So now, Asa is 3.5 months old...weighing in at a whopping 20 pounds already! Life with the new babe has been some days easier than expected, but most days everything is hard, bone numbingly hard. In the moments when it's terrible, when three children are crying all around me, when one is screaming and trying to dismantle the house, one is starving and begging to be nursed, and another is peeing on the floor in defiance because of the attention of mine they crave, it's hard to imagine that there is ever a way out of this pit of pure hell. There are days when I start out the morning with nothing to give anyone, when I need solace, peace, and quiet for myself, but before I have even gotten out of bed, there are the screams of one...two...three little beings who need so much more than I can give them in this season. It's hard, because there isn't a single thing that is easy right now. Bedtime takes forever, and there usually isn't a night where everyone stays asleep until Chad and I go to bed. A trip to the store feels like goddamned heroics. Just leaving the house requires herding three little bodies to the car, urging, pleading, demanding that Laurel GET IN YOUR CARSEAT, my hands tied while I hold a baby in my arms, words my only weak defense. I think about the Janet Lansbury peaceful parenting podcast, where she said recently to a new mother of three that we must embrace this messy season, that it's only a season, and that we should accept that this season is hard for all of us. Instead of trying to manage or sooth anyone's feelings, which of course cannot be done, we must accept that our children have feelings and let them express them as they may, while we patiently plod along to an easier time. Some days, I feel like a rock star parent, staying just the right distance while my children wilt around me, crumpled on the floor with tears streaming down their faces. Sometimes, I offer hugs at just the right time as the tantrum is winding down. I embrace them with my gentle and kind words, and let them know I am the rock they are desperately grasping for. And other days, I feel a heavy dread in the pit of my stomach as I sit down to lunch and realize that today is yet another day when I won't be able to eat the lunch I prepared for myself, because the number of children who need my attention NOW has reached critical mass.
Right now, I get down about the unceasing difficulty of everything. Trips to the grocery store, an evening at home, a trip to the park, bedtime, showering, laundry, keeping up with the house, or trying to make plans to see relatives. We recently went on a trip to a family member's baby shower, and I was so looking forward to it. We packed up everything, got everyone bathed and fed, and even got on the road for the 1.5 hour trip to Dayton 15 minutes early. We were exhausted before we even left. But then whole thing was just hard. The kids were surrounded by relatives they don't often see, feeling particularly shy and needy, and still reeling from the newness of their baby brother, only 2 months and some change at the time. I felt my heart sinking as I realized that Chad was barely getting to spend any time enjoying the company of the family members we had come to see, and the intensive management of the children just kept coming in unrelenting waves. With Chad's schedule being as crazy as it has, working 50+ hour weeks, being gone on weekends from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM some days, the feeling of unending drudgery has just intensified.
On top of all this, of course the hospital trip when Asa was three weeks old has enduring ripples. The bills just keep coming in, and there are so many billing departments, each with a different bills and different accounts, it's hard to keep track of how many bills there are, and when we will have reached critical mass. When will we really and truly know the total we owe? I can't log into our account, and have spent phone call after phone call with Nationwide Children's trying to get everything figured out. Apparently there's a glitch in ONE OF their systems, and we can't log into the account based on some error on their end, although we're still waiting on them to get it fixed. But meanwhile, of course the bills keep rolling in. Any in addition to that, we found out recently that insurance will cover nothing of our home birth, which of course cost of thousands of dollars out of pocket. We had been struggling all winter to pay off this expense over the course of my pregnancy, and just when we could breathe a sigh of relief that it was all over, we now owe huge monthly payments for Asa's hospitalization, for a disease he almost never certainly had from the moment we admitted him to the hospital, filling his veins with the poison of the antibiotics (great for times when lifesaving measures are needed, but clearly detrimental to a healthy new babe). And I feel like a fool, because our health insurance plan very clearly says there's a $7500 deducible for out of network expenses (meaning the fees we paid for our home birth). We checked it before, but I don't know what we saw, or thought we saw. We clearly misunderstood the plan. And on top of all that, we paid someone $75 to process the claim. Money down the drain, to process a claim that was always going to be denied.
There's more worry than I can ever fit into one post, worry about my extremely shy 5 year old starting kindergarten soon. Worry about potty training and tantrums for my 3 year old. Worry that I can never give them enough of what they need while we all work, work, work incessantly, work we must work, lest we not be able to pay our mortgage or our mounting medical bills. Worry that I never have a moment to slow down and look at the sweet babe in my arms, who is growing so fast and so beautifully.
In quiet moments, when I have time to myself, to stare at my baby boy, my sweet Asa Ezra, I am so happy. His sweet smile and his growing list of skills fills me with infinite joy. The same with my 3 and 5 year olds. Every day, they amaze me with their wit, exuberance, intelligence, and growing skills and knowledge. When I have the opportunity to sit down with them and take time to enjoy them as the wondrous human beings they are, they fill me with such happiness and joy. I know we'll get through this. I know that everyday won't seem like utter drudgery forever. I know that next year I'll have sweet 6 year, 4.5 year, and 18 month olds and that life will be a little less hectic and a little more calm. I know we're in a season. I know this. I know I set impossibly high standards for myself and that it's okay to fall short sometimes, but it's so, so, so hard right now. As summer melds into fall, Chad will begin working less, my workload will lighten, Everett will spend 3 mornings a week in school, and I WILL breathe. I will get through this. It's just that in the worst moments, in the hardest of times that feel like they're stretching out into infinity, it really is hard to remember that.
