State of being: Sad...so Sad; tired of trying to hold it together.
I don't remember what I've written in previous posts about my life so if I am sounding like a broken record in repeating facts about my current state of being I apologize.
Disclaimer: This blog post is raw emotion, it is true emotion, it is not gonna be all butterflies and rainbows so if that's all you want from someone I advise you not to read this, it's really just therapy for me, and as i've mentioned before I am an open book anyway.
This season of my life is supposed to be butterflies and rainbows.. or ideally, idealistically, whichever...
I am pregnant, which should be a time full of joy and gratitude, but for the second time it is nothing but storms and strife.
MY life has a pattern of doing this. When things are supposed to be happy and joyful that's when the rains come and steal the joy (or most of it) out of the scenario. I don't want to give examples because I don't want to hurt others that were involved but needless to say life is never how you expect it to be, and it's no fairytale.
take this from a hopeless romantic, a dreamer of dreams... when it rains it pours.
5 months ago I found out I was pregnant and shortly thereafter I got hyper-emesis Gravidarum (AGAIN) which my doctor's in my first pregnancy told me was unlikely to happen again.. but four years later as research has progressed it turns out they were wrong... in fact if you have HG once, it's likely you will always have it when pregnant and with each pregnancy it becomes progressively worse. If you don't know what HG is.. here are what some people say about it:
*"It just feels like you're dying"
* "it's like you're being slowly tortured to death"
*"At worst, women may die if they go untreated. Many women find that the condition has an adverse effect on their work and family lives."
*This is a relatively common affliction among women and even so it has been difficult to win understanding for the need for research. Not too many years ago, people sincerely believed that the cause could be the woman's subconscious rejection of the child and the child's father. The attitude in part has been that the pregnant woman needs to pull herself together
That last quote couldn't ring more true.. The lack of research of causes and effects has caused doctors for years to be irritated with women who have it. Their lack of understanding and the fact that they can't make it go away causes them to just blame the woman. I've heard cases where doctors have told the woman suffering from HG that if she really wanted the baby she would stop throwing up...and told her that this was her body's way of saying that she didn't love the baby growing inside of her enough and even almost convinced her to abort it.
I describe HG as having extreme stomach flu with nothing that can remove the symptoms.
Your body is completely hijacked by a mystery disorder... I vomited for four straight months.. yes you heard me. 4 straight months... It became the norm to vomit... I couldn't remember life without vomiting, it was like breathing for me. I lost over 30 pounds and was hospitalized for a total of 2 months. I had tpn (total parent nutrition) pumping into a picc line in my arm for over 3 months... and during this time I grew apart from the world I had known, and the family I had known, I basically disconnected from everything mentally because I thought I was going to die. It was awful.
Then I got better, I could eat again, I was re-learning what it meant to be a wife and a mother and was slowly re-adapting to life at home when WHAM BAM Ethan got laid off for no apparent reason. There goes our livelihood, our healthcare.... etc.
He got no severance either after only being there a year, so all we have is two months pay cycles which can cover rent and food but that's about it.
We thought we had life finally under control and then BAM it was like God was saying "I'm in control, lean on me" and my response was "ok you got our attention"...
I think that in the last 8 months of our marriage we have been so distracted by life of this world. Ethan's job, making friends, having a baby, Katarina's school..etc..etc... and we haven't been stopping to glorify God for any of it.. I know what's happening to us isn't a punishment but it does put things into perspective that the Lord our God who is a jealous God was probably jealous that our attentions were elsewhere...
We weren't praying to, glorifying or praising God. We'd go to church on Sundays but I feel both our minds were wandering. We had everything and we took granted of all of it.. or at least I did.
As a Christ follower I want God to be the center of my life.. in all things. I want to lean on Him, for He is the rock on which I stand. I want to give Him control in all situations, trust Him in all things, Praise Him for all things. Glorify Him in all things... but I struggle.. so hard... and the result is an extreme loneliness/emptiness that I can't get around without His strength.
I aspire to in all things exude the joy of the Lord... but I am just soo broken right now.
On top of pregnancy hormones that I believe make me an awful person whom i'd never want to meet and who I want to run away from constantly, I am also scared....
My future is so unknown that I don't know where I am gonna be tomorrow, let alone next month or when this baby comes...
I don't know if i've experienced much joy in this pregnancy as I should have because I have been so sick, so scared, and I am feeling so unprepared for anything that I just want the baby to stay inside me forever...
I want to register for the baby, plan for baby showers, get excited, nest, prepare... but everything is hindering these things.. I go to register and I get so overwhelmed... where would we put this stuff?? where will we even live?? What if Ethan gets a job elsewhere? Should we even plan a baby shower? We may be in a new location again starting over and have no friends to celebrate with...
When I was pregnant with Katarina there were the same unknowns... and I was alone...
I was hormonal, and scared and I was unfortunately pregnant out of wedlock with the child of a young boy of 18 whom I myself hardly even knew. I wasn't in love with him, and with my fear and my hormones every relationship in my life was unhappy and unhealthy.
I was alone, I felt abandoned by my church that didn't know how to handle such a taboo situation, I was on my own, living 13 hours away from family, I had no money, was living off 50 dollars a week which paid for gas and some food... but I could hardly eat with HG and was starving most the time... if it wasn't for the help of complete strangers hearing about me and giving me donations of baby items and food I don't know how I would have gotten out of that situation alive... or prepared...
This time around I am married, my husband had a job, I had healthcare... everything was how it should be.. or so I thought.. and now I am back there.. in almost that same boat...
Only this time my husband and daughter are on board too..
I want to be strong for all of us... I know the verse that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength and I know that people believe me to be strong after all I've been through, and since I got through the storm with Katarina God will get me through again.. but I don't feel strong at all... I cry all the time, I wear a false hope that is disintegrating every second that I don't see positive change...
Today I had to tell Katarina's school that she won't be coming back because we can't afford it... Just the other day I found a card a friend made for Katarina for her first day of preschool and I bawled my eyes out. She loves her teachers and her friends, the staff have been like an extended family to us..and next month is picture day...but she won't be there.. She is losing the norm she has come to know and we will have to re-adjust again... It just doesn't seem fair.
On Friday we lose our healthcare unless Ethan decides to go with COBRA but I haven't heard of any movements in that direction... and the medical bills are coming in... and I just feel helpless.. miserably helpless... and I know Ethan feels the same... Katarina has had a really bad cold/flu this past week and when she cries out in pain from sinus pain..etc.. and we give her medicine and do all we can we still feel helpless.. The stress of everything has me at the end of my rope.. I find that yelling is my main mode of communication these days.. or crying out in anger..pain..etc... I don't like this about myself.. I am just so broken.. I guess there aren't any excuses other than I am human, and broken, and hurting, and scared and helpless..
WE are doing all we can to stay afloat but in the end it is God that is gonna repair the rafters.. fill up the holes and readjust our sails, and having to depend on God alone for everything is hard... it's extremely hard.. no matter how strong in your Faith you think you are, moments like this just make you think "Oh ye of little Faith"... because it's a helpless feeling, it really is...
No Matter how much I pray, and sob and hope.. change doesn't come in my timing...Everything is in God's "perfect" timing, but man does everything right now feel like it's happening at the worst time.
Be stronger, pray harder, fight against your feelings!! All advice i've been handed lately.
"Everything will work out" "God has plans for your family" "we're praying for you"..... when God? When will I see the positive changes?? When are you gonna reveal your plan for us??
I'm tired of being in the dark, I'm tired of feeling helpless/hopeless... of feeling like nothing is getting accomplished. Of feeling alone. Of feeling like I am disappointing people... I don't know what else to say..
I am just tired.
Help me.
Please.
I'm ready for an upswing.
For my new sail.
Amen.
