Thoughts and Prayers Needed for My Mom

For those of you who know the back story of my mom and her relationship with my father, things are not good. He had moved back in for awhile because he couldn't afford rent where he was staying anymore, but they were staying in separate bedrooms and he was supposed to be moving back out once he started his new job this month and saved up some extra cash. Well, apparently my mom is starting to cave and I found that really weird because she was so determined to not be with him anymore. The reason she is starting to cave, though, is because the stress of everything is really starting to wear her down. She has been getting gradually sicker and sicker over the past few weeks. She isn't eating, she isn't sleeping, her body really hurts (she has fibromialgia, so that contributes to it) and she doesn't have the strength to fight my father anymore. She says she needs him to help her because she's so exhausted. He's been cooking for her and getting her medicine and helping her up and down the stairs, etc.




Another concern I have is that my mother was hospitalized in the psychiatric ward in August because things got so stressful for her that she had a complete psychotic break with reality. She was in a really bad car accident years ago (that's how she got fibromialgia), and in July was supposed to be the settlement hearing. Well, they went to the hearing and neither the insurance company nor the cement truck company (she was T-boned by a cement truck) wanted to settle, so after four years of suffering she found out she had to go to trial. And then they were moving, had sold their house and were counting on the settlement money to pay for their new house because my father had worked for GM and been laid off when the economy crashed, so they had that financial strain .



Plus their relationship had really deteriorated. She watched her husband verbally abuse and scream at me while I was pregnant, vandalize my sister's property when she was "disrespectful" to him, and treat my mother like dirt, refusing to help her around the house though she was disabled and constantly making her feel bad about herself for gaining weight and not being the perfect housewife.



So one night, when my son was a month old, my sister called me in the middle of the night to tell me that "something was wrong" with my mom. She was crying and obviously very scared. I found out later that she was admitted to the hospital under the lable of "psychosis" because all the stress had just been too much for her.



I went to visit her and it was horrible. She kept reliving the accident over and over and trying to convince me that she really was injured and really couldn't work. She refused to eat while I was there so they made me leave, and when I was leaving she tried to follow me out and they had to pull her away from me.



I don't think I will ever forget hearing her yell my name down the hall of the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit. They thought it would be weeks, if not months, until she was better and able to come home, but everyone in my family and our church prayed for her, and within 3 or 4 days she was totally back to her old self.



Well, the past few weeks things have started to deteriorate for her again, and I am afraid that she is headed back to the hospital if she doesn't get her stress under control and start sleeping and eating again. I am terrified of what will happen if she doesn't. I called her this morning and she sounded really out of it. So if you're the praying type, please pray for my mom.

I mean, it's my mom.

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Christmas Prep

So, I realize my last post was a little bit lacking. I was having a bad day. Big fight with The Hubbs = Sad. Things have been very stressful for him lately. He's been having a really hard time concentrating and its starting to affect his schoolwork. Everything he does in school counts for so much, so I understand why he's been stressed and not quite himself. However, it is definitely taking a toll on me when it seems that every little setback, whether its the power going out in our bedroom, someone cutting him off in traffic, or an inability to find something that he wants at the store leads to a major, hair-pulling, expletive using breakdown. If men can have post-partum depression (and I hear that they can), then I wouldn't be surprised if that's what this is. He is just not himself. I miss the man I married :(

What's worse, he went to the doctor a few weeks ago to ask for medication, and she didn't prescribe anything for him. She said its normal for him to feel this way and he should work through it using natural remedies. I know that meds aren't always the answer, but it took a lot for my husband to go down there and admit that he needed help, and I feel very frustrated that she doesn't seem willing to realize that and help him. Now I don't know if he will be willing to go back. I'm afraid that he will feel like he's begging. I just want him to be the happy, positive person that he was when we met.

In other news, we are just about done our Christmas shopping--yay! We have only to pick up a couple gift cards to mail out with the Christmas photo cards we had printed from Shutterfly, and then we'll be done, done, done. I'm excited, to say the least, because the malls and stores have been absolute mad-houses the past couple of weeks. I feel bad for people who wait til the last minute--I cannot handle those crowds! I am in awe of people who can!

Our tree is up, our nativity scene is out, and our freezer is packed with many of the ingredients that I'll need for our Christmas meal.

The only other Christmas prep I have left to do includes wrapping the mountains of toys I could not resist getting for our Baboo on his first Christmas, and the making of candy and baking of cookies. I'm making gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies, as well as chocolate covered pretzels, which I'm told are super easy.

Then after Christmas I have a couple weeks where The Hubbs will be off school and taking most of the responsibility of taking care of Boo, so that I can go full steam ahead on my schoolwork. I'm a little nervous about my abilities, but I'm hoping that it all comes back to me and I can just go, go, go.

I have made progress on several of my goals on my 101 in 1001 list, but I will save that update for another post. I'm going to go spend some time with my adorable boys.

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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.

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