rough night
pathfindermon
member
I'm having a rough night. A week from today is my lo's first birthday and the closer it gets, the worse I feel. I just keep thinking how last year this time, I had no idea how much my life was going to change in the next week. It started with my sweet dog dying. He meant the world to me and tomorrow it will be a year since he passed. Then 2 days later my water broke and I was admitted to the hospital. They expected me to be there a few weeks but my DS came four days after that. I can remember lying in my hospital bed crying at night. I just couldn't believe how quickly everything changed and that my life would never be the same. I just feel like I have this huge weight of sadness on me right now. And every time I even think of my DS's b'day, I get so anxious. I've tried talking to my DH about it. He tried to be supportive but he doesn't really understand what I'm going through. I guess that's why I'm posting this here. I really feel like you ladies are the only ones that might understand what I'm going through. I knew it would be tough when his birthday came but I didn't realize it would be this bad. I hate being a mess like this!
Thanks for listening to me rant. It feels better to have this off my chest.
Re: rough night
I'm told that over time we think more of their birthday and less of the events around their birth and I hope that's true. The first year is going to be especially rough though. Just know you aren't going through this alone!
Serious hugs! It's a tough milestone - it's this weird bittersweet time. You are thrilled that your LO is turning one, but it dredges up so much. I totally understand.
And my husband totally didn't get it either. I cried the anniversary of the day my water broke and I was admitted. I cried just days later on their first birthday. But each day after that got better because then I started to remember joyful things. Like when they came home from the NICU.
Hang in there!
I know I'm going to struggle with this, too, a lot. And, DH doesn't get it either -- he's all looking at the progress the girls have made, and how far they've come (which, is totally fair). But, I know the minute we hit October, it's just going to be tough. So many holidays were spent in the hospital/NICU -- we didn't even celebrate Christmas because my dad was so sick with the flu, and we didn't want to expose ourselves to it. It was a pretty rough holiday season, in so many respects. On top of all of that, my grandfather passed unexpectedly 10 days after the girls were born, my dad had to have stents placed (he was in an out of the ER for a number of weeks until they figured out what was wrong)...it was easily the most emotionally draining 3 months of my life. It'll be hard to "anniversary" that time period, for sure.
But, at the end of the day, DH is right -- to hit that 1 year milestone -- after all we've been through, it'll be pretty awesome. But, certainly bittersweet.
I'm so glad you posted this. I've been meaning to come back and chat with you ladies. I know exactly how you feel. My girls' 1st birthday is coming up as well, but it's not really their first birthday, but it IS...so many mixed emotions. Their milestone pictures are all out of wack, so we'll be doing the smash cake with those late. I'll still have one at their birthday party, but it's hard to describe to people "on the outside" how everything feels....I don't know...off.
It's too soon to be having a one-year party, I say on the inside. We are actually celebrating the scariest time of my life...when I yelled to my husband from the other room "This isn't right", and that started my girls struggling for life and four months of hospitals. I'm thinking of having a mini celebration on their come-home date, but just for us.
It's the same feeling when everyone thinks I'm crazy and looks at me like I'm insane for wanting more kids and for being sad that we won't be having anymore. Impossible to explain the sense of loss of a "normal" pregnancy experience, and how it doesn't end when they come home like I thought it would.