Deep sigh

Slowly but surely I am going to get caught up on the blog.  I have stories and photos to share, after all.

But right now I just need to vent.  Whine?  Whatever it is, I'm doing it and you can listen or not.  Deal?

I'm not sure if I never allow myself to feel stress and sadness, or if I just never experience it.  I think it's the former and now that's coming back to bite me.  I know, intellectually, that I have been no stranger to stress and pain, heartache and sadness.  I've experienced a lot in my 25 years and I think I just try to let it roll off my back.  I'm tough, I can handle anything, I am not sad because things like *that* don't affect me, I tell myself.  That attitude is getting me nowhere right now.

I can sense my heart's desire to pull away from the sadness and pain, and I can also sense my mind telling me that I need this.  I need to feel it, I need to grieve, I need to just weep.  That becomes difficult when I am not yet able to comprehend the loss of my dad, but I'm sure I'll get there.  That's even more reason to allow myself to grieve.

It's been two weeks and one day since my dad died.  Before all of this, I would have said that that was ample time to get past the really hard stuff.  What did I know?  I don't feel like I've even begun to deal with the immediate feelings of loss yet.  I've got a long way to go.

On the other hand, there has been a lot that has gotten in the way of the grieving process.  Anyone who's ever known anyone who's died knows that the days between the death and funeral are filled with people.  All day, everyday.  It's chaos for a person like myself who prefer quietness and peaceful days with just my husband and son.  Pure chaos.  It's also not conducive to allowing oneself to feel much emotion.

Not only did we have that constant hum of people around us, but my sister and I also had to deal with my father's estate.  He had no will and no wife, so it was up to us to sort everything out.  It's still up to us.  It's a huge undertaking and it's going to take a long time and a lot of work to sort through.  We also had to plan the funeral arrangements.  Needless to say, we were busy.  Also not conducive to allowing oneself to feel much emotion.

Then, lucky me, the three of us got a stomach virus that had us all up vomiting the night before my dad's visitation.  Good gracious, was that ever awful.  Just when I thought I couldn't possibly get more sick than that (seriously, it was bad), I caught influenza and brought it home to Portland.  I remember being ecstatic when our plane touched down in PDX, so happy to be home but fighting off a nasty cough.  I was thrilled to see Donna at the airport to pick us up and then we went for lunch with her and Gordon, but I couldn't give them the huge hugs that I had planned on since I didn't want to get them sick.  Then the chills set in, and just like that I was knocked out for 5 days with a fever.  All I could do was lay in bed and shake, and that's when I knew that I shouldn't have ever thought I couldn't get more sick.  Wow, influenza is rough.  That, my friends, is why people get flu shots.  I started to feel better (meaning I could function- feed myself, get out of bed, walk around) but the deep cough and congestion are still kicking, 9 days later.  Whatever, I'm just thankful to be alive at this point.  Ugh.

During the course of the flu, though, I lost my nose ring.  I know, wah wah wah, I'm such a baby.  But seriously, I've had a nose ring since I was 17 years old.  It's part of me.  I like it.  I've had it repierced 4 times because I had to take it out for dance or jobs, but I could never not have it.  I know it's probably silliness to some of you, but I'm really sad that I lost it (somewhere in a kleenex.  Gross, I know.)  I don't have a spare and don't think I'll be running to the body jewelry store anytime soon.  (Maybe there's one next to the restaurant that we're going to tonight... hmmm....)

And then, here's the kicker.  I had to wean Owen.  At this point you probably think I'm just whining to whine, but this is really sad for me.  (You can skip ahead if you want, I don't mind.)  We were still going strong with a handful of feedings (sometimes less) each day, mostly surrounding bedtimes.  I was just going with the flow, no plans to stop anytime soon unless Owen gave me some signs that he was ready.  We would have stopped eventually, and probably sooner than later (like, sometime in the next 6 months) but I was in no rush.  We were approaching his 2nd birthday, so I didn't really talk about nursing him because most people think it's gross or that there is something wrong with nursing such an "old" child (don't worry, I think there is something wrong with you if you think that, so the feeling is mutual.  Ha.)

I was almost embarrassed to tell my doctor that I was still breastfeeding when she started talking to me about meds to help with my influenza.  She didn't give me many options, in fact it was either take this cough medicine and wean him, or you get nothing.

[Awesome.  Some docs seriously need to work on their breastfeeding support.  "Now would be a good time to wean him" isn't exactly the helpful attitude that I was looking for.  Is it so much to ask for a little sensitivity?  Are you seriously going to tell me that I should "just" wean him, as if it's no big deal?  It seemed a bit cold to me, in my much-too-sensitive opinion.]  Stepping off soapbox.

Well, I opted for no meds.

That was before I got zero sleep because I was coughing all night.  I surmised that Owen wasn't getting much milk, if any, anyway because of how sick I was.  So, I called for the meds.  I talked to Owen about how mommy's milk is all gone and we need to say bye-bye.  He took it like a champ, and has been such a trooper all week.  Unfortunately, I only ended up taking the meds for two days because I don't like how they made me feel (Hycodan- codeine, yuck) and wasn't getting any more sleep since I was just up all night sweating and paranoid from the narcotics.  Ugh.  What a mess.  But I had already told Owen it was all gone, and he was being such a trooper.  I couldn't turn back now...

But I am so sad.  I wasn't expecting this to be such a punch in the gut, but it's awful.  I don't know if it's made worse by everything else, or if weaning is always such an emotional experience but I'm a weepy mess.  I'm sure that the fact that I had to do it cold turkey and didn't really have a choice make it all the worse.  I also think that the fact that I have done it for 22.5 months makes it that much harder to just quit.  I know part of it is that this marks the end of the baby era, and now Owen is my little man.  I have to find new ways to bond and connect with him, emotionally and physically, and I wasn't ready to have to think about how to do that.  I just keep thinking that he can nurse again after x amount of time, just not right now, but then I realize that this is it.  It's over.  He's not my little nursing baby anymore.  That will never be a part of our bond ever again.

This may seem melodramatic and ridiculous but it's really hard for me to swallow this.  I also know women who never had that relationship, some who chose not to, and some who tried so hard for so long and just couldn't.  I'm sure it's difficult for everyone in their own way, or maybe some women are just stronger than me.  I don't mean to be insensitive as I sit here and whine about how I got to breastfeed for 22.5 months and that wasn't long enough, or something.  It's not that.  It's just the transition; the moving from one era to another, the end of something and beginning of something that has yet to be determined. I'm not handling it well.  So thanks for listening.  If you have advice or had similar feelings, I'm all ears.

So that's my two weeks in a nutshell.   I have so much more to say about my dad and his passing, and I'm thankful for anyone who is willing to hear me out.  Like I said, this is a little bit like therapy and I'm glad to have the virtual journal to look back on.