Erm. Rattle. No, sound. No, toy. Well..
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 5th, 2010
You’d think I’d learn my lesson, but no. I guess one of the hallmarks of depression is not recognizing that you’re actually depressed. I’d say that I’ve been dealing with some moderately decent postpartum depression since Christmas. Honestly, probably since we were in the hospital, but it’s so hard to tell the difference when you’ve gone days without a decent amount/stretch of sleep. If sleep was the only problem, it would have been fixed about a month ago when Liam went from waking up every three to four hours to eat, to sleeping from 9pm to 9am. Yeah. A seven week old sleeping twelve hours at a time. I should be ecstatic.
I have a laundry list of crap, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that my brain isn’t functioning normally:
- New baby.
- Brian spending basically two weeks with Kevin and my parents, which resulted in behavior changes that I’m still dealing with.
- The entire Christmas fiasco that was detailed in a prior post. No need to rehash, aside from mentioning that I still can’t look at any of the pictures taken from that day aside from the ones that Josh and I took ourselves.
- Josh going back to work after spending five weeks at home with us, and the resulting stress he feels about money/bills/etc - which leads to my worrying about the same.
- Mastitis three times in seven weeks, which resulted in Josh basically telling me that I wasn’t going to pump anymore because we can’t afford the doctor’s visits, ultrasounds, medicine, and the effect that the infections had on me.
- Unbelievable guilt that I can’t breastfeed, I can’t pump it out and feed it to him, and I have no alternative but formula.
- Brian getting sicker (he’s had a stuffy nose/cough since before Christmas, but since he did last year too and endless doctor visits got me nowhere I chalked it up to allergies, but one night it just magnified ten fold plus fever) going to the doctor and getting antibiotics and an inhaler, Josh getting sick (doctor, antibiotics), Liam and I getting sick, which lead to Liam’s doctor visit and a positive test for RSV, which explains what all four of us have/had/have.
- Coming home the Friday before last to discover the front door open and the deadbolt/lock hanging out of the door. (the police believe that the robber was inside when he/she/they heard me opening the backdoor and took off. The only things stolen were our HDDVD DirecTV box and an external HD. My (new, widescreen, 24″, 2048×1152 resolution) monitor had been moved sideways on my desk like they were trying to unhook it. The Wii and the PS3 had been moved to the sides (double shelved television stand, the 50″ plasma hadn’t been touched, nor had the Xbox 360 or the speaker that was on the shelf with them, just the bottom shelf had been messed with) The police were able to lift prints off the Wii - I just hope they belong to someone other than Josh!)
- Getting an alarm installed three days after our home was burglarized. At least I found out that I’ve got A1 credit, roffles. (Since my FICO score when we bought the Highlander last year was 783, I’m assuming this means that it’s over 800 now. Sweet - I can’t buy anything because we’re perpetually broke, but damned if I don’t have great credit?)
- Smaller things, like Josh’s mom. For example, she called yesterday and immediately asked to speak to Brian. Spent fifteen minutes on the phone with him and then hung up. No asking me how we’re doing, no asking about Liam, nothing. I guess Liam doesn’t exist. Josh asked her about it later last night, and she made excuses about how she was short on time and Brian didn’t hand me the phone after they were done, and she had only been on the phone with him a minute, etc. /facepalm
- I guess I can also mention the fact that we most likely can’t afford an IUD right now (the doctor said the bill a standard $200 insertion fee and $800 for the device, who knows what our negotiated rate is, so I never made the appointment) and I still haven’t started my period (eleven weeks postpartum now!), so I’m sure that’s contributing to the hormonal imbalance.
I feel like we’re bleeding out our behinds, and there’s so much more that I’d love to do. My glasses are almost four years old at this point, so aside from needing to get my prescription checked (and we’re not mentioning the fact that I just had a baby, which messes with your vision anyways) the photo-grey lenses are breaking down - I look like I’ve got reverse raccoon eyes. My teeth are a never ending money pit, I’m just insanely lucky that none of them have abscessed yet/lately. Bras? LOL. My boobs, which didn’t really change shape with Brian, are now a full cup size larger than they were. Where is the only place that you can buy fat people clothes, and big boobed fat people bras? Oh yeah, that’s right - Lane Bryant. I think if they grow any more, I’m going to have to order bras off their website anyways - they only go up to a DDD cup in store! Family portraits? I’ve only been intending to get those done for two or three years now. It’s even more important now, you know, now that I feel like I do have a nice meshed happy little family. Clothes? I’ve only got one pair of pants that fit well enough to wear without falling down, since I weigh so much less than I did before I got pregnant, but ignoring the fact that we have no money, I’m afraid to buy anything because I’m afraid I’ll just eat myself back fatter again.
I totally feel like this post is one huge bitchfest, by the way.
House. I’d lovelovelove a new house. You know, front door broken into, insane electric bills, jihadist neighbors, one and a half bedrooms/one bath for four people, wood floor bowing up due to broken foundation leaks.. that’s another never-ending description. Once we get all the medical bills paid off, all the credit card debt paid off/down, we can start re-saving for a house. (Note to self: This is why you don’t need to fuck up and end up pregnant. Seriously.) Josh needs to go to a dermatologist, the doctor’s going to have a field day with all his moles, etc.
I could totally keep going.
So, yeah. Money pit. Bleeding out our behind, might as well be the national debt balance. Yeah, that. Our totals for that four days in the hospital, covering everything for myself and Liam?
Total amount billed: $35235.51
Total amount applied to deductable: $11345.89
Patient (our) responsibility: $1519.44
Anyone wondering yet why our health care system is a mess?
Liam’s found his hands. He squirmed out of his swaddle last night and got a hand out the top. Woke me up sucking on his entire hand - which is adorable. He’s wanting the pacifier less and less, which sucks, but if he’s going to replace it with his hand.. at least he’s self soothing, which is more than Brian ever did. He’s getting amazingly good at head controlling, we bought him a Bumbo the other night and he loves it. It lets him sit up and watch, and his head just barely bobs. Of course, he’d rather sit up on his own than he would roll over - who can blame him? He can’t see anything laying down!
His eczema sucks, by the way. Half of his fussiness (and he’s honestly not a fussy baby) is because he’s itching to death and I won’t let him scratch himself raw. I’m doing my best with lotion and aquaphor to keep it (the skin eruptions) calmed down, but I can’t figure out what’s causing it (if anything, at least environmental). Who knows. For all I know, it just could be randomly sensitive skin and he’s screwed.
I remember feeling like this with Brian, too. I remember going through days eating malt balls (hey, body, remember those thirty pounds you gained back? Sure tasted good…) and robot functioning. The loneliness, the being alone with a tiny squalling baby, the worrying about Kevin, the fuckedupness of our relationship… I made it through it, some how. To be honest, the more I look back and think, the more I wonder if I didn’t really pop out of it until Kevin and I had basically ended our relationship, fourteen months after Brian was born. Makes sense, in retrospect.
I don’t know. I know that some days are good, and more days haven’t been good. Some have been completely horrible - I can’t tell you how many days I’ve wanted to either eat myself into Violet Beauregarde or starve myself into Gandhi (at least I’ve only gained back five pounds, so far - I started at 241, got up to 260, delivered the rat, got down to 219, and I’m at about 224 now), how many times I’ve screamed at the kids, how many times I’ve overreacted over something, horribly. How Josh can say something and it’s a complete mental shift, that fast. He can see it on my face, I know he can. It sucks that I didn’t/do/more so didn’t couldn’t do anything about it. I think it’s been better in the last week or so, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we sat down one night and I started talking. He’d been saying for a while that my head was screwed up, but my head wasn’t listening to him.
At least it is now. (I’d call that improvement.)







