My sweet boy is 6 weeks old today! Right now he is fast asleep in my lap, inside the Boppy. Its been a long 6 weeks with him, but on the same token I feel like we were just in the hospital with him. I guess because of the gallbladder thing I sort of missed the first week of November, I was shocked the other day to look up and see it was November 12. Lately I have been feeling a lot of frustration and hopelessness. I dont know if it is postpartum depression, or just the fact that the honeymoon period is over and reality is setting in that I now have this tiny life dependent completely on me for everything and I am unable to take care of him. We are breastfeeding and cloth diapering in an effort to save money, but its not enough. The fact is that I am going to have to go back to work in January and leave him. And it breaks my heart to think of someone else being there for his first coos, the first time he rolls over, the first time he crawls and maybe the first time he talks. I want to be the one he smiles at first, the one he says his first words to and so on. I am not sure how we can afford daycare either...I am probably going to have to work full time in order to make enough to pay for daycare and to bring in any income. I have been looking at our budget because almost everyone insists we can save money by me not working, and we can cut things down to a bare minimum so I can stay home and so on...reality is that its not true. I have to work. The numbers on the page just dont add up. And by working, I will have to leave my son for someone else to raise. I want to find a way to make money from home, but I cant figure out what sort of skills I have that would bring any income in. Sigh.
On top of that, my health has been crappy lately. I guess not my "health" but physically, I am struggling a lot. My body is trying to heal from two major surgeries in the span of a month, and take care of a newborn. Eli is a great baby, I couldnt ask for anyone sweeter or easier, but he's still a newborn with newborn needs and frustrations. He is currently going through a growth spurt so he's wanting to eat every 1.5-3 hours. Last night for example, he ate at 8pm and we were going to put him to bed. By 9:40 he was up again. So he ate again. At 1am he ate, then again at 3:15, 5:30, 7:00, 8:30 and 9:50. He then slept (thankfully) while I was at my doctors appointment getting my stitches removed. He ate when we got home at 11, and again at 1 and is now asleep. He's gotta be exhausted too! Luckily, breastfeeding is going well, He latches on just fine most of the time and eats well. I am struggling with it becasue I feel like I spend so much time feeding him I have zero time to do anything else. Even eating lunch some days is an achievement. I guess I just feel like my hands are tied, there is nothing I can do to fix it. I cant fix our finances by cleaning the house more, I cant feed Eli and pay our bills, I cant even get laundry done most days. I feel like I am drowning and there is no one to pull me out. I dont even feel like I have Geoff's support either. I mean, I know he loves me and the baby but he gets frustrated with Eli easily, therefore I have him 99% of the time. Even the day after my surgery, he would not wake up and get out of bed and change Eli's diaper for me. He slept til 1 in the afternoon the day after my surgery and has been no help to me, at all. I understand there's not much he can do and he is also working fulltime during the busiest time of the year for retail and trying to pass his classes. Its just hard for me to have the baby 100% of the time, or it was I guess the past two weeks. I am healing very well now and Eli and I are in a routine and most days are enjoyable. He's not done well in school the past few semesters which is why I have a degree and he doesnt. At the same time, he is frustrated with my situation because I actually have my degree, but for all intent and purposes its worthless. I mean, it got me into grad school but that costs money too.
Speaking of school, in the fall I am planning on going back in the fall because, at least last semester, they were offering me $20,000 in aid. That is more than I made a year at Whole Foods most of the time. That should hopefully be enough for us to live on in conjunction with Geoff's salary. Eli will be a year old then, and I will be slightly more comfortable putting him in daycare. And, if I finish my practicum quickly, I will only have class two or three days a week, and the rest of the time I will be home with my boy. The following semester (spring 2011) I will hopefully be student teaching, and again Eli will have to go to daycare. I hate the idea of him ever being in daycare, but I especially hate the idea of him being in day care at the tender age of 3 months :o( It breaks my heart thinking of it, and I feel tears burning my eyes as I type it out. I am not sure what our future holds and am trying not to slip into a state of despair while I wait to see how it unfolds.
If you read this, please dont think I dont love my husband or my son, it was just an outpouring of the jumble of thoughts in my head. Journaling has always been therapeutic for me and it does my soul good to get it all out.
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