In our lives, there are times that we are thrown into situations completely out of our control. I believe, as human beings, that we crave that sense of control in our everyday lives to a certain extent. Personality tests and quizzes reveal that there are some who would like to control more than others, while the general population sits somewhere between OCD and lazy. There are many things in my life that I like to have control over, and where loss of control makes me feel a little chaotic and crazy.
Take having a second baby who spent the first 10 weeks screaming 18 hours a day. Chaos at its best, and it drove me absolutely bat-shit crazy. (Where did that expression come from, anyway?) What you have there is a prime example of a situation where we all lack control: our children.
U is for unrealistic expectations.
Okay, so maybe I had painted this beautiful, unrealistic picture in my head of what things were going to be like after Seedling arrived when I was on bed rest. For 8 weeks. Why not, right? All throughout my pregnancy, people kept telling me, "Oh, you'll never have another one like Sprout. She was the perfect baby! This baby is going to give you a run for your money!" WHY?! Why did everyone have to keep saying that? I persevered my whole pregnancy, responding with, "Well, you never know! Maybe this baby will be even better and I'll get some kind of respite from all the shit I've gone through this time around!" In my mind, I thought that I somehow deserved to have a good baby again, and that there was no way I was going to end up worse-off afterwards than I already had been for 36 weeks. Apparently I was wrong.
Here's where the control issue comes in. I expected to be able to control everything once Seedling made his yowly little debut: my body, my emotions, my husband, my house, my life, my Sprout, and, of course, Seedling himself. Highly unrealistic, but maybe part of it was from the whole 'Supermom' stigma that the media has created over the past 5 years. I felt like I had to be a Stepford wife, and that in itself is completely unrealistic (and ridiculous).
I recently joined a postpartum support group that has proven to actually be supportive (surprise, surprise), and went to talk to a local psychologist to gain some perspective on why it is I 'need' to control everything, and why I'm not seeming to cope as well as I 'should be able to'. Here's what I have learned so far:
- Since I got pregnant the time before Sprout, I have basically been dealing with pregnancy, miscarriage, loss of a close family member, the emotional fallout of becoming a first-time parent, pushing myself to pump full-time for Sprout for 8 months after not being able to breastfeed (she was a chomper-see previous blog postings), getting pregnant when she was 9 months, carrying through a horrible pregnancy, 8 weeks of bed rest, 5 separate pre-term labour episodes with 2 hospitalizations, a crazy baby who screamed almost 24 hours a day for 10 weeks, a sick baby who ended up in the hospital himself with severe reflux and choking issues, a mother-in-law who lived with me for 7 weeks and caused major emotional issues between my husband and I, the guilt that I've been carrying around about both Sprout & Seedling, and my poor little Sprout, who went from being this sweet little thing to having some intense behavioural issues that we still have yet to curb. (Best run-on sentence, ever. Eat that, grammar police.)
The psychologist I saw took a deep breath after I vented all of this at her in our first session, and said, "You know...I don't think this is postpartum depression - in the classical sense, anyway. Have you ever taken a look back at everything you've gone through and realized that you might just be recovering from a fairly traumatic past 3 years? Your son is only 2 1/2 weeks past the whole screaming thing...don't you think you should give yourself a little more credit, and a little more time to recuperate?"
Oh. Never really thought about it that way.
So I guess I'm not completely crazy, I just put waaaaaay too much pressure on myself and everyone around me (husband and kids included), and was desperately trying to control everything that was out of my control for a reason. I have also been way too hard on Sprout, and have had very unrealistic expectations in regards to her behaviour as well. She is also going through a tough adjustment period. It has been 14 weeks since Seedling was born, and for the 8 weeks before that, her little world was turned upside down with Mommy on bed rest and in and out of the hospital. That is 5 months out of a 21 month-old's little life. Of course she's going to be acting out! She is also almost 2, and a very precocious toddler. The phrase of the past week? "No way, Jose." She's also started 'exploring her voice' (screaming, growling, etc). Fun, huh?
I am determined to try and let a lot of the control issues fall away, but it is definitely difficult. I'm not saying that I shouldn't be in control of my own life, or that I am not trying to be a good parent, or wife, or friend. What I am saying is that I need to take a step back and let myself breathe and recover, however long that takes. Admit that I've had a rough time, and start rebuilding myself to try and get back to who I am. J, the psychologist, said that it is probably going to take at least 2-3 months for that shift to happen, and that it's not going to happen unless I let it (and let others support me while I'm taking those steps).
So if I've blown up at you, barked at you, yelled, cried, screamed, ignored, seemed quiet, withdrawn, or rude in the past few months, please forgive me (Sprout, Seedling, & husband included). It's getting better, but I know there were days when all I felt like doing was shoving a rag in everyone's mouth, putting earphones in, and blasting some old-school Nirvana. Or Hole.
Now for some awesome news: Sprout is 5 days into full-on potty training, and we've had ONE accident that proved to be very traumatic for her (the favourite 'rainbow' embroidered jeans got wet with pee and had to be taken off to get washed...she bawled for a half hour about it). She has over 40 stickers on her potty chart, and has been dry overnight for all but one night so far! I honestly couldn't be more proud of her for taking this huge step. I think it gives Sprout her own sense of control and makes her feel extremely proud of herself, which in turn makes me so happy. And hey, it's something out of my control, right? Take the diapers off, and I could have run her to the potty as many times as I wanted - if she wasn't telling me she had to go, or she didn't know how to 'hold it', it wasn't going to happen.
I am SO PROUD of you, my big-little Sprout! And Seedling, you too! Giggling, holding your head up, bouncing in your jumperoo, and just being generally so good during the days and nights...you're both growing up so quickly - another thing out of my control that makes me just want to freeze time some days! I love both of you with all of my heart.
xoxoxo
Mommy
