Survivor's Guilt

I've been a little M.I.A. lately, but not without good reason! We moved on Friday, and every day since last Thursday has been a little nuts. Last minute packing, moving, helping Elijah adjust, taking care of Elijah, UNpacking, cleaning, and grocery-shopping have pretty much consumed all of my time. We're in a significantly smaller space than before, and that's taking some getting used to as well.

Another reason I haven't written anything over the last week is that I just haven't wanted to. I have a ton of things I could say, but a lot of them I am hesitant to vocalize, mostly because it makes me emotional. Leaving our house was hard. We spent 5 1/2 years of our 6-year marriage there, and I feel like everything happened there, I guess because it's true! It's where we struggled with IF-related problems. Worked on adoption, found out I was pregnant. It's the only home Elijah has ever had, where he first did everything he knows how to do to date. It's where I found out I was pregnant again, and a big part of me is sad that this new baby won't know that home. It was our intent to move into that house, fill it with kids, and move out in 5-10 years once we'd out-grown it. Well, it's 5.5 years, but we haven't outgrown it. It seems so backwards, so be leaving and moving to a 1-bedroom apartment when our family is finally growing.

I feel sad because of all the things I imagined happening in the house, like how I'd look at a doorway and imagine a 5-year old walk through it to see me, or Christmases with a little brood so excited to open gifts. I don't know, so many things to me.

I'm sad because it's where we lived when we had our pets, Merry and Pippin. I still miss them a lot, and am really sad to leave behind the place where we knew them. Juvenile as it is, I have this terrible, homeward-bound fear that they'll run away from their new homes, make their way back to our house, and find that we're not there anymore. It's ridiculous, I know, but I'm tearing up now just thinking about it, even though it will never happen!

So I've been sitting on all of these feelings and have felt unequal to the task of writing about them until now. I guess I wanted to keep them at bay as long as I could, but maybe that was unwise. Maybe I should have just got my cry over with and been done with it so that I could move on as soon as possible.

Today was my first "normal" day since the move, where Matt had to go to work for the whole day. I would love to say that it was a great day, but in reality it was terrible. I think the whole adjustment thing is kicking in in full force, and I am having a really hard time coping. I feel out-of-place, I don't know where all of Elijah's toys are, I feel like I don't have a place for him to just play and not get into, well, EVERYthing that he's not supposed to. I was feeling all of this, and was super-annoyed that he decided the garbage was interesting, in spite of (or more likely BECAUSE of) my very firm and repeated, "NO." He had to have gone back to it 20 times after me leading him away to something else, and when all else failed I tried a time out, but he didn't get it, and went back for more anyway. So I moved the garbage to the dinette table (EW) and decided it was time for snack. Which Elijah outright refused to eat. He'd flail his arms, bat the spoon away, send his apple sauce flying, and reduce me to tears.

At that point I called Matt at work and told him I couldn't handle it today. My sobbing might have clued him in, or maybe it was the fact that Elijah was acting perfectly NORMAL for him, and I was still losing it, which is not normal. Babies are allowed to be babies, right? But today I couldn't do it, so Matt came home, which made me feel like I was horribly incapable and the world's worst mom ever.

I know I'm being dramatic, I feel considerably better now (despite still feeling some of those feelings.) I'm just trying to set the stage for my "survivor's guilt" schpeel.

See, I have these expectations, and I'm realizing they're not very realistic. Some of them are:

-because I went through infertility, I will always find being a mom the best thing in the world.
-because I wanted and tried to be a mom for so long, I will automatically be a better mom than many people I know (I know, it's judgmental, but it's still how I feel deep down)
-even during the tough days, I will remain focused on what a blessing it is to be a mother, and will be so grateful for even the bad things

I'm sure there are more, but those are the big ones. The fact is, they are all unrealistic (to me at least.)

The truth is that I forget. I completely lose sight of the blessing that it is to have toast slapped onto my keyboard, boogers rubbed into my shirt, and grimy hands to grab at my long hair and catch a knot at a very painful angle. Mostly I appreciate these things, but some days I forget. With infertility, I focused so much of my energy on becoming a mom, and spent very little time learning about (and subsequently, feel very overwhelmed by) actually being a mom. I have no idea what I'm doing, and I feel like I should. I wanted it, didn't I? What did I think "it" was, exactly? Knowing me, I either a) didn't think about it, or b) thought it'd be rosy and beautiful and oh so poetic.

I also feel a lot of pressure to do things the right way, because I've been given this chance to be a mom when others haven't, and I have to get it right. I can't make mistakes, because if I do then I'm letting down every person out there who ever wanted to be a mom and would have done it right if they were in my shoes.

And then, when I have days where I REALLY get it wrong, where I lose my temper, toss out a few swear words, and call Matt in a mess of tears, crying out, "Why doesn't he understand NO?!?!" I feel the guilt. The survivor's guilt. The, "there are millions of people in the world who want to be in my shoes, and I treat this blessing like THIS?!" kind of guilt.

And I can't stand it. I feel like I've messed everything up. And then, oh gosh, THEN I think, "how on earth can I handle two??? Why have I been given this blessing, when others are waiting, and I obviously can't handle the one I've been given?! What is wrong with me? I'm not worthy, blah blah blah..."

So there, that was my day today. The culmination of a very stressful week, the resulting meltdown. I wish I had have known about this guilt and these expectations. I read blogs of people who are so blissfully happy with their babies, so GOOD at being moms, and I think that I must be a bad person. That is, until I call my friend Farrah and confide in her how terrible I was, and then she tells me she gets like that too, and that it's normal.

One upside of my **insane** week is that tomorrow is my ultrasound, and I feel like it came out of nowhere. I'm 8 weeks tomorrow, and I finally will have some closure to everything I experienced before. I'll KNOW. I'm 99% sure (okay, maybe only 85% sure) that everything is fine. That there's a baby in there, in my uterus and not my tubes, and that his/her (I'm leaning towards a 'her') heart is beating away. I might be a few days off on my dates, I might have my duedate pushed back, but it doesn't really matter. I am SO looking forward to tomorrow!

And now, I am ridiculously tired and need some sleep. I'll post tomorrow about the ultrasound, and will hopefully have a photo to add, if I can sweet-talk the sonographer into giving me one again... ;)