Letter to Vince

So, because I am so busy, I ended up typing a letter to Vince. There is nothing too personal in it, and I describe what my feelings are now about living with my mom. I am too busy to re-type this, so here it is.

Dear Vince:

Sorry I’m typing again. I will try to write you a letter tonight. Last night, Sydney started crying when I tried to write you. I feel very bad because I know you need letters right now because you are in the field and things are stressful. It has been very hard to find time to write you. Basically, I get harassed and teased by my family when I try when they are around, so I stopped trying. I try to write you after everyone goes to bed, but I get tired too, and last night Sydney was crying. I feel bad because you are getting me letters, and I really have not sent you a real letter since Thursday. I will try harder, but I am very busy and stretched thin.

I am doing ok, I want you to know that. I am just busy and tired. I want to be home. I am tired of dealing with my family. I miss our home and life together. I miss the cats and my own washer and dryer. I miss our bed. I just want to be home. It has been very hard living with my mom and sisters. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but this is VERY hard for me. I just want our normal life back. It is hard to parent with a parenting “expert” there constantly. I would just move home, but I don’t know what I would do for day care. It is stressful. I don’t want to do this again for the 2 weeks you are gone, but I also can’t think of another plan. I spend all my time in the car driving and feel I have no time with Sydney. And when I am there, I have to share her. I am having a hard time with my mom’s lifestyle and rules. I also want her to stop giving me marriage tips. She is trying to help, but the marriage she keeps “tipping” me to have would drive me nuts. I don’t want her marriage, I like ours just fine. I also am not parenting Sydney the way I want too, because she keeps “helping” me on what to do. I just want privacy. Yesterday, my grandma Tuff came over to see the baby, right as Sydney wanted to eat. Instead of leaving, she stayed and watched. Sydney was having a hard time staying latched and then was having a crappy latch, so it was a hard session. This was complicated by my grandma being there, so I was fighting with a blanket and an audience, who never breast feed herself. I wanted to scream. I wanted to say I needed privacy, but I am really concerned with not upsetting them. Thing is, I am upset. I feel very tromped on and unhappy. I really don’t know what to do.

I am doing ok. I don’t want you to think that I am not. This is just hard. I mean when Sydney was in the hospital, at least we were together and at home. My mom also has very little tolerance for me having emotions. She does not want to hear how hard this is for me. She does not want to hear that I miss you, that I hate working. She does not want to believe that living with her is very hard for me. I mean, I’ve had my own life for 7 years now. I’m also not supposed to be affected by Sydney being in the NICU. She is trying to be supportive, but she is not being supportive in the way I need it. She thinks her life is hardest, and I have nothing to complain about.

I miss having you to tell the little things about. My nipples are so sore from the crappy nursing session yesterday, but I have no one to tell about. I miss our daily interactions and the little ways that you make my life so much better.
FYI, Sydney is sleeping with me. It ticks my mom off. I don’t know why, because she co-slept with us, but she thinks Sydney belongs in her crib. It is so much easier for me to have Sydney with me. I start her out in her bed, but when she gets up to be fed, she stays with me. Since she is breast feeding so well, I hook her on and go back to sleep. I don’t see any reason to wake my self up to put her back, only to have to get her in a couple of hours. Just so you know, I plan on keeping that in place. We may what to move her cradle, but I just think she can stay with us. We can talk about this when you get home, but I just wanted to prepare you. Oh, this does not preclude pleasure times. She can be in her cradle just fine there. Just thought you might get worried about that, so don’t. I miss your touch so much.

I hope everything is ok. Please stay strong and focused. I love you very much. I got your card yesterday, and it touched me. Thanks for sending me the card. I am ok, and I am sorry this is a whining letter. I did not mean for it to be that way, but it turned out so.

I love you very much. Sydney is doing great. I take her for a weight check on July 31. She is growing and making so much progress. She has an orange stuffed monkey she loves to stare at. She stares at it for hours. It is so cute. She is trying to turn herself over. She likes her bath a lot as well. She is healthy and doing wonderful. She looks so much like you. I love her so much, and tell her that you love her as well.

Be strong. By my calendar, you come home in 9 days from today. You are on day 24. You should be able to call me on August 31, in 4 days. I am so wanting to hear your voice.

I love you so much.

Yours forever,

Wendy

Angry

Yesterday, I came across a girl selling cookies outside of the grocery store. She is about 8. I was about to ignore her, when she said she and her mom baked them. I asked her what she was selling the cookies for, and she said her grandpa needed an operation. I asked if he was sick, and she said he is very sick. I bought a bag, and refused her offer of change or more bags. I told her that I wanted her grandpa to have the money.

The bag and cookies had been prepared with care. The bag was a party grab bag from the movie “Cars” with a ribbon tied on top, with the ends curled. The cookies were small, but cooked with skill and with large chocolate chips in them. As I ate the cookies, I recognized an additional flavoring not usually found in chocolate chip cookies: desperation.

I am angry that in this very wealth country I live in, that a little girl and her mom are baking cookies hoping to raise enough money to save her grandpa’s life. I am angry that a little girl has to basically beg to try to pay for the surgery. I am angry we do not have a safety net for those who need medical help. I shudder to think what will happen if they can’t raise enough money to pay for the operation. Will they feel immense guilt as they bury him, believing they failed in their efforts? Will they know they did their best, and will that comfort them as they celebrate Christmas, birthdays, and weddings with him missing?

I fear for them, as I can guess how much money they have to raise. I’ll bet they need to sell about 50,000 of those $1 bag cookies.

I wonder what would have happened to me and Sydney had we not had health insurance. Would I have gotten the level II ultrasounds that I needed every other week? Or would the hospital have cut me off, as they were not life emergency events? Without those ultrasounds checking and monitoring her growth, we would not have known how serious the IUGR was. Had this been missed, she would have likely died in utero, likely within a week of when she was delivered. Would I have been followed as closely as I was? Would the stress of the medical bills made the IUGR even worse? Would I have had the medical care I needed for her and I to get through this alive and healthy?

So far, I would have needed to sell over 20,000 cookie bags for my care alone (rough guess). Sydney’s bill for the neonatologists ALONE would be over 36,000 cookie bags. Yes you read that right. The bill for the neonatologists ONLY for the 41 days she was in the NICU is over $36,000. Of course, they got less than that, because of the adjustments for insurance. My insurance company paid them around $30,300. That is more than what my OB, the perinatologists, the pathologist, the anesthesiologist, and the hospital (in and out patient care) were paid for my care. See why we end up with little girls selling cookies in a desperate attempt to pay for an operation? WHO can afford to pay that out of pocket? We have not seen a hospital bill yet, but I’m expecting it to be over half a million dollars. I’m not arguing that the doctors earn their money, but I am saying that the cost of their care is unaffordable to most people. What would we have done if we were not able to afford this? Can I put a price on the life of someone I love? No, I cannot. I am grateful for the skilled care that Sydney and I received. This is not meant to be a condemnation of doctors, but of the cost of health care and the system we currently live under. I'm not sure that stock holders profit margins should come into health care decisions.

I know that we need money to pay for doctors, medicines, tests, drugs, nurses. I don’t know the solution. I don’t believe that socialized medicine is the way to go, but I also do not believe that needed health care should be the privilege of the wealthy or the poor. I say the poor as well as the wealthy, as the poor usually qualify for Medicaid. The middle class, too rich for Medicaid and too poor to pay for this themselves are the ones that fall into the cracks.

I don’t have any big ideas on what to do.

From the Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

I believe that health care falls under both Life and the pursuit of happiness. The next sentence says that is why we have a government instated, to secure these rights. Do I want a system like they have in Great Britain, not really, but I believe there is a better way then we have now, when decisions are made based on profit, not people. I also believe that the only way change will be made is if the government steps in and does something. This goes against my beliefs in a smaller government, but I just don’t want any more jars on counters, little girls at grocery stores, or car washes trying to raise money to pay for something which I feel should be the right of every person on this planet: access to affordable and excellent health care.

Counting

I’m not a poet by any means, but this came to mind.

Counting

Numbers never seem to have lasted so long
X’s on my calendar never have meant so much
Spaces between me and thee have numerical meanings
Days apart
Days waiting
Days dreaming
Each number too high
Each night too long

The numbers mark my loneliness but not the depth
Keeping track is all I can do to mark our separation and our reuniting
Numbers give me something to track, cross out, and count again and again.

Counting down, and counting upI wait, and cross out numbers.

Get over it

There has been a lot of news lately about premature births. From a Newsweek article, the average cost of a preemie is $51,000. Premature births have risen 30% and no one seems to know the cause or what to do. Bed rest does not appear to lower the rate of prematurity.

I’ve been in this heartbreaking situation. With Interuterine Growth Restriction, there was no known cause, and nothing they could do. Some doctors try using Viagra and aspirin to increase blood flow, but there are no studies on this. I was placed on bed rest. If I were to guess how to help this problem, I would suggest that scientists figure out a way to either stop placental degradation, enhance what placental function exists, or how to restart a failing placenta. As IUGR is fairly rare, there is not a lot of money to be made off of this research, so no real motivation for the drug companies to do anything about it.

I’d also like to add, that there was NOTHING I did to cause this, and nothing I could have done to prevent it. I was intensively monitored, received the steroid shots for her lungs, hung out on bed rest for months, and basically did everything I could to have a healthy pregnancy.

My sister was joking that she was going to jump over a cement pole in a parking lot. I told her go ahead, but if she breaks her pelvis, I’m not visiting her in the hospital. She would be at the same hospital as Sydney was. I don’t want to go back there for a long time. After basically living there for 6 weeks, I don’t ever want to go there again. I mentioned this to my sister, and she told me to get over it. Sydney is home, why should I dread that hospital?

Thing is, I can’t just “get over it”. I went through a life-altering event there. My life will never be the same. I went through an entire range of emotions there. My world was turned upside down there. Some of the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs occurred there. My caesarian scar is not the only scar I carry from this experience. I am scared emotionally, physically, and mentally. Honestly, my caesarian scar was one of the easiest ones to heal.

I bear the scar of seeing my baby six hours after she was born, hooked up to tubes. I bear the scar of watching her over stimulate from my touch. I bear the scar of worrying if she will eat. I bear the scar of those 5 seconds with no crying. I bear the scar of watching her have an IV put in and a blood transfusion. I bear the scar of having to start pumping rather than breast-feeding. I bear the scar that comes when one leave their baby in the hospital. I bear the scar of being told I cannot see or hold my baby. I bear the scar of having her born early because my body failed at its most primal level.

My marriage bears these scars as well. We had some very emotional fights while Sydney was in the NICU. Our first child was born small, sick, and vulnerable. We had disagreements over her care, medical staff, and how to proceed. My husband has scars of his own. He watched me be cut open. He watched as I vomited for hours. He watched as I cried when he and I removed the bandage. He held my hands as they put the spinal in, and I admitted to him I was terrified. He had to be strong when I was weak.

I think that I will get over Sydney’s prematurity as easily as it is to “get over” the death of a loved one. For a loved one did die, that loved one being the longed for healthy fat baby. I love Sydney, but I don’t think anyone dreams of having a premature baby.

Anyway, these are my musings due to the news coverage of prematurity.

The weirdness of normal

Basically, life for me stopped being normal in January, with the high alpha-fetal protein test result. Since that time, I've been caught up in the world of high risk pregnancy and neonatal medicine. Life has slowed down, and is at a more normal pace. Even Vince being gone is normal, as it is an expected part of military life. I'm back at work.

Thing is, normal feels weird. Normal became trips to the doctors, ultrasounds, hospital visits, worried phone calls. Normal is not normal any more.

After all that emotional stress and dismay, to be sitting at my desk is a victory. That my daughter is whole, healthy, alive, and happy is a blessing.

After all the stress and turmoil, it is hard to relax and enjoy life. I keep feeling like something should be happening, that I need a test or something like that, or that the other shoe will drop. I feel like I should be at the doctor's office or hospital. I need to change Sydney's appointment tomorrow, and I'm worrying that because I move it to next week, something will happen.

I dreamed of life being normal, and now that it is, the echos of the stress since January haunts me.

Lonely and whining

I miss my husband. I'm tired of being at my mom's. I back at work full time and I hate my job and being away from my baby. That's my post in a nutshell.

I knew he would have to leave, and I know why, but that does not make today any easier. I know he is coming home. I just miss him. I want him to be here with me and Sydney. I want to be hugged and held.

Vince went to a military training for 33 days. He left on the Forth of July. We accidentally slept in the day he left so I barely had any time to say goodbye. The week before had been a wonderful blur of Sydney coming home and adjusting to that, and now it is over and he is gone. I got a glimpse of what life as a family was like, and then it was gone. We had a wonderful week.

The training he is at is a difficult one. It is much more restrictive than any training he has been at. The reason is that for some reason, not everyone at this training has been through boot. So they are treating everyone like they have not been through boot, rather then sending the non-boot attenders to boot and letting the other experienced soldiers have a better training. They took away all their cell phones. I could go into a long diatribe about that, but won't. They also took away the power bars, beef jerky, and other snacks I sent with him. I was so busy with Sydney, that getting him the snacks was about all I did to help him get ready, and they took that away. We did not have a phone card for him to call, as we have always used the cell phones in the past. I could go into how we are on a cell phone plan mostly so that when he is away he can call me all he wants with no roaming or minute charges, but I won't. Anyway, not like it matters, because he won't get phone privileges until somewhere between day 8 and 14. I know this is what we signed up for, but I'm really peeved at the military right now. I'm just unhappy about this situation.

Because my family is worried about me pulling a Brooke Shields and going all postpartum, I've basically moved in with my mom. Seriously, I am taking my wellbutrin, so I should be fine. That is a WHOLE other difficult story. I have NO privacy. I feel for some dumb reason that I have to sneak writing to Vince, because I don't want to be harassed. I don't want them to see me cry. I sure as hell can't write a CTR* letter to Vince with my mom and sisters hanging around. My mom has super tight Internet filters, and since I don't want her to know about this blog, I can't update it at her house. I'm also sick of having to ask permission, IE: Can I use the computer? Can I eat this lunch meat? Can I take a shower or is someone else getting in? I am sick of not having the food I am used to in the house. I went and bought my expensive, totally worth it organic milk, and got a lecture about spending $3.50 on a half gallon.

It is a hard balancing act between remembering that I am the mom of someone in the house, and that I don't have to do what my mom wants all the time. I went on a bit of retail therapy this week, and when I brought it to her house, she wanted to know if I could afford all of this. Yes I can, because we sold our soul to the devil for a large bonus, which is why Vince is gone.

My mom keeps going on about Sydney needing to be on a schedule. She tells me how my dad would never agree to this, and she wanted one. Sydney's bed time is about 9. This won't work in the school year because Vince won't get home until 8:30pm. He will have her in the afternoon most days, but not all. I think he needs time with her as well. She also wants me to call the great-grandparents and let them know they can come see her between when I get home from work to her bed time. Maybe I'm feeling selfish, but I don't want to share my time. My mom and sisters are already really involved and I sometimes feel pushed out. I am getting better at asking them to help with the grunt work. My sis wanted to get Sydney dressed today, I asked her to throw our dirty clothes in the washer. She asked if she could help. I am there to get help with the grunt work of parenting, so I can be more available to do the bonding work of parenting. My mom is a neat freak, and I am not. I want to throw my dirty underwear on the floor and not make the bed. I leave my shoes all over the place, and I'm driving her nuts.

Thankfully, Sydney is breast feeding very well. I barely bottle feed her, except when she is away from me. My sisters are being rather immature about this, exaggerating covering their eyes and stuff like that. They also act miffed because they want to feed her, and I say I'm going to breast feed her, and they can't do that. I am tired of covering myself in what is supposed to be my home. I'm not talking about walking around naked or anything like that, but I've gotten over being modest about my breasts when it comes to breast feeding. If a nipple shows, a nipple shows, in my opinion. Thing is, my mom's house is not my home. It has not been my home for 7+ years. My home is in 30 miles from her home, where I live with my husband, baby, and 3 cats. Her home does not feel like home.

I'm trying to not be selfish, but I am. Sydney and I were separated for so long, and now I am back at work full time. She is separated from her father. I want as much time with her as I can have, and they can have what is left. Hopefully, this will lessen this week, as they are my day care providers. (See why I can't just tell them to bug off? I can't make them mad because I need them to watch Sydney. ) I am seeing growth in my sisters, and my mom is trying to back off.

I just want to go back to the week where Vince and I loved and cared for Sydney together. That's what I want.

Also, on a positive note, as I have really not felt this way for MONTHS, I am horny as hell, and my lover is far away.

*CTR in the LDS church stands for Chose the Right. It is on rings, etc in the realm of WWJD stuff. However, for Vince and I, it is a code for a hot and sexy letter. We thought of it so he knows not to open and read the letter until an appropriate time, like when he is not surrounded by guys who can read over his shoulder.