Well. I try to stay positive, and I’m sure I’ll end this on
an up note. But this week sucked.
Ondine’s surgery was a huge success. She was under a bit
longer than expected, but with skilled surgeons comes perfection, which takes
time. What I neglected to mention was how our once happy
sleep-through-the-night little girl is absolutely stir crazy most of the
evening. From frustration, from pain, from dizziness that I’m sure gave her a
headache and from the disorienting feeling of not being in her safe zone.
I spent most of the night trying to get her not to cry. I’ve
never been able to not get her to cry or sleep. Not since she was a newborn and
I was just learning to read her needs. This is as heartbreaking as it is
disheartening. It gives this impending since of hopelessness that already bound
up in your inability to explain to an infant that it will be alright.
Once in a while she would fall asleep in my arms only to
wake
screaming the moment I tried to lay her down. This went on for hours.
Around 4 am she exhausted herself to a point that she couldn’t possibly stay
awake and passed out. When the nurse came in to check vitals I told her I
might kill her if she touched her (I’m kidding. Mostly). So we decided to let
her- and me- sleep.
2 hours later it was time for our neighbor baby to get her
treatments. I vaguely heard the physicians walk past us and to her side. Ondine
however woke right up, pulled a glove off and stood up, shaking the bars of her
cage crib to get attention. And we were back at it again.
I decided to move her to my couch bed so that she
might waste some energy crawling. Nope. She only wanted to break free. She
crawled to the edge and stuck her head through the open door while I held onto
her tiny little hospital gown. She watched the staff at the nurse station for a while but eventually got mad she wasn't allowed to crawl.
She had so much energy and was eating so well that two hours
later when my husband arrived they told us we could go home after some
paperwork, a full 24 hours early.
This was good an bad. Good because now Ondine had a family
space to crawl and play in. Bad because now we were 100% in charge with only us
and family to help- all of who were leaving us within the next few days.
This has been a repeat MO for the last week. Every night we
have a little “discussion” about bed time. She falls asleep in our arms only to
scream as soon as we set her down. Once we finally get her down it’s about 2
hours before she’s awake demanding comfort usually.
I spent a bitter sweet night where she fell asleep n my
chest like she used to when she was new born only for her to wake in a start
and scream in pain and discomfort for the next hour.
Last night however, after an evening with our church Ohana
group, she went right to bed. She woke once, and then again in the morning
bright and early. We’ve learned to trade off and couldn’t make it through
without our friends, family and
church friends brining us food so we could focus on her. Which surprised me. I
don’t ask for help easily but find that if there is help offered I will gratefully
accept. Especially food. Less cooking = happy mama.
So I guess it wasn’t all suck. There were good moments and
beautiful souls who helped us. But my prayer is for one full night of sleep.
For her and for us.
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