Poor me

Today started out sucking and I'm not sure it's going to get much better.

My poor-me reasons are as follows:

1. My husband is out of town at a stag weekend with the boys. This is the first night we'll have slept away from each other since Aidan died. Now, I'm pretty much always alone from Monday to Friday during the day when he is at work and have been since I started bed rest WAY back in January...but this is the first night I'll be without him. I'm not a HUGE fan of being home alone at night anyway. Not that I really think anything bad will happen...it's just nicer to have someone around, ya know? Plus I'm alone all week, and I look forward to the weekend when he's around...and this weekend he's not. But, all this aside, I'm glad that my guy had this weekend party to go to, and even more glad that he was looking forward to going. He deserves a fun weekend. I just would have liked one too.

2. You may be thinking "why don't you make plans Emily?". Tried. Didn't work out. My friend's birthday party was this weekend. Also out of town. I just couldn't bring myself to go to a pool party with a bunch of people I didn't know. I would love to see my friend, but at this point I still need to do quiet, undemanding things. Preferably with minimal people. Like walk on the beach, go the mall, watch a movie. Things that are simple, easy, and don't demand answers to questions like "So...what's new in your life?" or "Are you and your husband planning to have kids soon?".
Then, I tried to make plans with my usual friend who I've been seeing on a fairly regular basis, once a week since Aidan died. Unfortunately her 4 month old daughter got her immunizations yesterday and now has a slight fever, is cranky and needs her mommy. Boo. I wish Aidan needed his mommy.
I've attempted to call my mother to see if she wants to do dinner or something...she isn't home.
So here I sit, home alone.

3. It is really crummy weather out. Rainy and cool. Not June like at all. No good for sitting in the backyard trying to get a tan. Not good for going for an energizing walk. Good for lazing around and doing nothing.

4. I slept horribly last night. I'm probably running on 3 hours of sleep today. Why you ask? Good question. Probably a touch of anxiety about my husband being out of town, but mainly because I've started to think about going back to work. And, despite how lonely and bored I am at home...I'm DREADING it.
It might be different if I worked in a small office, with an office-y type job. Even better if it demanded little interaction with the public. If that was the case it might be nice to kind of slide back into my old life with old work friends and acquaintances. I'm sure it would be hard, don't get me wrong...but maybe it would be bearable.

Unfortunately for me, I'm a NICU nurse and now a dead baby mama. To go back to work means caring for other sick babies...some of whom will get well, and some of whom won't. I fear that I will feel pissed and angry caring for the babies who will get well (Why couldn't this have been our reality? An NICU stay, with Aidan coming home with us in the end? With all the bad news during my pregnancy that was what I was *hoping* for). Or, I fear that I will over identify with the parents who receive either terrible or fatal news. (Why does this have to happen to so many people? Why their baby? Why MY baby?)

The true fact is, I was actually having trouble 'handling' work for awhile before I got pregnant. My job is not only emotionally draining, but physically stressful as well. I work on my feet for long stretches. I don't have a 'scheduled' break time. I eat/drink/pee around the babies needs. I may have a long dull day where my patients sleep and I am there just to work the ventilator, check their vitals, monitor, feed, change them and give them their medicines...or I can have the day from hell where I will be racing around like mad trying to save a paitent's life and meet their needs, the physician's needs, the RTs needs, the parents needs, the unit's needs etc. And I never know which it will be until I walk in.

This 'work stress' had me in knots way before I even got pregnant. I was worried that my baby would have an outcome like the babies I care for (a fear completely founded in reality it turns out). I was also terribly worried about how my heart was going to handle the stress of being pregnant. Could I keep up with the pace at work, which is demanding at best? Could I keep on top of it all while I was not in peak physical condition? My heart has and always will be a huge concern of mine...it's not like everyone elses. It's structurally not the same. If any of you out there have a baby with a heart defect you'll know what I'm talking about. I worry it won't keep up with me and my demands.

So I worried about all this before becoming pregnant...worried A LOT. Like to the point I couldn't sleep...A LOT. It was becoming quite an issue...and then I ended up on bed rest at week 11 of my pregnancy. It's hard to admit now...but a not so small part of me was HAPPY to be on bed rest. Happy that I could let go of the demands of a stressful job and just sit around and wait for my baby to be born. Ha...what a joke it seems like now. If I hadn't needed to be on bed rest Aidan would (although one can never be sure) still be here. I would give ANYTHING right now to have to be at work, and almost 31 weeks pregnant, instead of 1/2 way through maternity leave and trying to decide what the hell I'm going to do with the rest of my life.

I've been thinking lately about why I had such trouble sleeping for all those months prior to, and during the early part of my pregnancy. I think I've come up with a sort of answer...but I'll have to formulate it more in my mind before posting it. Maybe I'll do that later today...it's not like I have anything better to do.

Would you like to come join my pity party? What's bugging you? Pull up a chair at the poor me fest. Would you like some whine with that cheese?