Sleep

Preston - 3 weeks old

Sleep.  It's meant so many things in my life.  For years, I would sleep a lot.  On weekends, I would sleep until the late hours of the morning.  After my bowel resection surgery, I figured out that I slept that much because my body needed it to try and heal itself.  Crohn's disease had taken it's toll on my body, as I was tired.  All the time.  After the surgery, I began needing less sleep, a significant amount less of sleep.

When Preston was born, sleep was difficult for the first month or so.  He was so small, and I worried at all the little noises he made.  Plus, I was up every 2 and a half hours to pump and feed him.  As he got bigger, and didn't need to eat so often, I began sleeping more.  Looking back on my time with him, even with his small size, and being a first time mother, I only remember being exhausted a couple times.  Sleep was never something that bothered me.

After he passed away, sleep was really hard to come by.  The evenings and nights had been ours.  The late night feedings.  Rocking in the nursery.  Telling stories.  Playing after his evening feeding until it was time for sleep.  It was all gone and I struggled.  For a while, I had to take anxiety pills so that I could actually sleep.  After I had gone back to work, during the week, I'd get just a couple hours of sleep each night.  It would take forever for me to fall asleep.  A couple hours after going to bed, when I finally would pass out, I would soon wake up.  4 to 5 times a night.  Again it would take a while to fall asleep, perhaps not hours, but by the end of the night, if I had 2-3 hours of sleep... that was pretty good.  To allow my heart, body and head to rest.. Friday and Saturday nights, I would take Xanax.  It lasted for a couple months until I was able to get a little more sleep as time went on.

With Samantha... sleep is difficult.  I constantly feel the need to check on her.  Mostly because of what happened to Preston.  But, she has a lot of noises that freak us out.  One in particular where the squeaking noise she makes sounds like she's choking, but she's not.  Needless to say, it often keeps me up.

When she doesn't burp well, I usually can't sleep for fear that she'll spit up and choke.  This usually only happens when she falls asleep while eating. This has resulted in many sleepless nights.  I do try to sleep.  I really do.  And some nights, I manage.  Other nights, like last night, I fail miserably.  Her noises were really difficult - on top of her usual squeaking, she sounded like she was wheezing.  I was alone with her, and it was enough to give me a panic attack.  Finally she fell asleep and when she woke up in the middle of the night, the wheezing was gone.  I didn't get any sleep until the early AM hours.

With time, I hope that sleep will come more easily.  I hope that Sami's noises become less stressful.  As time goes on, she will sleep more at night which will hopefully result in the same for me.  In the meantime, I take it a day at a time and take some daytime naps, when sleepless nights occur.

Samantha - 3 weeks old

Possibly my favorite picture.  The only picture that shows both my babies.  Preston represented in my special locket around my neck, and Samantha in my arms. <3

Embarking on a new roller coaster ride

Hard to believe that our daughter was born 2 weeks ago already!  We are so thrilled and blessed.  That being said, it has been an incredibly emotional 2 weeks.

The fears of loss in pregnancy, and the fears for a healthy baby went away when Samantha was born.  She had a good cry when she came into the world and although she was small (5 lbs 13 oz), she looked healthy.  While these fears went away, new fears appeared.  Fears I knew would be there, but feeling them has been more overwhelming than anticipated.

It is difficult to sleep.  Not because I have to be up every three hours to feed our baby, but because of that crippling fear of loss.  I constantly feel like I need to watch her.  That need has lessened since the first few days, but it is still there.  At this time, the only person I trust to watch her as I sleep is my husband.  It's not that I don't want to trust other people, I'm just still very sensitive to the loss of Preston, and that loss has created an immense fear of losing our daughter too.  I do not want to live in fear forever, and every day it seems to slowly get better, but it will take time.

The most stressful moments so far?  There has been several but the stand outs - when the nurse took our daughter for her 15 minute check up on night two (or one?) and she was gone for 30 minutes.  She hadn't been eating well and it felt like at times she was choking.  My tired mind, and my aching heart jumped to irrational conclusions and I began to panic that something was wrong.  Turns out, she had some amniotic fluid in her belly which was making it hard for her to feed, so they decided to do a lavage, removing all the fluids from her belly.  Not being aware that this was going on, I had a mini anxiety attack and hubby went to look for her.  All in all, everything ended well as she started feeding better again.

The other moment was when we were re-admitted a day after going home due to Samantha having jaundice.  Our little girl had to go on the bili-bed.  It was absolutely gut-wrenching.  Her cries as she couldn't see anything due to the baby goggles.  Her cries as we couldn't pick her up to soothe her.  Her constant wiggling from one side to the other as she tried to soothe herself.  Finally, we decided to give her a pacifier to help her fall asleep.  It worked as long as she sucked on it long enough without spitting it out.  For what felt like hours, I would have to stand there, with my finger propping the pacifier, all the while trying not to provide any shade on her.  She was on the high-tech bed and LED lights for 14 hours... some of the longest hours of my life.  Moments of relief happened every three hours when I got to pick her up and feed her.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep for the duration of our hospital stay (which thankfully was only about 24 hours).

We've had a lot of happy times, which I plan to write about.  I've also struggled with memories of Preston.  The first time I rocked Samantha in the nursery as it reminded me of the times I spent with Preston in that same room.  Listening to the songs that play from the baby swing.  Sometimes, just holding her.

As we embark on this new ride, I am reminded that it will be filled with twists, turns, highs and lows.  I pray that the lows are few, though I know I will never cease to miss my son.  I pray that the twists and turns are minor.  Most of all, I pray that Samantha lives a long (very long), healthy life.

Positively February: Day 26 & PoP Workshop - Session 2

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along'.  You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Today, I felt like Rachel's Pursuit of Purpose Workshop was perfectly suited to work with my #PositivelyFebruary movement.  Today's session is about fear. Rachel poses the following questions:

"What has living by fear cost you?  What has living by fear cost others around you? What fears do you have that make sense?  And which ones are False Evidence Appearing Real?"


Going back to Eleanor Roosevelt's quote, I will preface this by saying that my fears today are fewer than they have ever been.  Losing Preston put a lot of things into perspective.  Fear is one of those things.  I am always so frustrated to feel like I've learned all these lessons because I lost my son.  It's a terrible realization that I struggle with every day.  I'd give all this knowledge back for my son.  I wish I didn't learn these lessons, or at any rate, that losing my son wasn't the price to pay.  It's not like I led a bad life before he passed away, you know?

Growing up, I was probably the most shy little girl you would have ever known.  I didn't do public speaking.  I didn't raise my hand in school even if I knew the answer.  I didn't do presentations in front of the class.  I've so often asked myself why.  Why was I this way.  The only answer I've come up with is fear.  "They've never heard me talk, if I talk now, they'll make fun of me".  "What if they make fun of my voice."  "What if I sound funny, English isn't my native tongue".  Needless to say, this fear was a vicious circle.  The more afraid I was, the less I was apt to doing what I feared.  One day, my mind said "screw it", or whatever a 10 year old says.  There was a public speaking competition of some sort and that's when I spoke in public for the first time.  In front of hundreds.  Was I scared? Terrified.  Not sure how I got through it really.  But from that point on, that fear was lessened by 100%.  My confidence grew.  This fear cost me though.  I cost me confidence at an early age, and perhaps that could have made for a totally different life.  But, I don't regret who I am, so has it really cost me in the end?

Fears can be debilitating.  They create a vicious cycle you can't escape.  Except that... you can.  While I was able to conquer my public speaking fear (for the most part - I still tend to get nervous when I have to talk to a crowd, but who doesn't right?), that fear of fitting in and being accepted is something that stayed with me for a long time.  I don't enjoy not being liked.  I try hard to be a nice person and to always be nice to everyone.  Being afraid of not fitting in.  I think it's a rite of adolescence is it not?  I think, that this is a good example of "false evidence appearing real".  We are all unique individuals and life has taught me that we all fit somewhere.  Maybe it's not where we want.  Perhaps it's not where we expect.  Fitting in, wherever that place might be, can be difficult.  Life isn't easy.  I think lately, society incorrectly teaches children that everyone wins, that you get handed a medal for just participating.  I think it's teaching some younger generations that they are entitled to whatever they want.  But life isn't easy.  It isn't fair.  Life is hard, and you have to work at it to make it a good life.  And even when you work hard, even when you do everything you are supposed to do, sometimes everything will come crashing down when you least expect it.  Maybe it would be better to teach hard work, determination and yes sometimes defeat to our children.

Life has taught me that fears aren't worth it.  Being sick as often as I've been, I feared death quite fiercely.  The pain was often so intense that I wondered if that was what dying felt like - especially in times of flare-ups when inflammation was so ever present.  Or when my gall bladder went septic, or had my first bowel obstruction.  Those were scary times for me.  Justified? Perhaps, but probably blown out of proportion too.  The thought of surgery scared me beyond belief for a long, long time.  When I went in for my bowel resection surgeries, I couldn't have had a better attitude about it.  I felt brave and knew that as scary as it was, it was the right thing to do.  I conquered that fear.  And it gave me hope for conquering more and more.

Do I have irrational fears?  I don't like snakes and wolves and would totally freeze up if one was near me.  I am scared of crickets - and run away when they are near for fear that they will jump on me. Yuck!  Do I have a reason for these fears? Not really.  Yet even if I see these on TV, I cringe.

Fears that make sense?  During my whole pregnancy with Preston, I feared a miscarriage.  Every time I went to the restroom, I was afraid of seeing blood.  It's something I fear will be with me for any future pregnancy.  Additionally now, I will be filled with anxiety for the first 14-16 months of our next baby(ies) life.  Warranted?  Yes, I think so.  Will these fears go away? Probably not, but I hopefully won't feel them every single day.  Hopefully, every day means a lessened sense of fear.

Other fears? Like Rachel, I often fear that I am not enough.  I want to help others, and often wish I could make my blog reach more people.  So many people suffer in silence.  So many feel like they don't have a place or person to talk to about their baby that they lost.  I feel a need to help others find that outlet that let's them release their pain, that allows them to speak of their baby if they feel the need to.  The dwindling number of daily reads often reinforces that fear.  What can I do to get more views and touch more people?  How can I find the right words to touch someone?

I fear March 13th.  I fear March altogether yet there's no avoiding it.  Merely days away. I shudder.  How do I overcome this?  Hopefully, I'll tell you in about a month's time.

We all have fears, rational or not.  I think it's part of human nature.  The secret though?  You can surmount your fears.  Easy to do?  Not at all.  But if you don't try, you won't know.  And if you think you can, you most likely will.  This notion was reinforced for me on the train this morning as I listened to Britney Spears belt out "Now I'm stronger than yesterday. Now it's nothing but my way" and came across this quote - "I can and I will. Watch me".  I don't fear death like I did before. The monumental loss of my son doesn't mean I invite death to take me, but rather gives me something to look forward to once my day does come.  I will see my son again.  I don't fear being judged as I did through my early adulthood.  Someone doesn't like me? Eh, their loss.  Life will throw more my way, I am sure.  I pray that it is not another pregnancy or child loss.  Actually I pray I don't have to deal with any loss for a long time.  However, whatever life is going to throw at me, whatever fear comes my way, I will try my best to vanquish it.  Actually, fear - "I can and I will. Watch me."

Do you have fears that need conquering?