Sleepless Nights

Category: Headfuck

  • Seven Years

    Seven years ago this February I got sick.

    Seven years of doctors visits.

    Of being told:

    ‘It’s all in her head.’

    ‘She’s pulling the wool over your eyes, she just doesn’t want to go to school.’

    ‘Her tests are clear, how is her relationship with her father?’

    ‘She’s anorexic.’

    ‘There’s nothing. Go home.’

    ‘Go home.’

    ‘Can’t help.’

    ‘Nothing there.’

    Seven years.

    Seven years of nausea.

    Of joint pain.

    Of dislocations.

    Of exhaustion and muscle fatigue.

    Of trying to tell doctors that other family members of mine have the same symptoms.

    Of being given a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in order to call it something, just to make us go away.

    Seven fucking years.

    Lots of doctors. Lots of tests.

    And nothing.

    Today though, today I walked into a doctors office and walked out with a diagnosis.

    I was told, ‘It’s a straight forward case. It’s a clear diagnosis. I am 100% certain that this is what you have.’

    I was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome today.

    And while it’s not a fantastic syndrome to have (dislocations, joint pain, no cure, etc etc), ANYTHING is better than being called a liar. Anything is better than being told you are faking it and to go away and come back when you are truly sick.

    Anything.

  • Buttons

    sunrise-063

    I have an announcement.

    Isaac? He sleeps better than Amy does. He is 11 weeks old.

    Do you have any idea how tired that makes me? Because seriously, he is sleeping 6-8 hours overnight* and yet, I’m somehow managing to have to get up for Amy 3-4 times a night. Sometimes all she needs is a drink. Sometimes she needs a cuddle. Sometimes she needs to scream at me to ‘GO WAY MUMMY!’ Sometimes? She needs all three.

    It’s exhausting.

    So when I was woken up at godawful o’clock this morning to feed Isaac, I was looking forward to going back to sleep. I was not ready to be woken up by a toddler who had decided it was morning time. I was NOT ready for Isaac to decide it was morning time too.

    Even worse? I wasn’t ready to look at the clock and realise that today? The clocks need to go back an hour.

    It was bad enough that the clock said 6.30am when I stumbled out to the lounge room. Everything started to look infinitely worse when I had to change it back to 5.30am.

    [For the record, Amy sleeps badly, so generally she makes up for this by sleeping in a little. Normally, I don’t have to start my day until 7.45 ish.]

    Today is not a good day.

    ***

    Dear Amy,

    I could happily live out the rest of my life without ever hearing you yell ‘I’m still HUNGRY! Need FOOD!’ when there is still a full bowl of cereal in front of you. You are NOT still hungry, you are trying to see what else in the house might be better to eat than cereal. I’m not giving you sweets, or biscuits, even less so at breakfast time. SUCK IT UP and eat the dammed cereal already.

    I will swap your cereal for an apple if you like. Even for toast. But if you specifically request rice bubbles and then after one bite start yelling ‘still hungry’ while the cereal sits there going soggy? I might get a little grumpy.

    Maybe even more than a little grumpy. In fact, it is the one statement that is almost guaranteed to make my head explode.

    Eat the food that you specifically requested already.

    Love Mummy [who is so incredibly fucking sick of hearing ‘I’m still HUNGRY!! Need FOOD!!’ when there is still a shitload of food on your plate. So much so that I am having to restrain myself from swearing more. And if you read this when you are 15 and angsty, you can blame me for all your problems. That’s okay, I have broad shoulders. But you read this when you have a toddler? You will get where I am coming from. Eat the dammed food.]

    ***

    Dear Isaac,

    I love that you are sleeping for 8 hours overnight.

    I don’t love that you are refusing to nap for longer than 10 minutes the other 16 hours in the day. Cat naps only work for cats. Stop it. By the time bedtime rocks around you are so tired all you can do is scream. I’m getting a little strung out here baby boy.

    Love Mummy [who is exhausted, but at least a 10pm bedtime is better than last week when it was a midnight bedtime.]

    ***

    Apparently dairy free also means chocolate free. And caffeine free. And chocolate biscuit free.

    No cheese. No chocolate. No milk. No coffee. No cream. No ice-cream.

    Hey, at least the rest of breastfeeding [for me] is easy.

    Sigh.

    Mum bought me some soy milk, so at least I can have a cup of tea.

    Still. Sucks.

    ***

    In conclusion. Daylight savings can go get fucked. Amy’s behaviour at the moment SUCKS. Isaac sleeps amazingly overnight, at the expense of day naps. I can’t eat chocolate or cheese, which almost makes eating not worth it at all and my house is covered in brains from the numerous head explosions I have been having.

    Oh and I have buttons and Amy knows how to press them.

    On the upside, Nathan managed to get himself into a standing position and hobble around for a bit yesterday. Yay for Advil.

    Sigh.

    *Okay, so once he has had his 8 hours in bed, he wants to get back up and party, so really, I’m having 16 hours of awake time from him, but WHATEVER. He is sleeping 8 hours IN A ROW, overnight. Something Amy can’t seem to manage.

    sunrise-038

  • Free to good home

    Free to good home: My sanity. Would prefer to give it away before it dribbles away entirely.

    ***

    At 3am this morning you would have found me wandering around the house, trying to find every single dummy that may have been hidden in the hope that Isaac would just suck on one of them for just a minute fortheloveofgod.

    Instead, I ended up cold, with a crying baby who flat down refused to suck on ANYTHING that wasn’t me. My nose? Good. My little finger? Good. My nipple? FANFREAKINGTASTIC! A dummy? What the fuck MUM?

    I ended up with a screaming gagging baby frantically hunting for my nipples, three rejected dummies and milk to my waist. Not a good night. It was however, a normal night.

    ***

    I had planned to go along to my mothers group tomorrow. All this not sleeping is seriously killing my sanity and I think I need to just talk to women who are dealing with the same things right now. Also, the coffee and the chocolate biscuits don’t hurt either. Plus? I like the women at my mothers group. I have missed it desperately since I stopped going over 12 months ago. I need to go along and let Amy play with the kids again.

    Best laid plans of mice and men though, today the car started playing up. Until we get it booked in to be fixed (it needs routine work we were putting off because we were broke), we aren’t going anywhere.

    Which would be FINE, were we not living on rice and beans and was I not slowly losing my sanity. Whatever.

    ***

    -Consistently runny poo
    -Gas that smells BAD
    -Red rashy bum

    Wait wait, I know this one. I’ve done thing one before!

    I suspect Isaac has the same milk protein allergy that Amy did. The difference this time? Hardly any screaming, which WAIT! That would be because I eat very little dairy at the moment anyway. Where’s that elimination diet sheet? SIGN ME UP!

    Sigh.

    ***

    Nathan slipped his arm around my waist today and pulled me closer and OH FUCK! One of my ribs moved under his hand and went all out of place. Can ribs dislocate? God knows my side still hurts. I’m falling apart.

    ***

    Another post about sleep. Sigh. Even I’m sick of me.

  • Solidarity

    There comes a time in a new baby’s life, when they stop sleeping all day and start having some wakeful periods.

    Then, a few more weeks into the new motherhood gig, you will find your baby starts sleeping even less and wants to become more part of the family, rather than just a cute blob parked in the corner.

    And if that baby is one of my children, there comes a time when they stop fucking sleeping altogether.

    Two hour naps turn into 30 minute-and-fuss sessions. You will find yourself looking at your cute little blob while saying under your breath ‘I just got you to freaking sleep, 30 minutes is not enough sleep, go back to SLEEP. SLEEP SLEEP SLEEPSLEEPSllleeeppslepepepslsls….’ Conversation at this point becomes useless, because your adorable blob is looking at you with very SAD eyes [Can you see my sad eyes mum? Pick me UP! Or else, I will have to drop my bottom lip and piiiick meeeee uppppppp] and wanting to feed, a-freaking-gain.

    No matter that the last feed was barely 45 minutes ago, your baby is HUNGRY and needs you NOW WOMAN, where are MY BOOBS?

    At which point, you will feed him again, because dude, it’s easier than looking at that wobbly bottom lip and if you’re lucky he will go back to sleep.

    If you’re lucky. Apparently, not if you’re me.

    Sure, he goes back to sleep, just so long as I don’t move my nipple away from his mouth. So what if he isn’t actually feeding anymore, that nipple is like a comforter and removing it will cause DEATH DESTRUCTION AND MAYHEM. Or you know, your baby to wake back up.

    Same difference.

    Once the baby wakes up, he isn’t really awake. He has realised however, that your nipple is no longer in his mouth and he will thrash and flail like a hooked fish in order to try and find that nipple again. He won’t however, open his mouth at all which would allow you to shove your tit back in there and shut him up.

    All this causes passive aggression.

    Like wandering around the house with a baby in your arms, muttering stupid things like: ‘Am I the only one with working boobs in this house?!’ [Answer: Yes] ‘Am I the only one able to settle a crying baby?’ [Answer: Yes. Not the only one available, but the one one able.].

    Sleeplessness makes you a little silly.

    Because as horrible as the first 3 weeks are when your newborn has no idea what sleep is and how to achieve it, sleeplessness is accumulative. And your 8 week old baby? Knows exactly what sleep is and knows he doesn’t want to be doing it.

    [And let’s not get into sleep and toddlers and nightmares and did you know Amy pulled all the carpet up in her bedroom tonight in order to not fall asleep? Tonight I have discovered that Amy’s bedroom carpet is actually a large mat and isn’t actually nailed down. But, whatever.]

    Your toddler knows when things are particularly bad too. This is when she chooses to be naughty. Like, finger painting the walls with Isaac’s zinc cream. Like unfolding every single bit of unfolded washing. Hey, but I bet if you ask Amy, sleeplessness and mummy distraction/inability to get up due to baby on boob makes for lots of fun. Or maybe complete boredom. Something.

    Sleeplessness also makes you slightly less nice to the people around you. Someone says ‘I’m tired’ and I have to resist the urge to laugh maniacally and yell ‘SUCK IT UP SWEETHEART!’ Because you know, you might get to sleep tomorrow. I probably will not.

    I do not need to resist the urge to laugh and yell if the person complaining about tiredness also has a baby or a sleepless toddler. Then it’s all about solidarity in sleeplessness and circle hugs and chocolate and comatose like zen states.

    So in short, I am fucking tired and it doesn’t make me a nice person [actually, some people would call me downright bitchy. whatever though]. This child of mine will sleep one day, right?

    Heh. Someday.

  • Strung Out

    I awoke early this morning with Isaac snoozing soundly – still at my breast and a crick in my neck from where I had been sleeping sitting up all night. It wasn’t yet dawn, so I wiggled him over to his side of the bed and swaddled him, before arranging my pillows and attempting to fall back asleep.

    A minute later, my soundly snoozing boy was wide awake, well aware that he had been moved and he was more than willing to let me know how unhappy he was at this fact.

    And this is how my days and nights go.

    Isaac is more than happy to sleep, just provided that he is sleeping on my chest or breast without interruption from me or anyone else. Woe is Isaac if I try and put him down for just a moment to do anything minor in his eyes, like pee or eat. Unfortunately for Isaac, using the toilet and eating are kind of neccessary to my survival and therefore, his.

    It would maybe be easier to be a human pillow all the time if there was another human pillow that Isaac would be content to swap me with. Say, maybe the other human who helped give him life. But no, apparently I am the only one who will do. Some days I would be more than happy to stagnate on the couch, with nothing more to do than change nappies, breathe in the smell of a warm baby and breastfeed, but there are two other people in this house, plus me and things need doing. Which, yet again apparently only I can do.

    So, this morning I awoke with a baby on my chest and after trying to move him, 10 minutes later he was back on my chest and fast asleep while I made the best of it and dozed myself. I’m tired, I’m strung out, my breast is still sore and there are these two short people who need every ounce of me that I have to give.

    No matter that they have another parent. A PERFECTLY GOOD other parent, who has changed his working hours in order to be home nearly all day every day, who gets a PERFECTLY GOOD amount of sleep each night and should in theory be PERFECTLY GOOD at changing nappies and giving cuddles and preparing sandwiches.

    Heh.

    I’m thankful it’s Sunday and Nathan doesn’t work today at all.

    I’m thankful that I went into town with Nathan while he worked yesterday and managed to cope for 3 hours alone with both children – Amy in the stroller, Isaac in the sling,  not a playground in sight and I didn’t go insane or lose Amy. God knows I needed to get out of my house. This SAHM thing would be a lot easier if the staying home part wasn’t exactly what we do every day.

    ***

    I’m also feeling a little strung out, because the mother of our kittens disappeared 6 days ago. Hit by a car? Caught in a  trap? Shot? We don’t know. We do know that her five kittens were much to young to be weaned, although we are trying to make the best of it.

    Unfortunately we started with five kittens and are down to three today. Seven killed two by ‘playing’ too hard. Unfuckingfortunately she two she killed were two of the kittens who had mastered the eating of food and weren’t doing too badly at all.

    I now have 3 kittens living in my bathtub [so they can’t make too much mess, they haven’t mastered cleaning themselves yet] hampering my showering and keeping me on tenterhooks as I keep them alive by the skin of their teeth. Yesterday I was hopeful that all three would survive, they were healthy and active and LOUD and not having too many issues with their eating.

    This morning I am worried about two of them and wishing I had the equipment and the inclination to bottle feed them. There is something that goes against every bone in my body to be all ‘come what may’ and let them take their chances. Dammit, I don’t want to let them die, no matter how much easier that would be; for me now and in the long run.

    Sigh.