Not a new dilemna - A working mom's guilt

Well..

I'm not sure how well written this post will be. I have a lot of thoughts and emotions about this subject, but whether I can voice it using 26 letters, a few numbers and some weird and often misused punctuation has yet to be seen (see.. there.. i already f*&$ed up the punctuation and grammar.. now I can stop worrying about THAT).

It has been a whopper of a week at the TMAAB home. For those of you who are new readers.. it has taken lots of psychotherapy, but the root of most of my "problems" are with self-esteem and guilt. HA.. now how much did it cost me to figure that out? That's for another post.

I got slammed with post partum depression. Want to hear it summed up into one paragraph? I'm gay. i'm infertile. I was able to conceive with the help of a wonderful group of doctors, a wonderful and generous man that I do not know and a whole boatload of medication. Pregnancy changes my world. Nothing is more important than the little squishy dude growing inside of me. I sucked at being pregnant (shhh.. don't say anything, I already know this is the self-esteem thing.. just keep reading). I had gestational diabetes. I took insulin. I craved cinnamon buns that I couldn't have.. and dill pickles and anything with BBQ sauce slathered on it. My blood pressure held steady. I was monitored constantly. My blood pressure spiked. I was put on bedrest. I sucked at that. I developed pre-eclampsia. My baby was taken from me 4 weeks and 4 days too early and kept two floors away from me while I couldn't be with him for more than 24 hours. All this and I still seemed relatively sane. Then comes the clincher. Faulty boobs. I learned the hard way that I had no mammary function. Wham. I'm obviously not meant to be a parent.. which was the only thing in life I ever really wanted to be.

Looking back almost two years later.. wow.. I thought that was so hard.. little did I know how much guilt and terror could build up AFTER the child is here!

Ok.. so fast foward. Luckily, I've moved mostly past the PPD crap and do not feel like I wasn't "meant" to be a parent and do not feel like I failed at anything. That's why I spent the big bucks on all that therapy. Now we're in the present where I am learning just how terrifying the rest of my life will be. Granted.. I wouldn't trade a second of it for the world.. but still.. kids should come with a warning label.

Now.. this week.

Ben picked up a virus. A sore throat with a fever. Nothing major. With that fever, Ben had two seizures. Terror. It was just 3 days. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. He's doing fine today and is back at school. We're exhausted. Between the two of us, we struggled to get a handful of hours of sleep each night.. not because the baby was awake.. but because we were awake watching over him and making sure he was still breathing. And double-checking. Again. Just one more time.. just in case. "Every parent's fear this". Ok.. maybe so. But I held my child for about 5 second just two nights ago while he was completely unresponsive and NOT BREATHING. I will never shake the terror that I felt in that moment nor the relief that I felt when he cried seconds later after the seizure had broken.

Our nerves are raw. Our attention is finely tuned inward. There is nothing that even comes close to the importance of our child's health and safety. His laughter is the most beautiful sound in the world.

So.. snap back to reality. The title of this post is "a working mom's guilt". I haven't even mentioned my job in all of this. Why? Well.. because when telling the story of our week.. the important part is that Ben is ok. The important part is sharing my own feelings about these events. The important part is that Shiela and I are on the same page regarding how to proceed with the medical aspects of this.

What IS NOT important is the number of hours either of us worked in our house or in our respective office. What pisses me off is that a working mom's guilt made this week all the more difficult for both of us. Every day we worried about idle tasks at work. Every day we struggled with trying to get work done while not going insane with a screaming and sick child. I'm not saying that work isn't important. It obviously is. I'm also saying that what we do at work isn't important. Again.. it obviously is (or at least I hope it is.. I spend a whole lot of time doing it!). What I'm saying is that I can't stand the balancing act. I can't stand the fact that I spent even a second worrying about it. I'm irritated that I'm writing about it.

Have I explained how a working mom's guilt feels? Nope. Do I even understand it all? Nope. Do I have a fix? Nope.

Am I at work? Yes. Am I productive (aside from this blog posting)? Yes. If I'm going to be away from my family.. I'm going to make it worth my time.

On that note.. I have some things to get done so that I can go pick up my son.