anna kiss
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anna kiss
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my husband has all the digital photos that we have on this slide show that pops up as our screensaver. it just randomly goes through all the digital pics we have - which, there are hundreds since we got the digicam when alex was about two months old. sometimes we just sit and watch the slideshow go by. sometimes amidst all the photos of alex grabbing at the camera or him sleeping or him covered in food, a photo from when he had one of his surgeries will pop up. there's a particular series from his first surgery that i took of him and the room at night with this dim orange light highlighting the midieval-looking metal crib he's in, the humidifier blowing on him, the machines all blinking, hooked up to him under the blankets that he's covered in from head to toe. in his mouth is a nipple with the tip cut off and it's taped to his face so that his mouth stayed open so he could breathe since the swelling and the tylenol with coedine really depressed his ability to breathe and babies don't naturally open their mouths... every time i've seen that lately i've started thinking about how i should have been holding him. i attachment parented from the beginning, but i've recently realized that i wasn't able to bond with him the way i wish i had in those early months. i've started to feel guilty about this idea that i could have been a better mother to him when he needed it most. i'm trying not to put a whole lot of weight into this idea, but it's there. i hate so much the fact that i missed out on nursing alex. i hate so much that i am everyone's prime example of breastfeeing dedication just because i pumped for thirteen months. i hate that alex's teeth are all fucked up. i hate that his scar has not formed as well as it should have. i hate that i have to consider when his next surgery will be when deciding when to have another child. sometimes i hate other mommies that i meet or that i know just because from here it looks so perfect and unfair. i think about all the things i could have done differently, that i could have done or not done to prevent this from happening to him in the first place. which is why it so important for me to carefully plan the next child. which is why i am spending all this time thinking about it, making plans, obsessing over something i'm not even going to be doing for a few more months. i just need it all to go right this time because it's too hard and unfair and i don't want to spend all my time hating. i need to feel my life for all the good in it, to see it. i do and i can, but it'd be very very hard for me to fail at making a whole person and it'd be very very hard for me to fail at nursing again. i know that i'm not a bad person. i know that i haven't done anything to deserve this, and i don't even believe the world works that way anyway, but it doesn't stop the ringing in my head, that little nagging feeling of guilt, of suspicion. i'm just scared and nervous and it's hard. but then, what if everything goes right. well hell, i don't even know... 
 posted by anna kiss @ 4/29/2004 01:18:00 AM |
4.29.2004  |
