July - August 2022
We returned home from the hospital to coolers of food, stacks of diaper boxes, and a gift bag FULL of gift cards from my wonderful studio team & clients. Having all of these people hold me up when the one person I expected to chose to emotionally dismiss me is one of the main things that carried me through the dark days ahead.
Once we were home, he had a few days of "working late" before he left town for over two weeks for events. Miraculously, I survived haha. Sort of. I don't know. Ugh. I essentially had to force some semblance of a routine, strongly enforced by the 9,427 alarms I had scheduled on my phone. Alarms for pumping, feeding, giving myself my IV, getting my IV out of the fridge 1 hour prior, keep three small people alive, get back with anything studio-related, shower (hahahahahahahaha), eat (hahahahahahahha) and pee (hahahahaha....well that usually happened, just with an enthusiastic audience).
By the grace of God and the amazing village that formed around us, I was able to go through the motions enough to get us from one day to the next. It's all such a blur. Two days after he got back in town, it was time for meeting new teachers and first days of school.
Once I was able to drive again, I navigated between school, daycare, and newborn care. Daycare was 45 minutes away, so some days offered toddler relief in exchange for a lot of car time, and other days we embraced the chaos and stayed on our side of the bay. Our church was unbelievable in continuing to offer occasional meals, and while I never really had time to dwell on what was happening at home there was a decided shift. The person who came home at night while I was still awake no longer came home happy to see me. Most days felt like I had somehow done something wrong thanks to his icy behavior towards me and total lack of affection. I actually counted at one point, and it was five days after I got home from the hospital that he hugged me for the first time. To be the sole provider of warmth, security & affection while so desperately in need of it yourself pushes you to draw from unknown places and figure it out for your kids.
A few weeks into the schoolyear, I looked forward to my mom's visit over the Labor Day long weekend since Matt would be out of town for an event. What is it about that long weekend that kids can sense? There was no routine, lots of energy, and outside felt like the actual face of the sun. We have the kind of summers here that you start sweating the moment you open the front door & need a shower by the time you reach your car. I remember at one point over that weekend that my mom was cooking dinner (the real MVP) and I had just finished pumping. I was using one of the wearable, wireless pumps (because how is it going to happen if you're tethered) and could tell when I was done that I had produced a nearly full container. I was elated! With my other two babies, I was essentially a dairy cow. I made waaaaaay more than enough. With my second (the 2020 baby), I would drop off frozen milk to friends with babies who couldn't produce. We had to get a deep freezer to house it. And now? Now I had a body that even the lactation consultants would tell me that I "might have been too sick to ever produce", so when that session finished, I was so excited to take off the pump and admire my hard work. Something caught my eye as I removed the pump from my bra, and I looked down at this.
Blood. The milk was full of blood. My nipple was cracked and all of that milk was wasted. I started crying and distinctly remember a "will things ever feel easier?" moment. (Stay tuned for that answer, because we ain't there yet, folks.) Almost out of habit, I sent the picture to him with a devastated caption. Years ago, I would have quickly gotten a sympathetic response. This time? Crickets.
I found out later that the lack of response was for good reason.
The event that he put in our shared calendar app for a week in San Antonio was actually maybe a day-long event and he was now enjoying a beach-front condo 45 minutes away with her, her best friend, and one of his managers who had been grooming the best friend (they all worked together). At this point, the manager had had the privilege of learning how to groom from him for the last year - learn from the best, buddy. Moreover, I was dealing daily with comments about financial stress angled to make me feel bad that the studio wasn't "doing more" and was the reason he had to work so much, yet I'm here to confirm that ANY beach condo in the area 45 minutes from us rented over Labor Day Weekend is hardly an economical expenditure. They spent the holiday weekend getting blackout drunk, smoking weed, and doing who knows what else....but taking lots of pictures, at least.
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