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So after spending 14 nights in hospital, we bought Holly home. The next month or so is a bit of a blur anyway. I remember being ridiculously sleep deprived. Even with Luke giving her a bottle and doing every second or third feed, getting up three times a night is NOT fun. You do it cause you have to, and you love the cuddles, but it is just not fun. Its at those times that I appreciate single mothers and mothers of twins, you just wouldn't get any sleep at all!
I'll probably ramble and jump around a little with this thread, just trying to remember what happened in the first few months.
I went from someone who could hardly sleep during the day to someone who will take a nap when I can. If Holly was asleep I'd go and lye down for a bit and sleep. My amazing parents in law have been such a fantastic help with doing housework, and them and others bought food. Our house was covered with flowers and gifts from people. It is very humbling.
Lack of sleep certainly didn't help with my emotions. Feeling so unsure of what you are doing as a first time parent was enough let alone not knowing if what Holly was doing was normal for all babies or just Holly specific - we don't have anything or anyone to compare her to. Tired, sad, depressed, angry, self pity, sad, loss, lack of self confidence, guilt, worry, scared, so scared, so scared we are going to lose her. So scared something is going to happen to her. L and I have to come to terms with a complete change in our own lives expectations. Our 'happily ever after' dream has totally changed directions. The plans we had to have a normal life with 2.3 children in the burbs, retire and travel - smashed, totally smashed. We won't be able to retire normally, we'll still be changing Holly's nappies when we are 60 and 70. I went through a period of post natal depression and I've tried anti depressants (I hated being on them). L and I have had many fights, I have been at the point of leaving everything behind, running away and not wanting to deal with it all. I wanted to bury my head in the sand, its too hard to deal with the emotions and so much easier to run away. I got 3/4 of the way to the airport one night. My love for my husband and my daughter bought me back. I couldn't leave him, I love him too much, we will get through life together no matter what our experiences are.
Anyway, I started going to the maternal health nurse and started mothers group. It was something I was actually looking forward to while I was pregnant, unfortunately it wasn't how I wanted it to be. I only went for three weeks. The mothers didn't know about Holly, I chose not to tell them. I thought I would be OK, but even at 6 weeks old, the differences between the other babies and Holly was obvious to me. The other babies had already started to smile and interact with their mothers. That is the one thing that breaks my heart into a million pieces, Holly doesn't demonstrate typical emotional responses to what she sees, she doesn't smile, giggle or show that she knows who you are. L and I know that she knows us, but its not like she looks at us to recognise us or smiles when she sees us. Its really tough. I would give my left arm to see her smile, to know she is enjoying her life. It was hard seeing the 'normal' babies, but the straw that broke the camels back was one week sitting next to a mother who was complaining about her child having a birth mark. I just couldn't believe it, this mother was going on about how her child was going to have this mark on her for life. If I could have swapped with her, if that was the ONLY thing I had to worry about, I would swap! A life lesson for me I guess, about how superficial people can be. I left the group in tears, I felt like I didn't fit in. Holly was different to the other kids and when the maternal health nurse was talking about massage and feeding and 'normal' things, I knew Holly couldn't do those things.
I had been told about two other groups for parents of special needs kids. One was for carers of special needs kids the other was for people in between being diagnosed and early intervention services. I didn't fit in with either of those either. The special needs kids were all older, they could all walk, talk, see and hear - all the things that we weren't sure about with Holly. It was a very lonely time, I felt like I didn't belong anywhere and no one knew what I was feeling. Other people that I knew with special needs kids weren't first time parents as well. They had other kids to know what was normal and what wasn't, and the had some sense of normality about their lives. I have no idea what normal is.
I need to go to bed, I'm going to write more tomorrow...