December: Reflection & Reflection

Oh, November, the Month of Gratitude. I should start by focusing on the positive, such as the fact that I am so thankful we had so many friends rotate through our home this month: Andy and Beth at Thanksgiving, Andrew and Libby, Matt's brother John, and the band Naytronix. 

But I struggled a lot this month, mainly with physical illness that wiped me out and opened up big, wide spaces in my emotional life for sadness and uncertainty to sweep in. First we got some kind of stomach bug, which, at one point, left me sitting on the bathroom floor at 3am, with my arm stretched up to hold Henry on top of the counter in the middle of a diaper change, calling for Matt because I was about to faint (he was in our bathroom dealing with his own gastrointestinal issues). Those intense days of sickness pushed Matt and me to the very edge of our parenting. With no grandparents in town, we had to cobble together what felt like "coverage" for Henry. I am so thankful Henry wasn't also sick. We already felt like we were at the edge of our capacity.

After that blew through, a different kind of sickness entered in a couple days later. Stuffy noses. Sore throats. Coughing. Those symptoms--coupled with setting the clocks back--threw Henry's 6:30pm-7am sleeping schedule off-kilter. I haven't taken medicine since I was preparing for Henry's conception (around Fall 2010). I've mainly be able to prevent illness proactively, but when I do get sick, I try to sleep it off and drink a lot of liquids.

With this sickness, I tried the same strategies, but they weren't working. After seven days and no signs of clearing up, I went to the doctor. In under five minutes he had already prescribed a litany of medicine for me, which was different than the litany of medicine Matt's doctor prescribed him at his 5-minute appointment. For example, apparently his watery/crusty eye was pink-eye; mine was sinus blockage. 

I expressed my concern with taking any medication while in the first trimester, and I asked if it was absolutely necessary for me to take anything. He said he doesn't personally let himself suffer past one week, but if I wanted to go on longer, I could. I really just wanted to give the baby the same environment that Henry had had--one that was free from potentially dangerous chemicals. 

I waited another week and things started to look a little better, even though I was essentially still in sick mode: coughing, needing to rest constantly, and feeling generally awful. I started to realize that I was wreaking a different kind of havoc on our baby by subjecting my body to so much stress from illness for so long. I just kept thinking, "I've been sick so long and it feels like it's tapering; surely I'll be better any day now." 

But then my intense sore throat returned, and I decided it was time to try and wipe it out completely. I started antibiotics right away. Here we are in December and I am finally starting to feel better. In retrospect, I realize that I could have prevented a lot of suffering by taking the medicine earlier; I just didn't know that this sickness would persist in ways that others usually don't. 

The worst part about being physically tamped down was that it really affected my mental state. I wish I had mustered more optimism and focused on gratitude for what was going right, but I didn't. I worried a lot about whether this pregnancy is developing as it should or whether it's like the last one (which ended in miscarriage). In many ways, I still feel betrayed by my body for the miscarriage I had. I don't feel betrayed because the miscarriage happened; I trust that miscarriages are natural and happen for important reasons. I felt betrayed because it happened early in the pregnancy and I continued to feel very pregnant for many more weeks--almost to the end of the first trimester. 

So this month, as I struggled with some first trimester symptoms (but not with what seemed like enough), I had immense uncertainty about whether or not this pregnancy is progressing. I am going to the midwife tomorrow, and we should be able to hear the heartbeat if everything is going well. This spot was the exact one I was in last time when didn't hear the heartbeat and realized the miscarriage was happening. 

All sorts of other doubts swooped in this month, too. At one point late in the month, I was talking to my best friend about it and he said, "You know, you've gone through a lot of change in a really short amount of time." 

And that's when it all hit me. That's when I realized that my quest to "make dreams happen" with so much urgency--while exhilarating and empowering--is also completely exhausting. In less than two years, we gave birth to our first child, I wrote a book, sold our house without a realtor, moved to a new city, tried to get cohousing going, found land, started building a house, wrote and published another book, started a new job, worked on starting a new school, got pregnant again, had a miscarriage, and got pregnant again. 

No wonder I've been sick for a month. 

Although you may think I'm completely neurotic at this point in the post, may I at least try to explain myself? At the risk of sounding delusional? 

I just want the major elements of my life to fall into place relatively soon. I'm on the verge of turning 35. I've spent the past 15 years of my working life at various jobs that have inspired me to want to  start my own school. I'm ready to make this dream happen for myself (hence the need to sell our Houston house and move to Austin). I don't want to spend any more years working on other people's dreams. 

At the same time, I'd really like to grow our family to two children. It makes sense to do this before the school opens and it requires intense focus. It also makes sense to do this before my age potentially makes fertility more difficult. 

And the third piece--the house--is related to my intense need to feel settled. As a child, the longest I stayed in a single spot before high school was two years (for 5th and 6th grade). I want Henry to grow up in a single neighborhood. I want him to consider the park and the creek dear old friends. I want to celebrate birthday parties with the same families year after year. I want to plant a garden and return to it season after season. 

My best friend warned me, "Just make sure that once you've got everything in place that you actually feel content instead of feeling like you need to go and change everything again." 

I absolutely hear that concern. I think it's easy to become too goal-oriented. Pushing and striving can become the end rather than the means to an end. 

I'll definitely continue to be a pusher and a striver, but my hope is that those things happen within the context of the three big pieces in my life that will already be in place: work, family, and home. I hope that the job I create for myself will allow me to continuously take on new and exciting projects. I hope that my family and I take on new challenges like building a birdhouse and learning how to raise pygmy goats. I look forward to developing our homestead--getting it more organized, planting more fruit trees, meeting more neighbors.

I'm in a much better place as we head into December (and almost into the new year!). My intention for this month is to be more patient with this process of making dreams happen and to immerse myself in gratitude for what I have right now, even as I work urgently to create what I hope to add to our lives.

Photo Courtesy of the Nikki McClure Calendar

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