What do I do?

My poor baby

My oldest has the saddest eyes. He has pink eye and the antibiotic drops did not work. Now he has to have this thick nasty ointment in his eyes. He is such a trooper about it. I am so proud of him. He did so well in Kindergarten and he is growing up all the time. Sometimes I forget he is only five and expect too much of him. He has such a tough job being the oldest. We have to make all our mistakes on him. I hope we don't screw him up too badly. He is such a sweet, generous, loving little boy. He wants a new baby.

I want a new baby too. But I can't have a new baby because I am disgusting fat pig and I cannot seem to stick to a diet long enough to lose the weight I need to lose to get my gastric bypass surgery. Am I scared of the surgery? Do I want to die? I do not understand why I can't do it. Sometimes I conscoisuly make decisions to eat things I shouldn't. Other times I don't realize until a meal is over that I just at twice as much as I really needed. How pathetic is that?

I don't want to think about this. I want to go to bed.

Goodnight.

A great American died

My friend JD Delaney died. I had not seen him in years. He was this wonderfully crusty old man who new everything about building sets and many colorful ways to cuss at you. "Measure twice, cut once, don't f**k up." I heard him give this advice to young impressionable kids many times. And those kids loved him. And they they learned the value of hard work and using your brain and living up to your responsibilities. And how to cuss. The good outweighed the bad :)

JD was a war hero. The genuine article. He served in three wars and was decorated repeatedly. He was a weapons specialist or maybe a bomb specialist. He claimed to have invented napalm while cleaning latrines. JD was a great American. A true hero. He loved his wife, his country, his family and kids of all ages.

I miss him but I know, foul mouth and all, that he is in a better place.

God Bless all who read this.

Just listen, and He speaks

A couple days ago, I got the coolest thing ever. It is called God on the Go. It is the entire Bible on a thumb drive. It will link me to the daily mass readings or I can browse by subject or just look through the chapters and verses.

I decided that I would read the daily readings every day and then randomly scroll through the books and then the chapters allowing God to choose my personal reading for the day. Well ask and yes shall receive. Yesterday He led me to Proverbs and parenting advice. Today He led me to Luke and a passage to ease my mind about our tight money situation. It makes me feel warm and loved.

You know, I am a terrible Catholic. I know in my heart that God loves all of us regardless of our sin and unworthiness. I can, entirely honestly, tell someone else exactly that fact and I know it is true. Yet, for myself, I don't really believe. I may have an enormous ego, but I have never felt like God could really love me enough to care about the little things in my world, or even the big things considering how big the whole world is. I know He has saved my life on more than one occasion and he has given me my children and that he watches over us. And yet there is that barrier there.

There didn't used to be a barrier. When I was a kid I would chat with God as I walked down the street perfectly comfortable in the knowledge that he was listening and even responding in a way. I have not felt that closeness to Him since college. And I know the old, "if God feels far away, guess who moved," bit. But I don't know how to get back there. And I don't get how I can know, and be comfortable in my knowledge of, His love and yet still feel this way. I know it is me, but I don't know how to get out of my own way. I want to read Mother Theresa's book because she felt a distance and persevered through it. I am hoping for inspiration.

Thanks for listening.

God double bless all who read this since I forgot to bless y'all last night.

Post off as therapy

So yesterday we had a post off on my board on iVillage. I had a great time. I had never been in a post off before. I posted 400 times yesterday. It was exhausting. But I SO needed it. You see I have had a very big thing on my mind lately.

Last October DH and I went on a World Wide Marriage Encounter weekend. During the sharing he informed my that when Susannah was born and I could not see if she had been born or if I had passed more blood clots and so I asked him to look and tell me, he saw that she had been born and did not tell me. More, he saw her mouth move. I almost threw up when I heard this. My biggest recurring nightmare is that Susannah lay on the table dying after she was born. From that big push to when a doctor finally came into our room in the ER was over 40 minutes. I have many times dreamt that she lay there gasping for breath with no one holding her and loving her as she died. I called my mom that night and told her the story and she assured me that Susannah's muscles were just snapping back into place after having been squeezed during delivery. I accepted that explanation as my mother is a nurse.

Well my kids got into a box (we're moving) and pulled out Susannah's hospital records. I had avoided pulling them out since October as I did not want to be angry with my DH. But I looked when I put them back the other. You see we had an ultrasound just after my water broke and just before Susannah was born. The radiology report says she was deformed (her hand was caught up under her chin) and that she was entering the birth canal. It repeatedly says 'fetal demise', once with the word "assumed" preceding it. Not once does it say that she had no heartbeat. I would think that would be vital information unless of course her heart was still beating at the time of the ultrasound.

While I know she wasn't gasping for breath since she was getting oxygen through the umbilical cord, it kills me to think she may have been lying there dying on the table among the wreckage of her placenta when I could have cradled her as she passed.

I am so sick and angry. What kind of man sees that his daughter has been born, lies to his heavily drugged wife saying that he cannot tell if she has been born or not, leaves that daughter lying in a nightmare on the table and does not even go in the hall and get a doctor or nurse? What kind of man does that? What if I could have picked her up and met her for even just a few moments and held her as she went to be with Jesus?

Before these revelations I had felt that she actually died on 5/28 and then was not born until 6/1. I want so desperately to get back to believing that.

I am so sick and angry and sad.

My Joys

To speak or not to speak

Today I had a couple of occasions for which I had to decide whether to comment or stay silent. The first was online. Someone made an unkind jest about a picture of my children. I leap to Mama Bear in 0 seconds flat when my kids are involved. So I responded. Then a dear friend reminded me that some people are not worth talking to because they will never listen because they choose not to listen. So I went back and deleted my post. I still feel dumb for having taken the bait. But they're my babies and NO ONE should ever speak even potentially ill of them let alone actually. My ego gets the better of me often.

The second time was in discussing my best friend's parenting choices. I think she is too permissive with her daughter and she knows it. I waver between leaving it at the fact that she knows I am more conservative than she and therefore disagree or speaking up because what kind of friend says nothing when you are hurting yourself or your children? I sort of decided item by item tonight. I think I balanced it well. In the end, she's the mom and she is more permissive than I would be. And she is a loving mom.

I have been told that being a loving mom makes up for a lot of mistakes. How many though, I wonder? (This is no longer about my best friend, by the way, her mistakes aren't huge enough.) If you are making huge mistakes or innumerable mistakes, can you really call yourself a loving parent? If you really loved your kids, wouldn 't you educate yourself or restrain yourself or put in the effort necessary to NOT make so many or such big mistakes?

Sometimes I think I am a terrible mother. Sometimes I am a terrible mother. I adore my children but I am very volatile. And while I have always believed that blowing up and then getting over things is more productive than staying calm and brooding, I wonder if this cycle is too much for my kids or if it is just normal for them. Does it help for them to always know what I think and feel and mean or would it be better for them to not be as sure because my mood never changes. I know I will never get to a place where I am calm always, but I think I need to find more of a balance than I have now. Dr Guarendi's book has really helped. It all seems so common sense but his advice is so practicable versus the generalities of so much advice that I just love it.

By the way, since we are still getting to know each other, I have the greatest kids in the world. I know, just like every other mother :) They make me smile just to think about them. I thank God for them, every day.

God Bless all who read this.

What it's about

This is not my first attempt at a blog. I have been tripped up before by feeling like my blog had to have a specific subject. I cannot write if I am boxed in like that. So here I am, with Random Interjection. That is the way my mind works so that is the way my blog works. Probably, no one will ever read it, but it will be here nonetheless.

You will read about my politics, my religion, my husband, my children, my babies that I lost, my work and any number of other issues. I will tell you at the outset, I am a Conservative Catholic and I am still mourning the loss of my Sweet Susannah who was born still 3 years ago. I am also morbidly obese and battling food and life and myself in trying to lose weight so I can have Gastric Bypass surgery. These are the things you will here most about.

God Bless all who read this.