christmas presents for his friends and brightly suggested that we “do some crafts”.  When I reminded him that it was bedtime he protested, “But I’m not tired.  I want to start a project!”  And for a split second I found myself thinking, “Yes…now is a great time for a project!  It’s quiet, Henry is sleeping…” and then I remembered:  it’s quiet and Henry is sleeping because it is late at night and time for bed!  I am, quite typically, awake until around 2:00 am when I seem to have a natural wave of sleepiness descend upon me.  This schedule worked adequately before I had children, but now I stay up until 2:00 am only to have Henry wake up shortly thereafter which means I don’t fall asleep soundly until around 3:00 am.  Then Henry wakes up once more before his ultimate wake-up time of around 8:00 am.  And of course, he could care less if it is a weekend or not.  The end result is that I am chronically sleep deprived.  And with rheumatoid arthritis, sleep deprivation is a double-edged sword resulting in not only exhaustion, but relentless joint pain – pain that is only improved with rest.

You might suggest that I hire a housekeeper or a gardener or that I could actually (gasp!) buy bread.  But quite frankly, that’s not going to happen.  Not just because such things are expensive or big uses of energy but because doing so will make me feel sick.  Wait, didn’t I just say that overdoing things makes my arthritis flare?  Well, yes it does, but even when I am in agonizing pain I don’t usually feel sick.  But when I have to give up something I love doing because of my arthritis I do feel sick – and weak and that is something I hate more than almost any amount of pain.  Rheumatoid arthritis has taken a lot of things from me and if takes my ability to be productive I feel like it will have taken me.

But I am trying so hard to step off this train of projects and slow down.  I don’t enjoy pain and I want to be able to be a good role model for my children in terms of taking care of myself.  I am doing that by prioritizing.  It’s important to me to make our own bread and jam, but as much as that book “Home Cheese Making” tempts me on my shelf I’m getting my mozzarella at the grocery store.  Our little farm/garden is picture perfect, but I didn’t prune my roses for four months.  And even though there are nearly always dishes to wash, one last email to send, or another sentence to write in a baby book, sometimes I just go to bed.  I am coming to terms that it is quite allight to accomplish n+1 every day rather than n+10.  I’ve accepted that forward progress does not mean that every one of life’s incremental steps is positive, instead sometimes I stand still or even take a step back.  It is the big picture over weeks and even years that is positive.  So, this year I am purchasing more Christmas presents than I am making (a step back from last year).  I make bake 90% of our bread (standing still).  And today I am not as tired as I was yesterday because I allowed myself to take a nap yesterday (forward progress).

* Simulnap = simultaneous nap = awesome.

On Monday morning I go back to work.  Work “outside the home” as they say.  Need I even say that parenting is the most taxing work I have ever done, inside or outside of a house?  I knew going back to work again would be hard.  It was the first time [with Thomas] and I assumed it would be the second time.  I had hoped that this go ’round might be a bit less hard, however.  At T-5 days that doesn’t seem to be the case.  I find myself filled with dread.  The first few months of Henry’s life were spent alternatively enjoying my perfect little family and battling a deep long-standing depression.  Most days I barely held my head above water only to drown in an ocean of tears nearly every night – exhausted, emotionally pulled in opposite directions by two demanding little people, and physically battling a resurgence of my rheumatoid arthritis.  Now, I am on much more solid footing.  I got therapy.  I got help from family (a deepest thank-you to my in-laws who took Thomas for about 36 hours every week during the summer).  I got some regular exercise.  I got some sleep.  Most days I now have my head above water and am able to keep it there.  But I am scared that I won’t be able to juggle it all once a job is added back in and that I will sink once again.  And oh how I know I will miss my kids.  Henry is still so little that it seems he changes on a daily basis.  The longest I have been away from Henry since he was born was three, five hour stretches.  And by the end of those five hours I was literally speeding down the street to get back to my sweet boy.  I don’t want to miss a moment of his all too short babyhood.  I don’t want to “feed” a machine three times a day rather than my cuddly baby.  Thomas may be older but I love spending time with him, listening to his stories, watching him make new discoveries.  Everything is made all the worse by a job that I have no passion for.  I could see taking time away from my children if my job meant something to me and I was making a positive impact on the world, but I don’t think pushing numbers in a spreadsheet or massaging PowerPoint charts count as soul fulfilling work.

I have to go back, I have no choice.  We really are doing fine financially, still living below our means, but as long as we live here and desire such niceties as prescription drugs and a roof over our heads I have to work.  I am beyond happy that I only have to go back three days a week rather than full-time.  I am in awe of the mothers I know who go back to work full-time with young children – it must be almost unbearably difficult.  Ever the planner, I’ve starded to gather the things I will need for work:  my laptop case, boxes of milk storage bags, updated pictures of the kids.  This has, of course, not escaped the notice of a persecptive prescholer and yesterday Thomas stopped suddenly in mid-play, turned to me and said “I’m sorry, Mama”.  “What for?”, I asked fearing something along the lines of a toileting accident.  “I have to go work” he replied with a heavy sigh and a look of dejection,  but he then added brightly “I will come back”.  Next Monday I have to go to work, but I will come back.  I will always come back.  And my heart, well, it never really leaves home at all.

I have employer provided health insurance.  It is, by American standards, “excellent” health insurance.  The plan covers me, my spouse, and my children.  I can choose any doctor I want.  I don’t need a referral to see a specialist.  My insurance carrier covered, a midwife, an OB, and on the order of a dozen ultrasounds during my last pregnancy.  My company pays approximately 80% of our premiums leaving us with a manageable premium to pay every month.  You might think that I would be opposed to a “government-run” health care system that “threatens to drive private insurers out of business”.  You would be wrong.

Why?  That excellent insurance is more than just a benefit, it’s a chain tethering me to a job that is sucking the soul out of me.  I’ve considered taking some drastic action for a career change, including quitting work and going back to school.  While we might be able to concoct a scenario in which we can still pay the mortgage and put food on the table there is no way we could afford, nor qualify for private health insurance on our own.  Going without insurance is an even more implausible option:  one of my medications alone runs over $17,000 a year.  Add in the other medications, the doctor’s visits, the MRIs, and the labs and my regular health care bill amounts to around $25,000 a year without insurance.  The only way I will be pursuing my dreams is if those dreams come with health insurance.  How many of you have taken or stayed at a job “for the benefits”?  A job that might take you away from your family or squash your spirit, but a job with health insurance?  How many of you have wondered about your job security in the current economy and thought anxiously of what might happen if your income and benefits vanish?

Someday I do hope to have a satisfying career but even then I won’t be happy with our current health care system.  It is absurdly expensive for both the insured and uninsured.  Even with insurance I expect our medical bills to top $10,000 this year.  When Thomas or Henry is sick or injured I can’t help but think, “”How much is this going to cost us?” as I soothe my baby.  And for the price, we Americans have the privilege of higher infant mortality and lower life expectancy than almost any other developed nation.

Health care reform is the critical issue on the national agenda.  There can be no economic stability for “main street” under the current paradigm.  There can be no equality when those of lower socioeconomic status have vastly more dire health outcomes than those with private insurance.  We must give all Americans access to affordable, high quality health care.  Just as in education there can be no “separate but equal”.  The health care industry cannot be expected to ofter what we need.  It is absurd as expecting people to drive 55 miles per hour because it is the most efficient speed to travel.  The fundamental purpose of government is to serve the interests of the people.  Large government programs are viewed with suspicion, and rightly so.  Yet, I would laugh at the hypocritical nature of America if it wasn’t so important:  the response to the big government “Cash for Clunkers” programs has been nothing short of euphoria, yet the response to health care reform proposals has been shaped by fear mongers into a state of hysteria.  Every person that I know would benefit under the current legislative proposals…every single person.  A government run health care program will not be perfect, but it can strive to achieve affordability and good health of for all Americans; a goal which the current system neither attempts to achieve or is even possible.

So, I think I’ve got myself a nice case of PPD (postpartum depression).

I’ve got a lot going on right now.  Something (almost certainly RA related) is wrong with my right foot.  Is it a flare of RA, a prednisone induced stress fracture, both?  I’ve been feeling the financial squeeze of a mostly unpaid maternity leave, a husband without a full-time job, medical bills, and vet bills.   My smart, loving, little boy has morphed into a smart, loving, defiant, and surly 2.5 year old who resists sleep with the passion of a committed freedom fighter.*  And then there is Henry, my sweet mellow little baby who seems to have the misfortune of a nasty case of reflux.  I had a foreboding sense while he was still in utero that he would be plagued with reflux.  The fetal Henry would get hiccups multiple times a day, every day, with a force that would shake his little body and my womb greater than that of his kicks.  And now out of the womb, hiccups and reflux he has.  He’s been incredibly fussy, arching his back, spitting up or vomiting after every meal, clearly in pain.  Not even nursing has eased his spasms.  On the contrary, a couple of weeks ago he began to scream in the middle of his feedings.   The only times he seemed reasonably comfortable while awake were a brief period of perhaps 15 minutes in the morning or sometimes while being held fully upright.  I could try to come up with something witty to describe the long evenings and nights the past few weeks but I just don’t have the energy.  Let’s just say it has sucked and leave it at that.  With all the pain and discomfort he has been in and the fact that we almost never get to look at him face on (see:  must be held fully upright ) he wasn’t smiling at us.

There is a saying that “if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”.  The truth for me is “if baby ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”.  I have really needed Henry to smile.  Needed to know that he is going to be ok.  Finally, six days ago, Henry cracked his first real smiles for us and I found myself smiling with him.  If Thomas’ first smiles were like finding a beautiful, perfect pond of water to drink of, not even knowing that we had been thirsty, Henry’s have been like finding a stunning oaisis in the desert after weeks of wandering in thirst.

Today was a good day, but I still feel like I am in the dark, thick woods of parenting.  I am surprisingly good at managing the mechanics of two children  – what I thought would be difficult while I was pregnant (getting us out the door, shopping/going to museums, etc. together, making sure everyone is well fed).  But I find myself blindsided by how difficult it is to meet the emotional needs of two mama obsessed little beings.  I haven’t yet figured out how to bond  with and stimulate an infant while simultaneously disciplining and mothering a preschooler.  Right now we’re just taking things one small success at a time.  But thank goodness for the smiles.  They help more than any drug, any amount of money, or any amount of sleep ever could.