Openness

Being a new mom is hard. It is a balancing act. Scratch that a juggling act. With our son being so needy/colicky I had a VERY hard time with work, mostly because Matthew would scream for hours on end for James and it made me feel so guilty.

But honestly, going to work was my break! I felt bad, but I kind of enjoyed the fact that James was suffering at home like I did so many nights allowing him to sleep so he could feel rested for work. Evil, I know. I am not one meant to be a stay at home mom all the time every day. Being a mom is really a thankless job quite often.

With as bad as Matthew would scream and cry, always on the nights I needed and wanted sleep the most, it made me question...why did I want this in the first place? Do we really want to go through all that heartache it took to get to him to try to achieve a sibling for Matthew in the future? Then those smiles win my heart over all over again. And remind me of why I wanted to be a mother.

The juggling act isnt just juggling baby and work. Add in the stress a new baby adds to a marriage and school. You have a scene from The Cat in the Hat. It leaves you wondering which part is going to fall and be in disrepair when the inevitable halt of the balancing act occurs.

First, I want to clarify and make clear, James is a wonderful husband and father, but he is also a man. He doesn't have that mother's touch when it comes to our son. He is working 50 hours a week right now and is exhausted. But with both of us feeling exhausted and a child that would only give me rest if he slept on my chest, and the unwillingness to risk his safety by sleeping in bed with him...utter lack of communication happened.

It drove a huge wedge between us that we are now working on so desperately hard to repair. Years of pain, past sins, and questioning that has set down deep in our souls from both sets of parents divorcing came bubbling up to the surface.

Add to that the questioning if you are a good mother, and the plunge your self-esteem takes due to body image issues postpartum, mixed in with hormones...you can imagine what my husband is dealing with at the moment. Along with now having our son in bed with us for most of the night so we are able to sleep next to each other.

So if anyone is reading I am just asking for you to pray for a fully repair relationship with one another, for us to dive deep into an intimate space with Christ, and for my son to soon sleep through the night, or at least 3-4 hour stretches in either the pack and play or his crib. As well as for the knowledge I learned last year in nursing school to still be assessable in my mind because time for studying in minute, because to be honest...my marriage and family are more important.