Critical Mass and More Change

I haven't blogged for a while for several reasons... the first being this was a hard week, the second being I (almost) single-highhandedly blew-up a perfectly good day, the third being there have been several changes in plan pertaining to this pregnancy that I wanted to get ironed out before sharing here.

Most of you are already aware that we reached the one year mark last Saturday. Saturday was November 12th, the day Asher died, he was born early the next day. Saturday was sunny, windy and basically beautiful. I didn't feel a huge sense of sadness.... in fact I was happy all day.  I wanted to be sure the day was one where we celebrated the life God gave us to love... even if it was only for a painfully short time.  This is the part where I tell you I acted like a psycho and basically ruined the whole day.  Our plan (my plan that everyone else agreed to because they love me and they love Asher) was to take sky lanterns (see Disney's Tangled - it was my idea first, they stole it) and sparklers (not my idea, I stole it from another mom who had to bury her own son 8 years ago) out to the grave site just before nightfall. I wanted to draw or write messages on the lanterns and set them off and then do the sparklers. The whole day went fine until I needed to wake Nolan up (he works nights and hadn't gotten much sleep - 2 hours- that day) to leave. I had a really hard time getting him out of bed, and then when I did it took him awhile to actually wake up and get motivated to put shoes on and get ready to leave. So we were running about 30mins behind. Well... at some point I blew a gasket and went postal on him. Like the ugly, hateful, screaming insanity you see on Jerry Springer. It was pretty close to Carrie-style ridiculousness. So here we are finally in the car and I am letting Nolan have IT and I'm not slowing down anytime soon. He tells me to take him back home but I yell back "You can WALK!" So at the next stoplight he gets out and walks home which makes my pissed meter shoot through the roof. 

By the time I make it out to Garden's of Memory I was at critical mass levels of irate. I stopped the car and got out with the intention to be calm and normal. That did not happen. Thomas (my brother) got out of my parents van and said, "Do you need help?" I yelled back "No! I need a new husband!" And then I just started ranting again. I was crying and raving and shouting. At one point I yelled at Nolan's dad..... not one of my best moments to say the least. Later that night, after I'd calmed down, Nolan and I were talking and he very sweetly said "Don't you think you overreacted?" At first that made me aggravated again, but he quickly followed with "What would have happened if you hadn't gotten mad? We'd have been late, but there would have been no fight and I'd have went with you to the cemetery." So then I cried.  I didn't want him to be right. I wanted to be right. So I pouted..... I might have a hidden 14 year old inside - maybe. But eventually I saw that he really was right and that I had a lot of apologizing to do.

Moving on to Sunday - mostly because I don't want to elaborate to you anymore how nuts I became. Sunday was actually much sadder than Saturday. Sunday was Asher's birthday. I never even got one birthday with him. Sunday at church so many amazing women knew just what I needed; prayer, hugs, sitting with me. And one young woman knew that I just really needed to be somewhere else at that time. So so asked me if I wanted to go for a drive. It was wonderful.  They knew what I needed and gave freely.

I am blessed to have so many understanding people around me. Which brings me to my next announcement. We've decided through lots of prayer and research to switch care providers. This decision doesn't have anything to do with the care I was getting with my Midwife (she's been wonderful, and I will actually be seeing her for my post-natal care), but has everything to do with the fact that we decided we wanted a hospital birth because of the availability of on-the-spot interventions should I or Eden need them. We are healthy and there is no reason to suspect we will need them. But for our own peace of mind we have decided this is what we want. I looked at several hospitals and I decided I like Methodist because of their willingness to support natural birth. So I can have the natural birth I want with the medical stuff at the ready. I still hope to one day have a home birth..... but for now this is where things stand. I would love to know many of you are praying for a smooth, wonderful birth. And for labor to begin at or just before 40wks - again, peace of mind.

February can't come soon enough.

Being Real, Pride, and Many Hands

At first I wasn't too sure about posting this..... but it's part of the journey. Last Thursday morning Nolan and I had what should have been a tiny tiff, but in my head it was HUGE. Now I can't even remember what it was about, but I do know that I cried for the hour-long drive to see my chiropractor because I was so upset. And then I put on a happy face and had my appointment, when we left I cried for the hour drive back home. This was not a once-in-a-great-while thing, this sort of ragged sorrow had been raging for about 3-4 wks, maybe longer. And I was so anxious I started to question every decision I was making and even questioning some my core beliefs..... which is just NOT like me. Once I make a decision I stick to it - good or bad.
    When I came in the door I just put on an icy frontier and went about cleaning the house as normal.... but I just started to cry again. My poor husband was so bewildered. I told him that how I looked on the outside (a crying, freaked-out mess) was how I was feeling every minute of every day on the inside. I told him I couldn't take this anymore. We decided it was time to talk to someone and ask about an antidepressant. I was able to get a prescription sent to my pharmacy for Zoloft. As far as antidepressants go it is about the only one that would work for my symptoms and be semi-ok during pregnancy. There are certain risks that go along with just about every drug and the same is true of Zoloft. I was pretty nervous about taking it, but I also knew I could NOT go on feeling the way I was feeling. Feeling crazy, and so very sad and anxious ALL THE TIME was not good for Eden. It was also really starting to hack away at the relationships with my family. So I decided to take the pills. I took them for two days and had a weird side effect. I started shaking, like the kind of shaking you do when you shiver violently from the cold - except that I wasn't cold. I couldn't sleep because of it and (after much more research on side effects) decided not to take it anymore. It took another day for the shaking to totally stop.  I started taking extra B-complex vitamins and really upped my Inositol. These measures have really helped and I feel so very much better.
   I feel/felt so ashamed about saying that I was not in a good mental place. It was hard to even admit to myself that something was truly not right upstairs and that maybe I needed help. In the past I've been the level-headed, reasonable one. I've always been so proud of keeping it all together. But maybe then I wasn't being real with those around me. Maybe it was a front..... heck, I know it was a front and I know that I got really good at fooling others into believing I had it all under control. I think I was even proud of that....  Proverbs 16:18 - "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." And so I fell, hard. Lucky for me I have many hands waiting to help me back up.