Addicted to love
I cried more in the last week than I think I have in years. Ian started day care on Monday. Monday was solidly okay. His "teachers" are very sweet, his day care is across the street from our office, I nurse him at lunch and he's still getting cloth diapers and plenty of tummy time. He's fine. Rich is fine. Work is fine. The very sweet Hispanic ladies watching my child are fine. I am definitely NOT FINE.
Every day from 4 to 5pm, I watched the clock waiting for when I could go get my son. I would scoop him up, drive him home, extract him from his car seat bucket and spend the entire evening sitting in the recliner with him, crying. I didn't care what we had for dinner. I didn't care what TV we watched. I would muster enough energy to pack his bottles and diapers and clothes for the next day but that was about it. I didn't wash my hair again after Monday morning because it didn't seem to matter.
Needless to say, this has been hard on Rich. He's desperately trying to be supportive and stay positive. He would say, "baby, you're holding him right now. He's fine." and I would look up at him incredulously and sob, "but in less than 12 hours I have to give him away again!" I would wake up in the middle of the night, look over at the clock and start crying because I'd only get to stay in bed with Ian for another three hours. I carry stress in my shoulders and by Wednesday I couldn't turn my head to the left anymore. It's still sort of hard to look down and to the right. My blood sugars have been high all week because I don't have all those happy baby chemicals to keep them in check like before.
By Wednesday night I was a mess. I cried all night in the recliner. I woke up Thursday crying. I cried the whole way to work. I cried while I dropped Ian off and drove over to work. I sat in Rich's office and cried. I sat in my office and cried. I called people and cried to them on the phone. I took my lunch and went over to feed my son and cried in the rocking chair while I held him and those nice Hispanic ladies handed me tissues. I left work early because I'd given myself a headache from all the crying.
In amongst all that crying I lamented to Rich that I just missed Ian so much it hurt. Trying to stay positive, he said, "you missed me when I lived in Richmond but you survived. You still see Ian at lunch. If we didn't work together you'd see our son more than you see me." I wanted to scream at him, "I MADE HIM! I MADE HIM AND HE'S NOT HERE WITH ME AND THERE'S A HOLE IN ME WHERE HE SHOULD BE!" but I just looked away and dripped tears on my keyboard.
It's not a logical thing. It feels like someone has taken my arms from me. My arms are very safe over at appendage day care. And I can go visit my arms at lunch. I just can't have my arms back until after 5pm. Meanwhile all I want to do is scream or sob because I'M MISSING PART OF ME AND THIS HURTS SO BAD! I know in my logical brain that he's fine, but the mammal part of me cannot get over that there may be a mountain lion across the street trying to eat my baby and I have to get to him now! And that mammal part is not something I can just turn off from 8am-5pm Monday through Friday.
Everyone says it gets better. Humans adapt to survive and I suppose I can't cry forever. But now I have a lot more sympathy for drug addicts. This cold turkey stuff is not going so well for me.