My love affair with a breast pump

Yesterday was my third wedding anniversary, our first with a child. The most action I got was from a breast pump.

We planned on going to dinner and a movie. Nothing spectacular, but more than we've done in awhile, since we have a six-week-old and are student working poor.

My mother was going to baby-sit. I was going to shower and put on make-up. My hubby was going to shave and change out of the spit-up covered jeans he'd been wearing for three days. It was to be a momentous occasion indeed. We'd miss the baby, but a movie about marginalized aliens on earth would take our mind off it and bring back that lovin' feeling.

Then my mother had a nervous break-down.
It was a couple of weeks ago. She and my father had just had the most stressful move in the history of the world. The money almost didn't come through for the down payment, he was working round the clock and not around to help her with any of the logistics, they almost lost the house twice and the one they were living in was promised to someone else. It was literally the day before they were about the be homeless that the money came through.

Then there was the matter of my husband and I, who'd been living in the basement apartment of their house since before our Sweet Baboo was born, finally moving out and getting an apartment of our own. It is great for us to be out of there. When we got married we lived across the country from my parents, and everything was at a nice comfortable distance. While I missed my mom, I was overjoyed to be nowhere near her husband (my father) and could take or leave my sister. But my husband and I had terrible luck, and after struggling for a couple years we decided to take my parents' offer of their basement and try to get back on track. That definitely didn't go as planned, but that's a story for another day. What I was getting at is that hubby and I taking our baby and moving two towns over (all the towns here pretty much sprawl together, so its not as bad as it sounds) took a toll on her too. I don't know that she missed hubby or I, but she definitely missed Baboo.

Then's the issue of her chronic illness, which keeps her from getting a decent sleep and has her in constant pain throughout the day. And her troubled joke of a relationship with my father, that probably should have been over before it began. (True story, also for another day.) All of these stressors plus her history of depression and she wound up in the hospital. In another post I'll tell you all about that scary night when she went into full-on diagnosed psychosis, but for now I will selfishly focus on how it affected our anniversary.

My mom is much better. She was in the hospital for four or five scary days, then made a dramatic recovery and was released. She is functioning normally now, chatting non-stop like her old self, driving herself to appointments and events, and showering her first grandbaby with love. But I am just not comfortable leaving him alone with her yet. What if there was a relapse and it happened again? I shudder to think about what might happen to my sweet, sweet son, and no movie and overpriced but oh-so-delicious steak from The Keg is worth the risk.

Sad to say, I don't know when we'll be comfortable leaving him alone with her again. It could happen any time. . .Of course, we can't tell her that's why. It would crush her, and I won't be responsible for breaking a grandma's heart. I did ask my sister if she would be there the next time my mom baby-sits. I told her it was because I didn't want to tire her out, I didn't want to play the nervous break-down card. She said she will. She's going to check her work schedule (she just got back from Europe and today's her first day back at work), and let me know when she can "help" my mom baby-sit so that hubby and I can take a rain check on the movie. I don't know when or why life became so complicated, but I'm glad my sister is there to help us, and I'm glad she was there to call and tell us what was going on the night my mom wound up in the hospital.

This is why I want my son to have a sibling. My hubby is so not on board--but that's a story for another day.