Tuesday, July 29, 2008

twinkle toes

...I tripped and fell holding the baby...she is fine, SO LUCKY!!! but I am hurt. I hurt my shoulder, went sailing out the backdoor and rolled my ankle and fell down hard hard hard onto my left shoulder. WHAM onto the deck. Wind knocked out of me....bellowing for Greta "Get the baby! Come get the baby!"......of course Steve wasnt home....of course I was wearing flippety flappety Crocs (which i threw far under the bed and will never wear again)

Lots of shoulder involved in breastfeeding. Cant even reach across my body to unlatch bra or hold baby right or lift to style my hair or get stuff out of the fridge or anything.
Found depressing things online about it taking 6 to 8 months to heal, deciding to stay off the internet.

I keep having nice days really, I do, but I never seem to sit down to blog until another bad one happens.

I am very sad that I am hurt again and dont know what to say. Told a couple of folks who were "really sorry to hear that" but nobody's a-comin over and wrapping my head around that one each morning gets harder to swallow but Im trying.

I really do want to blog more but have never ever been this busy in my entire life. Cant even explain how there is NO down time right now, none, none none. I wonder how many times I tell a child "Just a sec!" Just a sec Just a sec Just a sec Just a sec....its like some macabre hotel, people in each room popping their heads out in Coo-Coo rhythm: help! help! mama! mama! help! help! mama! mama! uh-oh! oh-no! Mama! Mama! Hurry! Hurry! Help! Help! Mama! Mama!

REALLY wanted to write about all sorts of wonderful things, the dear baby and her funny sleep schedule and how I fit into my fat jeans again (small victories!) but I just cant. soon I hope. Im sorry everybody. Anyone ever hurt their shoulder really badly--- ice or heat? In all my car accidents and years of sports, I have never hurt my shoulder before. It is UNBELIEVABLE how much a mom needs her freaking arms to work. Ankles are nice, too, but Ive been walking funny since April. The shoulder is absolutely unnacceptable.

Monday, July 21, 2008

mini makeover?

The days are hard. Let me correct that-- the MORNINGS are hard. SO hard. Too hard. Need the whole afternoon to recover from them.

I am really drowning and churning in all of my thoughts and within the limitations of my post surgery body and its very confusing. What to do. What not to do. What to think, how to wait, what is important, what is not, what is dumb, what is smart, what is right, what feels right, does that matter, is resting good is resting a bad sign what is resting blablabla.

Tonight I am going to treat myself to a little mini version of the kind of stuff i will be doing all the time a year from now. I am going to run to the store by myself, get a fun haircolor and maybe a big insanely fluffy expensive coffee and give myself a little mini makeover.

I dont know what else to do, really. My children H A T E me, but showing them a fun time is about impossible without hurting myself taking them to some park or whatnot. Seems like in the house they are INCREDIBLY angry and fighting, so of course I am absolutley flipping out about what happened to my sweet babies and then I am all nostalgic and troubled and then I tell myself oh stop all that crazy stuff just eat some stupid salad greens and well that isnt quite helping but....I feel like I am waiting. For what. To feel stronger, like September or so?

The family party was fine. I sat around and Daddy did all the work.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Joining the ranks

I was very bummed out, concerned, but mostly, validated when I came across this thing today. I had typed cesarean scar massage into google and found this Q+A type of message board. I do not vouch for anything else on the site but the voices of the post-op women was something I had not had much access to.

when I had my first section in 2000, I was somewhat new to the internet, as far as searching, and I wanted to really deny that this was me. I didnt want to bond or cry I wanted to move on and get pregnant right away again. This is common with a "bad" outcome regarding pregnancy and birth. Anyhow, it took 20 months after my first period to conceive and in retrospect I am glad.

when I had my 2nd section in 2005 I knew too much and was extraordinarily saddened by the whole thing. Extremely devastated. Extremely silenced. Extremely shunned and muted and my pain and my situation was totally and utterly and even resentfully "blown off" by almost everyone I knew, family, friends, strangers, noone wanted to deal with me or it or anything. It was made clear that the entire subject matter was just unacceptable, and the pressure building inside of me literally and figuratively started me blogging. First the guise was that I was blogging about "our days" but from the get-go I had anger and snide little slip-ins about how difficult it was with this pain, my little "profile" said some thing about how "New Mamas shouldnt be abandoned" etc. I was hurting, baaaaaaaaad. Heartbroken 24/7 was how I would describe my first year(ish?) with Charlie and the kids.

One entry I did on the "homeschooling fun times" blog was about birth and I got a lame comment from a guy friend of ours and it was that that let me know I HAD to have a whole seperate entity to write about birth and stuff and thus Breast and Belly was born, along with the other blogs that were just NOT about homeschool!

Ok what am I talking about?
Oh yeah....well anyways being self-identified as a homebirther and a homebirth advocate and not wanting to get on any kind of lists with any c section moms WHATSOEVER, I actually know remarkably little about healing and what is common and what is normal, etc. My anger and pain was too big for me to "go there" and so I just put energies all into other things birthy.

So.
I am in pain, but without the bitterness of the surprise cesarean, but the new newness of the planned cesarean, and it is very different. It is "better" and it is not convoluted by the extraordinary weight of "WHYWHYWHYOHGODHOW COULD I HAVE AVOIDED THIS OH WHYWHY WHY DID THEY BUTCHER ME?"
Now it is like, ok, we did this, we felt it was going to happen anyhow, lets get better! All these cool and wonderful Mamas online are telling me about massages and vitamins and lets check it all out!
So I do not know if I want to be on some commiseration-ring with anyone just yet. There is so much potentially "there" with cesareans, and my story is mine, and it takes enough energy to share it with my blog and you al, I dont know if I can start up with strangers who might be coming from so many different angles and beliefs-- just give me the damn instructions, eh? Thats probably too simplistic. I have alot of unhealed stuff from my old births, too. Alot.

I am really freaking out about this family event, 2 of them actually, and I know the belief of the people on Daddy's side of the family: We dont talk about Birth and C Sections are easy-peasy even though none of us had one. ACK!

I was also TOLD, point blank, in my face, (well, not really, on my bed-phone because they didnt come to see me or the baby or the kids until the baby was almost 2 weeks old, didnt babysit didnt do anything they promised) on day THREE by my mother in law that "I am probably mostly better by now if not tomorrow for sure" (This was when 2 nurses had to help me to turn in bed to start the 10 miute process of sitting up to begin the long long walk to the bathroom bent completely over, weeping--no--SOBBING with each impossible step)

I was also told, TOLD when the baby was about 12 days old that "Well, youre all better now!" and when I looked at her, incredulously, tears pouring down my face "No, I am not, not by a long shot, " she told me that I needed to "quit takin them pills". I rolled over in bed as best as I could (that is still hard to do) and nursed until she left my bedside.

sigh
its so easy to tell people to not worry about what others think, but it still sucks to enter into a group situation where every person there has such an agenda, for lack of a better word.

I want to get better. It is scary to read about all the women who have pain years later and the ones who wrote about limited leg motion really made me think WOW, I have had hobbling right leg since 11-05, but can fake a normal gait. I just want to get better!

I feel really good today--yesterday was SO BAD I felt like I had lost 3 weeks off of my recovery, couldnt even carry Eska and walk! But today I feel good so I am NOT going to clean I am going to rest!
Charlie and Casey are squirting good, new baby wash all over their own heads out on the sidewalk, it is 8:30 am, and instead of screaming at them, OR putting in the good hour it will take to give them baths, new outfits.....im just gonna take a picture and let them crust over : )

Of course I am among the ranks of moms who have had cesareans. Whether I want to be or not, it is true and real. I do not want to get sucked under and start drowning in abunch of MDC crying and bashing fests, but it is no longer (too) scary to search some stuff on google here and there. It no longer makes me turn purple and cry and write big thingies about how hospitals are evil and stuff. I hope that this fact hasnt made my blog boring, I know it sure isnt what it used to be, a nice fist-pumping F-the-Hospital kind of an affair--but hopefully the true story of me is still interesting enough.

PS my own family and my own friends this time have really really been wonderful. I wanted that to be very clear. this is a daddys side o the tree deal right now, the parties and the attitudes.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Hi there

i am reading all of your blogs...but I just cant seem to write right now. I am going through some torrential huge monumental changes, big swirly stuff, lifestyle stuff, its all very good very hard very intense.

It is hot here and it is hard to keep track of the kids with all the nursing. As much as I am into breastfeeding I am not sitting on my tiny front porch with my boobs flying out. i cant do "discreet" until the baby is older, and she can hold herself up. right now I need one hand for her and one for my breast and she pops off and spits up and rolls around and well, the other 2 or three hands i need for keeping my shirt vaguely down and swatting mosquitos and all this stuff, well, i just cant do it on the front porch right now. I have a special tank top thingy and can do cover-y blanket things but it is just too hot for all that crap right now. I like to lie in bed but thats when Charlie flies out the front door and I hear cries and screams and crashes...or the big kid who was "watching" the little kid appears in the doorway for a tattle or a ridiculous food request.......

its hard. its kind of like one of those dreams where you cant talk or cant scream or cant punch the bad guy--

after a great weekend of being a fun mom, i am paying the price, hardcore. My belly just hurts SO bad, I dont have better words to describe it. I didnt do anything wacky or lift anything heavy, but i guess hanging up a few birdfeeders and going on short walks and just being an upright mom in the home was bad.

I saw the doctor last wednesday and i cant write about it yet. My care cycle is over and I have been declared to be fine. I type this with dry wit and dismayed relief, but it is not the doctor, it is just the whole system. Live birth. Mission accomplished.

I will say this, though, I know know know that other surgeries such as knee, foot, neck, back, whatnot have follow up care! FOLLOW UP CARE. Rehabilitation, Physical therapy, hell a fricking handout with little suggestions? anything?

there is absolutly N O T H I N G they do to you or for you after a cesarean. Bye. I practically begged the guy for advice, but the 2 avenues of conversation seemed to be leading around in circles: It will take some time/You are completely healthy goodbye/it might take some time/everything is within normal parameters/buh bye buh bye

I dont know what to say. i dont know what my dream would be, i am glad i am "fine" and i am glad to be "normal". I think I would like, in a fair world, some kind of therapy. Special exercises, advice, support....

there is so much conflict between what i am really experiencing and what "the world" thinks i should be experiencing because their imaginary girlfriend said she felt awesome by now or whatever.

we have three family events in the next 2 weeks and i dont like my options, as i imagine them to be: get all dolled up, abdominal binder, hair/makeup, vicodin/motrin/motherwort/vitamins/herbs and be a big superstar mommy....to come home and crawl, CRAWL into my bed, weeping and be jacked for 4 or 5 days afterwards....

or show up all pale and slouchy and slow and gentle and stainy and leaky and fat in pseudo-pajamas and think i am "showing those skinny bottle feeding materialistic yucky bitches what real motherhood looks like with a 5 week old" (NOT my family...but some of the extended family on Daddy's side...)....but it will just come over as wow Joy used to be cute, that poor Steve, if she didnt want a c section she shoulda gotten "fixed" along time ago

this is the black and white way i think today. i wrote more than i planned to--i swear i was so "up" the last week, really be-boppin along, too busy and happy to bother with the blogs or even the indoors....but now i feel really crummy again. sore. tired. sore. tired.

btw, all this existential crisis stuff is about if i can homeschool anymore. i dont know where to write about it or what to say yet!

Monday, July 14, 2008

we are here just busy busy busy!

I literally cannot make time to blog right now! I am doing very well emotionally, my body HURTS but only every other day it seems, and going from 4 to 5 kids has been H-A-R-D! Because now I have 3 kids under five years old i suppose? Phew!

We are all adjusting beautifully tho and I swear I will write soon, lots to say, no energy or time!!!

(making dinner is a JOKE with a newborn, an actual JOKE.....)
ok, love to all, be back soon!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Newest pics!

I love all the funny faces baby Eska makes. I love that she is about the size of my big ole' shoe. I love that Charlie was my teeny-tiny and now he is a goshdarn giant--I guess your youngest child will always look teeny tiny. I love that we bought fireworks from one of those random stands on the 5th and it was all 1/2 off so we had a little 5th of July party in the backyard. I know that tummy-sleeping is super controversial, but for little catnaps with me right next to her the entire time, boy does she seem to like it! Plus I get to crack up at her funny little bum sticking up in the air and her curled-up froggy legs! Hope you are all having a good holiday weekend.




















Saturday, July 5, 2008

clarifying...

Ok, I know that I ramble and that i do not rough draft or spell check so here is to clarify:

Nobody has recommended me to any psychiatrist. I have seen no doctor. I was just worrying that if I shed a tear at my 6 week check up that they might flip out because everytime i cried in the hospital they flipped out. (I havent posted my whole hospital story yet but there are some anecdotes to share sometime soon! Overall lovely hospital, but still of course I have a pocketful of kooky tales that will amuse)

I have no problem with post partum depression and have nothing against thinking I could have it. I would and have taken antidepressants in my life. I have a degree in Psych and I did not mean to ever come accross insensitive or defensive/ignorant. Yes it is quite ironic that this disorder was ignored for so long and now every new Mom who has a little sniffle snuffle is depressed. I think this subject is still very open and has tons to do with society and how we raise our young alone(ish) etc...

I have body pains right now and they wont give me any more vicodin and i feel frustrated about things. I know I am nursing a baby and I know narcotics are "bad". I have a pet-theme and it is the ways that I feel men and women are treated differently and sometimes it is right and sometimes it is wrong and I wondered if some guy (me, in the metaphor) got his belly cut open, would they deny him medicine and give him that look if he got so pissed off that he cried? But all of this is make believe, no one has done anything to me besides make it very clear that the Vicodins are almost bye-bye and I am bummed. More than bummed. I get why and yet, three weeks and I am some addict? No. I take 1 or 2 a day (none today!) and they help tremendously. I dont "need more and more", so I guess I thought I had major surgery, my 3rd section in 8 years, and they could just give a gal a break. I didnt know where to turn for advice on how to heal for real rather than just pop pain pills so I turned to you-all. I wrote hastily with one free hand and clicked publish post.

By the time I get to the blog, all my thoughts are pretty disjointed. I wrote in a conversational tone which can give people a great feeling like we are having a chat or can make me seem really really hard to understand and rather like a spazzing teenager. Que Sera. Im trying.

Thank you all for the great suggestions. again, I have seen NO doctor, noone has told me anything live or on the phone. Only the receptionist on the telephone told me no more Vicodins after these is all. Steve is home today so I didnt take any. I got some direct sun for my Vitamin D and look forward to ordering the homeopathics--thank you all!

The scar massage sounds SO amazingly interesting--someday long down the line I could bear something like that and maybe have my belly back and not this wierd tight pooch thingy that the surgery caused. Cool cool cool.

I take full responsibility for making no sense last post to many of you---but again, no stigma or fear against PPD, just wondering if and when and what to do with someone who might be actually holding up pretty well mentally but just has a boatload of body pains. I did read what you wrote about pain being exacerbated by being depressed, but must wonder why one pill that is not-the-best for nursing women (Prozac, etc) is so much more "acceptable" than another (Vicodin). I guess I am coming to this because when I am out of pain I have been active, cheerful, taking pictures, making crafts with the kids, meeting new neighbors (we moved a month ago) reading, playing in the baby pool (with my feet) etc. I dont FEEL bleak, dull, numb, vacant, hopeless, I just feel like.....well I already told you all.

Please keep the suggestions coming, Steve says he will get or order me anything i need,
thanks again!!!!!!!

Friday, July 4, 2008

Advice really really needed.

Ok, y'all, I REALLY need advice and am open to all and anything, help!!!

Obviously I can go to my doctor, but right now he is out of town and I see him in 2 weeks. I need real advice, living words, something. He is a great guy but I am pretty sure he will say "its gonna take time." right as he tells me I cant have any more Vicodin and to take some Motrin. Then I will cry and he will start in about PPDepression. Which I do get and am aware of, but dudes, dudettes, people of the Earth--Why cant I just have a seriously painfilled body and that be dealt with? I dont want Prozac, I want pain-relief, and some exercises that I can actually do in this decrepit position I am in. Cant it be possible to just be owchy and achy and tired and that be ok, do I "have" to be mental? Does anyone agree or get that being in major pain is depressing, period? Not being able to do the things you want or need to do sucking? Cant I just be some guy who got knifed in the alley, does it have to be depession, MUST they guilt trip me so hard about the Vicodin? (I take 1 or 2 a day, 13 left, then no more. Thanks! My family appreciates it! Shove your Motrins up your well-intentioned asses! "they are hard on your liver"....let me worry about my damn liver, Ill take Milk Thistle, it will all work out.....argggggggg)

So, I feel like CRAP. I am asking for real suggestions as to how I am ever, ever going to be a fit and strong girl again--hell, even an upright Mama who goes to homeschool field trip day or the library, seriously. I guess
I will just list what my symptoms are right now. Obviously, my incision area is sore and achy and tender and inside my abdominal "muscles" are just hurting and aching from being upright at all. My back aches--aches so badly. My hands ache like I have severe, severe arthritis--I am that old lady who cant open the medicine bottle now--for real. My bones hurt all over like the flu and I have hot flashes if I "do too much" which literally means do anything beyond quiet babycare things.

I am not going to list everything else that I feel ok about--sore swollen breasts, sore neck, blabla because those are not worrysome to me. those are totally normal and expected and I am fine about that stuff.

But, in my condition, this isnt about me renting some PostPartumBoogyBum exercise tape. I mean, I feel so run down and so horrifically weak and SORE, how the hell am I ever ever going to get it together, so to speak? I have five kids, FIVE--there just absolutely is NO "rest, enjoy this time, " there isnt. My husband does TONS of laundry, dishes, cleaning, takes all the other kids the moment he gets home from work and hustles his BUTT off, but during the day, there is still SO much, even if I dont clean anything, the breakfast! The lunch! the fights! the messes! the toddler insanity! I am NOT supposed to lift Charlie, but I have....Greta helps me when she can, but into the crib, out of the crib, occasional high chair, (im sorry but a quick lift into the highchair or 30 minutes of scrubbing up spaghetti all over the halls and bedrooms because he is "pissed that I had a baby and throws food now?" I have to do highchair.

So, what? walking? yoga? green spirulina drinks? herbs? vitamins?

I cant "treat myself" to any kind of alternative healers because we do not have the money or insurance coverage for it nor do i want to take 5 kids to the chiropractor or acupuncture. I honestly do not know when I would be up for the 5-kid car trip without Daddy but it wont be for a while, thats all I know. Which is depressing and sucky but today we all went to WalMart and I ended up just going back to the car to nurse alone in the heat and it was a fiasco and I was sooooo tired afterwards and even had a creepy sensation like my insides were falling out--total sucky nightmare, the whole thing was a dumb idea but I wanted to go with them....

I could take a class or something cheap if it was evenings. Swimming? Do I bring the baby? Can you do tampons if you didnt have a vaginal delivery? Cant bleed all over the pool....why dont I know anything after 5 babies????

Ok so everyone write and tell me how to get better from this pregnancy and c section and I will owe you eternally. I will eat or take anything and will try anything, magnets, prayers, powders creams pills stretching....help!