Blog Nosh Magazine

Revelation, Brooke Shields Style - Pt.1

Originally posted on The Anvil Tree

Sometimes, I feel like I make these grand assertions on here, and there’s only grand to me.  Which is fine; it’s my blog.  I write it for my own (lame) memory’s sake, anyhow, so any assertion I wanna make is one I should feel good about making right?

But here’s one that I really am taking very seriously.  It’s not about my hair, my weight, or even cleaning.  Well, it’s sorta about cleaning.  Mainly, it’s about me.

See, I have lots of very strong, capable women around me.  Most (if not all) of these women have given birth at some point.  And while every woman has their very own birth story, there has been one thing I’ve never heard anything about in my own circle, so I assumed it was just an urban legend.

Then, as it all came crashing down around me this last week, I realized that urban legends have to have some truth to them in order to circulate.  So maybe it’s NOT so mythical.  Maybe real people DO get Post-partum depression.

Hierarchy of Suffering. Who wins?

Originally Published on Velveteen Mind

Suburban Oblivion recently complained that her two year old had been replaced by demon spawn.  She welcomed any interest in buying him on eBay. 

As luck would have it, someone took her up on the offer.  Someone that apparently can not have children.  Sara responded with an exercise in gratitude, expressing that it sometimes takes getting bitch-slapped in the comments to remember how good you have it. 

What followed was a discussion in Suburban Oblivion's comments that touched on a topic that I take very personally.  The topic of gratitude and our right to be ungrateful some days.  This is something that I've been meaning to write about for some time, but always back down.  Sara is a great fire-starter, so here goes.

The Every Day Battle

Originally published on I Should Be Folding Laundry

Before reading this, you need to know that in February of this year, Beth, at 20 weeks along in her pregnancy with twin boys, went to the doctor and found that the babies no longer had heartbeats.  She shares with us her journey in grief and recovery every day on her blog, and below is a little taste.

Ever since my life has returned to "normal" I have found myself suppressing my feelings and not sharing with anyone how I am really feeling.  I think I need to be brave, after all, I am a mother and wife, I'm supposed to be brave, it's what we do.

I put my make-up on each morning, I make my bed, I feed my kids, I smile and try to laugh, but truthfully?  I ache.  My heart aches, my body aches.  I just can't seem to figure out why this has happened. It's not that I think this type of thing should not have happened to me, I just have a hard time believing it has happened to me. I am so sad.  But yet, I hide that sadness from others because I don't want to make others sad and I even find myself hiding the sadness from me, somehow, because it never seems like a good time to be sad and it never, ever seems like a good time to cry.  There are places to go and people to see and who wants to see someone crying?  or someone who has just cried their eyes out pleading for this to all be wrong, pleading that maybe somehow, those babies are still alive in my belly, living off of the orange juice and ice cream I loved to feed them.

Before reading this, you need to know that in February of this year, Beth, at 20 weeks along in her pregnancy with twin boys, went to the doctor and found that the babies no longer had heartbeats.  She shares with us her journey in grief and recovery every day on her blog, and below is a little taste.

Ever since my life has returned to "normal" I have found myself suppressing my feelings and not sharing with anyone how I am really feeling.  I think I need to be brave, after all, I am a mother and wife, I'm supposed to be brave, it's what we do.

I put my make-up on each morning, I make my bed, I feed my kids, I smile and try to laugh, but truthfully?  I ache.  My heart aches, my body aches.  I just can't seem to figure out why this has happened. It's not that I think this type of thing should not have happened to me, I just have a hard time believing it has happened to me. I am so sad.  But yet, I hide that sadness from others because I don't want to make others sad and I even find myself hiding the sadness from me, somehow, because it never seems like a good time to be sad and it never, ever seems like a good time to cry.  There are places to go and people to see and who wants to see someone crying?  or someone who has just cried their eyes out pleading for this to all be wrong, pleading that maybe somehow, those babies are still alive in my belly, living off of the orange juice and ice cream I loved to feed them.

Permanent Scars

Originally posted on Okay, Fine, Dammit

The minute Emma was born, I knew something was wrong. I’d swallowed a horse, fought its hellish bucking to the death, turned myself inside out, until I won. Until she slid breathlessly — literally — into the world. I listened for her bourning cry but it did not come, because she was not breathing.

I lie there, split apart at the seams and bleeding out, and watched the scene as if from above. I bore witness while the midwives pumped oxygen into someone else’s baby for eleven minutes before they called 9-1-1, before two ambulances delivered both of us to a nearby hospital. It was all for naught anyway — by the time we got there, she was breathing on her own as if nothing had ever happened.

When we left the hospital for home, Emma was perfect in every way but one: she would not nurse. She could not suck. I knew the powers-that-be wanted to remedy the situation with a feeding tube, to rapidly ameliorate the problem and neatly close out our file, but she was our second child and so I had faith in my body, and in my baby. Somehow I held patience as she lost weight.

 

Snotty Sobs

Originally Posted at Mom-O-Matic.

I'm going to try and talk about what's going down with son because it's kind of eating me up these days. When I write in this blog I do try to stick to just telling my own stories. That way I'm the only that can get mad when I realize that everyone knows my scene. But the lines between my story and his story are kind of blurry. When I look at my kids it's like someone put the zoom lens on in my head. I really don't see anything but their beautiful faces looking up at me. So worrying about son is overshadowing my view of everything. And I can feel it weighting me down into the depths of crappymotherhood. So I'm hoping I can get this off my chest and breathe a little easier, but do so in a way that respects his privacy. Here goes.

Son's just been having a hard time of it this year. He's been sporting these big, black shiners under his eyes all the time. He seemed run down and whiny often - but in that way that kids get when they're sick. I admit we hoped that after his adenoid/tonsil surgery the relief from constant sinus infections would restore him. Bring back our bright and sunny guy. But my mommy gut knew that there was going to be something more going on. However, I told mommygut that she's often been wrong since she started hanging around with myanxiety and to stuff it.

And at first he seemed to feel so much happier. He was sleeping better and eating more too. But those darn shiners just wouldn't go away. And I hated them because they look like he hasn't gotten enough care, or that he was sad. And then he started to say quite often, "I feel sad and I don't know why." (Mmm? What's that sound? Oh that's just my heart smashing to the floor - let me get a broom and clean that right up.)