Godsend

I have not posted in awhile. Truth is...I have no interest in posting. If you want the really ugly dirty truth, I have no interest in a lot of things anymore.

While I was pregnant with Tinkerbell I asked a fellow mom of three what it was like. She said it's like treading water and barely being able to keep your nose above so you can breathe. Well...I feel like I am about to go under. I am exhausted, I am sick, I am sad, I am overwhelmed. You may ask why I even bothered to title this post "Godsend" after hearing all this negative garbage. I am too.

You see, I am a social creature. I love being around people of all types. I am usually the one who calls my friends to initiate a get-together, to see what's up, or to tell them I just saw something on TV that I thought they would be interested in. I always wondered what would happen if I stopped calling people and taking the first step. In the last few weeks I have been too busy and tired to pick up that phone or write that email. After asking several friends to do many things....I just stopped. No one was interested. People have new babies, hectic jobs, PTA, or whatever that just keeps us all so busy. I needed something to get me out of the house and hear my pain, but there was no one to get out of the house with. No one to talk to. No friend that understood what I was going through. Why? I don't know. I have good friends, great friends. Don't I?

Tinkerbell is sucking the life out of me. I love her more than I could ever tell you. She is incredibly beautiful and even talking about this gives me a great deal of pain. I want to stop nursing. But I can't. She won't take a bottle or a paci and her latch leaves my nipples sore and cracked. Feeding her hurts. The thought of it sometimes makes me cry. I don't sleep much at all anymore. I lay awake wondering what to do about the whole thing. I feel completely tied down. My husband and I have not been on a date since May. Thinking about nursing until her first birthday is depressing me beyond belief. I didn't realize how sad and withdrawn I was until last week.

A friend of mine, D, casually asked me after choir how things were going. I started telling her this and that. How frustrated I was. How no one understood what I was going through. People say she's obviously getting enough to eat because she is so chubby. But it doesn't mean she is doing it correctly, or that it is working. D just hugged me and said she knew what I was feeling. And she did. She went through all the same things with her son. When I saw that she completely knew what I was going through I just started bawling...in front of most of my choir friends. That was really hard. I don't cry much in public. I am pretty detached and unemotional for the most part (or so my husband says). Even hugging someone is hard for me. But there in that moment I became completely vulnerable and just cried. I wasn't alone. Everyone else ran off to go get drinks at that point. When they asked D if she was in she said no, that she wanted to stay and make sure I was ok. Her and another friend T stayed with me for another 30 minutes. She gave me some information and contacts and told me exactly what to do. Then she called 3 times over the weekend to just see how I was doing.

She doesn't know that she saved my sanity, though I have tried to thank her over and over. God tugged at her heart strings at just the right moment and she touched me when I so desperately needed someone. It makes me realize that maybe we don't always know what our "friends" are going through. We suffer behind the closed doors of security, or at least I do because it is safe. The Duke is my best friend, but couldn't possibly help me, or know what I was feeling I am doing as best as I can today despite being sick and having two sick babies. But I am not as depressed, knowing that there is help for what I am going through, and validation that my feelings are normal and I am still a good mom. Thank God for that wonderful lesson in humility. I can't be perfect, and no one expects me to. And when I need a friend...I always have one looking down on me. He will always call me back....even if it isn't quite his voice on the other line.