I’m going to have a brain dump on here right now. On September 28 and 29, I drove back and forth to Louisiana — 7 hours each way for a conference. I had to prepare the talk and give it the next morning. I spent a grand total of 2 hours at the conference and had to drive back to be home to put the kids to bed. It seemed like such a waste but I needed to fulfill my committment.
After I finished that trip, I immediate worked on the next essential task. My tenure and promotion package was due October 1, so all non-essential thoughts and writings and activities were delayed until I got the package in. After I submitted it, I spent a week trying to dig out from the workload that I created and I’m still doing it. I hope I get tenure but I will still live if I do not. I haven’t given it that much thought — it is a necessary hoop that I have to jump through in academia. I pulled an all nighter, an honest to goodness all nighter the night before it was due. I felt like a college kid again, although my body did not respond well. I did sleep an hour from 5:30 am -6:30 am and then got up to take my daughter to school. I was OK the day after but the day after that, I was totally useless but unable to nap to make up the sleep. I think I’ve recovered, a week later.
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For those of you who are baby lost mom’s I’m going to talk about pregnancy right now so you may want to stop reading.
I got an u/s on Tuesday to try and pinpoint a due date. The OB insists on using my LMP which would make it May 5 but I know that I didn’t get pregnant on that regular cycle. If I use a more responsible ovulation date, I get May 10. The u/s gave a date of May 10 but my OB won’t change the May 5th date. There was a heartbeat and maybe really tiny arms and legs but mostly, baby still looked like a bean.
I am really going to have to work on acceptance at some point. I know it is hard to read this if you have struggled with infertility or have lost a baby but I am still struggling with the gift we have been given. It is not the logistics of a new car or more baby years but more the fact that I am so tired now, every night I fall asleep totally exhausted after speaking maybe 20 minutes to my husband. I get overwhelmed trying to imagine another baby in the house. I know that I have my older kids, and they are a huge help watching and entertaining my littlest one right now. But no one can help me with a baby. My husband does the best he can but the care of a baby falls to me. I think it is the full one year committment that has me overwhelmed. I have field work that needs to be completed, students that need to get work done, and I’m exhausted. Those things won’t happen. I will only be surviving day to day again. With my littlest one being 10 months now, she is only waking twice a night and I can see the end to the babyhood madness. But, now I won’t get a break, I’ll go into another one (hopefully because as we all know, carrying a baby full term doesn’t necessarily mean you get to bring it home). And I desperately want to bring this one home too but I’m tired thinking about it. I’m hoping this is first trimester exhaustion but I have a feeling it is going to stay around another 1.5 years. I have absolutely no right to complain, I had a full term baby after Norah and she is alive and healthy and awesome. Now, I am trying to accept our new gift and challenge. I think this is going to be a gradual process.
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On another baby note, I look pregnant. I’m wearing sweatshirts and baggy clothes to try and cover it but when I carry my little one around, which is all the time, my shirt pulls and I have bump. My belly button already sticks out at 9 weeks. I’m not certain how long I can *hide* the bump. I am so dreading the comments “Another one?” “Don’t you know how this happens” “What are you thinking” and my colleagues will roll their eyes and think of the work that they have to take on. But, you know, I’ve had 3 kids while here and I have not taken any time off. NONE. I have had a few professor cover possible 2 weeks of classes after Norah died. So, they can just SUCK IT! I work as hard as I possibly can and I hate the double standard. I do the same amount of work at this university as a professor who goes home to a stay at home wife and pats his kids on the head. I am the Mom and that means that the extra special cuddles and care come from me, the reading, the conversations — I won’t ignore my kids. I know, a slight tangent, but I’m a little ruffled about academia right now, must be the tenure decision.
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I’ve babbled on enough. Norah’s death month is next month and I’m already starting to focus on that. I’m going to try to make the 10 hour journey to where she is buried at Thanksgiving. Plans are not set yet.