With our future move approaching faster and faster my few nights of lost sleep have turned into most nights of lost sleep. I realized today I've not lived in my own comfort zone for years now and its really taking its toll. I've been perpetually sick with one infection after another, I'm always exhausted but never get rest, and sometimes I feel like a nervous wreck unable to handle one more challenge without exploding!
While I'm too exhausted to face another huge life-changing challenge like moving to a foreign country, I'm also too exhausted to remain as a single parent 24/7 either. Change was sooo much easier before having a baby. Now, any slightest alteration to the schedule really upsets the whole balance for both me and Abs. I just really don't think I have it in me to do another move to another unfamiliar place. I'm just now starting to learn my way around KY knowing where to get a good haircut, good local produce, and good clothes shopping. I feel like I barely get through the routine we have, let alone abandoning it only to start all over again. This time I'm afraid the "get up and go has got up and went." Oh how I hope this doesn't ruin my marriage.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Victory, How Sweet it is!
A few months back, right after I had just blogged about my concerns over "dogs gone wild" in the neighborhood a little girl was mauled. I was so angry as this has been an issue for us since we first moved in. So I wrote a letter to the reporter about her story. Well they liked my letter so much they published it as it's own article in the paper!! As a result, the Mayor called me up this morning. He said he wanted to call me after he read the article I wrote for the paper (not knowing I wrote an article for the paper I played it cool). He wanted to make sure I knew the numbers for the sheriff and animal control and if anything like that comes up again with dogs running wild in packs while my small child is playing outside he also wanted to know himself!
After getting into it with the neighbor last weekend and calling animal control I felt like such a jerk but her dog attacked my cat! On our own front porch! So the timing could not have been better for them to publish my "article" and for the Mayor to be concerned.
FYI- Abs and I DID play outside today and there was not one stray dog to be seen. I may have few other skills, but I can write a moving letter.
After getting into it with the neighbor last weekend and calling animal control I felt like such a jerk but her dog attacked my cat! On our own front porch! So the timing could not have been better for them to publish my "article" and for the Mayor to be concerned.
FYI- Abs and I DID play outside today and there was not one stray dog to be seen. I may have few other skills, but I can write a moving letter.
Friday, June 18, 2010
From tumors on her face to beauty pageant winner!
Today Abigail competed in the little "Tiny Tots Baby Pageant" for two year olds at the county fair. I really had little desire for her to "win." I was more excited about having her picture in the paper for her scrapbook. I also thought it would be good for her to compete in something that required patience and following the rules. I thought that getting on a stage in front of an entire theater full of strangers and talking into a microphone would be a great learning experience for her. However, after she placed second I was so proud!!!!!
After everything she went through as a baby with hemangiomas on her lower face, lips, mouth, and airway there were many sleepless nights spent worrying if our daughter would ever function or look like other kids. Would she be mercilessly persecuted by other kids for having giant red and purple marks on her face? Would she be forever scarred physically and emotionally from her hemangiomas? Its quite clear that now the answer is absolutely no!!!!!
Our little girl has overcome so much already at such an early age which makes her a true winner forever! However, I guess for me, today having our baby girl place second in a baby pageant showed me that the hemangioma chapter of our lives is over forever. I felt as if today was a testament to the absolute end of one chapter and beginning of another not only for Abigail but for our family. There is much hope after hemangiomas and Abigail is living proof. Today, that tiny, purple lipped baby who couldn't eat or even breathe is an incredibly advanced, beautiful, smart, and charming little baby-pageant winner!! What a journey it has been!
note: just in case you're concerned, we are not going to be "pageant people" now. It was just for fun and experience.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Moments of clarity during stress
I was driving in the car the other day to pick up my mother from the airport when a song came on the radio. "I have all I've waited for, and I could not ask for more." Suddenly, the lights came on and I had an epiphany... I've got everything in the world I've ever dreamed of or ever wanted. I've got a wonderful husband who just got baptized and wants nothing more than to be a wonderful man/father/ husband. I've got a perfect, beautiful, incredibly gifted and good natured miracle child straight from Heaven. We've got a nice house, reliable vehicles, access to decent medical care, and we don't constantly worry about finances. I've realized my dreams. With that realization I burst into tears of appreciation to God for making my dreams come true. Everything else from here is icing on the cake.
It's been a rough few years. Its BEEN a rough life. My own mother was a single, struggling grad student with little spare time and even fewer resources for child-raising. My father was also too young to be getting married or having children and he was not a part of my life. I grew up the "gringo-girl" in a primarily Hispanic city. We had nothing and I felt I was nothing. I always vowed to get an education as my mother had taught me but most importantly I vowed to create the family I desperately yearned for in my heart. After a failed marriage, and countless rounds of unsuccessful infertility treatments I was so angry with God for not allowing my dreams to come true!!
Well as is always the case, hindsight is perfect and I see now that there was a bigger and better plan in store for me. Even when Abigail was conceived in a new marriage straight out of the blue I was pissed. Pissed that God had again not allowed me to achieve my new career goal (the new plan in lieu of being a Mom) and instead was just now allowing me to get pregnant. I had serious doubts and concerns as to God's judgment and timing and outright serious doubts about God! It hasn't been an easy path, but it's most certainly been God's path because none of this was planned. In fact its all been quite contrary to any of our plans.
First, there was the very quick crash course in a sober lifestyle. Funny how pregnancy forces a woman to sober up immediately. Then the miracle birth of our beautiful baby girl quickly turned into all of our worst fears when it became evident that something was wrong... horribly wrong.
Abigail was perfect and beautiful in every way and we were so grateful and relieved. Then, very quickly something started to grow on her face. As her mother and still in fantasy-land of new motherhood I disregarded the growths on her lips and lower face as "beauty marks" really not giving them a second thought. This was, I might add, quite uncharacteristic for me. As a former dermatology nurse and former Discovery Health channel addict I was very well aware of hundreds of horrible things that could go wrong. However, I was truly blinded by happiness (and probably fatigue). It was when this tiny little baby began to have difficulty breathing that we got the devastating news... upper airway hemangiomas. Looking back I realize just how careful and delicate the pediatrician was in relaying this info. When we brought the baby in for her visit the NP immediately put everything down and took an overly calm, soothing, and quiet tone with our child and us before we got the news it was time to head to experts and then directly to the hospital. It never hit like a ton of bricks. The reality was more of a snowball that was quickly advancing much faster than my ability to cope. I felt the rug slowly being pulled from under me and all I could do was stick like glue to my child and cry.
Oh, it was a time of many, many tears of fear shed by everybody... in private... except for me. I couldn't STOP the flood of constant tears. What followed was a whirlwind of activity and doctors and hospital stays with my first of many experiences sleeping in a pediatric crib in a NICU curled around my tiny 5lb baby. All of this led our new little family with half sober parents to Boston and new hope for our child's condition.
Then came the moldy asbestos house with the resulting loss of thousands of dollars. That led to moving again and a lawsuit. Finally the stress of the preceding months got the better of both of us resulting in a horribly scary, sad, and embarrassing domestic situation. Oh, what horrendous times. Sick child, foreign place, mounting legal issues, getting fat, not knowing how to "not drink" but doing it... however unhappily, and a shattered marriage between two people absolutely at the end of their ropes.
So it was with great relief that I realized that we've weathered all of the storms. Our little rag-tag family started with a couple of highly functioning, obnoxious, and self-centered drunks and we have come through the darkness as better people, better citizens, better parents, with better friends and a better marriage. Our daughter is now two and hemangiomas... what hemangiomas? Lawsuit... we won. Living life not like its a perpetual party... not always easy but better than the alternative. God... oh yeah, we found each other again and this time I brought a friend to meet the Lord too. Marriage... not easy but after what we've been through I'm so grateful that we still have each other. FINALLY, I feel we are, as a family, out of the woods and I'm so grateful that we're all ok and better than we were before. There were many times I thought that we had failed but I realize now that the key was not giving up. I'm so thankful that I've made it to this point and I'm even more thankful that I'm not alone... I've got my family with me.
It's been a rough few years. Its BEEN a rough life. My own mother was a single, struggling grad student with little spare time and even fewer resources for child-raising. My father was also too young to be getting married or having children and he was not a part of my life. I grew up the "gringo-girl" in a primarily Hispanic city. We had nothing and I felt I was nothing. I always vowed to get an education as my mother had taught me but most importantly I vowed to create the family I desperately yearned for in my heart. After a failed marriage, and countless rounds of unsuccessful infertility treatments I was so angry with God for not allowing my dreams to come true!!
Well as is always the case, hindsight is perfect and I see now that there was a bigger and better plan in store for me. Even when Abigail was conceived in a new marriage straight out of the blue I was pissed. Pissed that God had again not allowed me to achieve my new career goal (the new plan in lieu of being a Mom) and instead was just now allowing me to get pregnant. I had serious doubts and concerns as to God's judgment and timing and outright serious doubts about God! It hasn't been an easy path, but it's most certainly been God's path because none of this was planned. In fact its all been quite contrary to any of our plans.
First, there was the very quick crash course in a sober lifestyle. Funny how pregnancy forces a woman to sober up immediately. Then the miracle birth of our beautiful baby girl quickly turned into all of our worst fears when it became evident that something was wrong... horribly wrong.
Abigail was perfect and beautiful in every way and we were so grateful and relieved. Then, very quickly something started to grow on her face. As her mother and still in fantasy-land of new motherhood I disregarded the growths on her lips and lower face as "beauty marks" really not giving them a second thought. This was, I might add, quite uncharacteristic for me. As a former dermatology nurse and former Discovery Health channel addict I was very well aware of hundreds of horrible things that could go wrong. However, I was truly blinded by happiness (and probably fatigue). It was when this tiny little baby began to have difficulty breathing that we got the devastating news... upper airway hemangiomas. Looking back I realize just how careful and delicate the pediatrician was in relaying this info. When we brought the baby in for her visit the NP immediately put everything down and took an overly calm, soothing, and quiet tone with our child and us before we got the news it was time to head to experts and then directly to the hospital. It never hit like a ton of bricks. The reality was more of a snowball that was quickly advancing much faster than my ability to cope. I felt the rug slowly being pulled from under me and all I could do was stick like glue to my child and cry.
Oh, it was a time of many, many tears of fear shed by everybody... in private... except for me. I couldn't STOP the flood of constant tears. What followed was a whirlwind of activity and doctors and hospital stays with my first of many experiences sleeping in a pediatric crib in a NICU curled around my tiny 5lb baby. All of this led our new little family with half sober parents to Boston and new hope for our child's condition.
Then came the moldy asbestos house with the resulting loss of thousands of dollars. That led to moving again and a lawsuit. Finally the stress of the preceding months got the better of both of us resulting in a horribly scary, sad, and embarrassing domestic situation. Oh, what horrendous times. Sick child, foreign place, mounting legal issues, getting fat, not knowing how to "not drink" but doing it... however unhappily, and a shattered marriage between two people absolutely at the end of their ropes.
So it was with great relief that I realized that we've weathered all of the storms. Our little rag-tag family started with a couple of highly functioning, obnoxious, and self-centered drunks and we have come through the darkness as better people, better citizens, better parents, with better friends and a better marriage. Our daughter is now two and hemangiomas... what hemangiomas? Lawsuit... we won. Living life not like its a perpetual party... not always easy but better than the alternative. God... oh yeah, we found each other again and this time I brought a friend to meet the Lord too. Marriage... not easy but after what we've been through I'm so grateful that we still have each other. FINALLY, I feel we are, as a family, out of the woods and I'm so grateful that we're all ok and better than we were before. There were many times I thought that we had failed but I realize now that the key was not giving up. I'm so thankful that I've made it to this point and I'm even more thankful that I'm not alone... I've got my family with me.
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