This post is kinda raw. It’s where I’m at.
After two weeks halfway around the world trying to keep my new son out of the hospital, one week on at home in the hospital away from my family and then a week at home trying to figure out how to feed Daniel through a tube, I am struggling. The energy has crashed, the stress made its mark, and my other children haven’t miraculously become angels who are always kind, hard-working, and obedient.
I’m having trouble putting thoughts together. I’m fighting under a blanket of depression that tells me I’ve already failed. (Doesn’t seem to matter that I argue with that) I’m discouraged. I’m hurting. I’m angry. I’m grieving. I’m tired.
Daniel is obsessed with his cords and has little use for me in his heart. He tantrums if I put him in a chair, so he has not joined us for dinner (or any other meal), won’t try his wheelchair and flips out in a stroller. He doesn’t have language of any kind and that he will probably learn is only cold comfort to my grief as I see his tiny four year old body and know what should have been. I’m keeping track of his foods on a chart that I made… it’d look good in a doctor’s office. I don’t feel joy in having to chart his foods. And I’m constantly worried about him becoming dehydrated or constipated again. His tube leaks at the port where I put food in, so he smelled like vomit all day yesterday until I taped one port shut and rubber banded the rest to clinch it. It looks horrible.
Jordan is bored. I try to teach Anna lessons in school and she cries that I’m chastising her and runs crying to her room. I try to help Maggie through her chores and she cries because she’s hungry because it’s taking her hours to do a 20 minute chore list. Carolyn doesn’t hear anything I say and is constantly asking me questions about what I just said. I’m tired. I’m just so tired and I don’t have the peppy, positive solution to all this. It feels like everybody becomes unhappy whenever I touch their lives.
I’m fighting through this. I am believing that it’s going to get better. I know that thoughts coming from a depressed place are not thoughts to listen to. This is just a difficult season and I’m having a hard time finding a way through it. But I will. We will. I am not sharing this for a response. I’m sharing it for me. Because I need to put it down. And maybe my daughters will read it sometime years from now and understand that everybody struggles, but not to give up.
My view earlier.
I have perfectly healthy children and they are in various stages of blowing up their lives. I don’t know your pain’s particular source, but I know the frustration and the helplessness. I’m praying for you.
I just want to say, that on many a given day there is at least one of my girls that aren’t happy with me. Maybe it was the meal that pleased two, but repulsed one. Maybe it was the consequence that was given for having to repeat myself the fourth time. Maybe it was a writing day, and they would like to suffice with just their rough draft rather than taking the time to refine their work. It’s hard. It’s hard to know whether you are making a positive impact or not, mostly because we equate a positive response with a positive impact–and we get negative responses daily. You will get it. You will be wiser and stronger because of it. You just have to dredge through the swamp to get there. And the kids will be kicking and screaming all the way through; you can likely expect that. I wish I could be romantic about child rearing. Maybe someday I will be. But what I’ve found is it’s an awe-ful amount of gruesome training, not because we are raising robots, but because these saplings need it to grown straight, tall, and strong. Take comfort momma, and press in to Jesus. You’re not a failure. In His strength you are a conduit for His glory.
I hear ya loud and clear, hon. Good thing our kids are ultimately God’s responsibility……. not that it helps in the moment. But keep at it. You are God’s hand picked person for this job, and His strength is perfected in your weakness. Thanks for sharing the grief and frustration. (Wait, you’re a real human?! Such a letdown.) Love you so much!!!!
To take care of 5 kids is no easy matter, and with 2 with special needs, I am sure it is an overcoming situation full of stress. Maybe you should hire some help to help you through these trying days. A house cleaner or meal planer etc. Thinking about you Rachel.
You are doing a good job Rachel! You’ve taken on a huge role, but just keep up the one step at a time- plodding forward. Your kids will survive if you have a few unproductive days. While focusing on what is really importantly Can’t wait for the days you will look back and see what you have accomplished- and God through you!
Please excuse the bad grammar- spell check like to humiliate me .
Give yourself a break! Your family has just experienced a huge change and some grumpiness is to be expected. As I remember it, my household took a while to get running right again when one of us had been sick for a couple days, because it just changed the dynamic so much. Your family has been flipped upside down, but I’m sure you will land on your feet once again. Just give it time to happen. What a gift you are to Daniel and it won’t be long before he realizes it and loves his new mommy!
I just had dinner with a couple and their four year old. He was pretty much flipping out the whole time except when he was being an angel. She mentioned that before kids she thought parents who couldn’t control their kids in public were awful parents. Now she has one and realizes that there is no way to control kids all the time, they will do and be what they are, it’s part of the growing process and is no reflection on her parenting skills, just where they are at that moment in time. This is where you are at this point in time. The kids will grow and learn. You will look back on this time and remember mostly the good times and be thankful you’re no longer in the bad times. It will get better. They will grow up. And then you’ll miss them being little. But rejoice in the young men and women they will become.
I’m bringing you and your family before the throne of God. I’m sure you are positively exhausted and with all the transition, this suffering feels so hard. We hosted an orphan from Ukraine a couple years ago for one month. One month of tantrums and no attachment and our whole family feeling unraveled. It was hard and it was temporary. I can’t imagine exactly how you’re feeling. Sometimes, though, I wonder how things would be if we’d adopted her…how we would have adjusted by now, how the attachment would have (hopefully) occurred. You’ll get there. Praying.