The Sprinter Enters a Marathon

The hardest thing for me about motherhood, hands down, is the endurance needed to do it day in day out, month after month, year after year. The fact that there are very few "breaks" in mothering has always been my biggest challenge. And when I do get a break they are typically shorter than what I personally need to recharge. I've always been more of a "sprinter" than a "marathon" runner when it comes to life. I can dive in to a situation and go all out, work hard for 20 hours a day and get no sleep for a week or so and then I need to crash for a week and do nothing but recoup. I'm an adrenaline junkie who runs on emotion and I've never been good at pacing myself. This sprinter living and being a mom do not mesh well since motherhood requires one be excellent going "slow and steady to win the race" (Although I don't think there is a finish line in this business!!!!!). I am learning to be more of a tortoise than a hare but it's hard to go against how God made me to be.

I 'm now almost at the end of a race that exhausts even the most "even" of mothers. My baby girl was hospitalized for 2 days with pneumonia. I was depleted before we even got to the hospital. She had been very sick for two weeks leading up to being admitted to the hospital and I had been up with her night and day being nurse and mom. The worrying alone wiped me out plus being vigilant with the medications to help her breathe, nursing her (she's still on the breast), comforting her and cleaning up tons of vomit, snot and whatever! Not to mention taking care of the house and the boys. So needless to say by the time the doctor said, "I'd like to admit her to the hospital." I was spent. I hadn't showered in 2 days or eaten much. I'd been running on coffee and adrenaline and was ready for a break. I thought the hospital would be that break. Ha ha, ha, ho, ho I forgot that nobody rests in a hospital least of all mothers of sick infants!!!!!

We started out in the Concentrated Care Unit which I found out was really a fancy name for Intensive Care! I'm glad I didn't know she was being admitted to an intensive care unit or I may have lost it. I didn't find out we were in a higher level of care until the nurse told us they were moving her to the Pediatric Unit. "Where are we now?" I asked. When she told me intensive care I freaked for a moment and then remembered that she was better and they were moving us now. Whew! The Concentrated Care Unit was definantly very concentrated for me. Even thought the nurses we had were absolutely fabulous there and waited on us hand and foot I still had quite a bit of work to do. Baby girl was up literally every hour the first night we were there coughing and vomiting. So the nurse would clean her up and then I would get her back to sleep, which was no small task with a sick, distressed baby. She also had tubes and cords attached to her body everywhere so even holding her to soothe her was a challenge. It seemed I was constantly trying to just make her comfortable that first night. I got almost zero sleep. But Baby Girl improved dramatically in just 24 hours and they moved us to the "regular" unit where I reached the point of exasperation several times......

Going from Concentrated Care to the Pediatric Unit was like going from a 5 star resort to a dumpy 1 star roadside motel. First off we had to share a room with an infant boy and his mother. The boy had a cough that sounded like he was dying of TB and I worried constantly that my baby could get what he had on top of what she had!!!! Then we had nurses coming in and out for both the boy and my girl so my sleep was interrupted twice as often. And the nurses did not seem 1/2 as competent as the ones from Concentrated Care. I had to remind them to give my baby her medication, suck out her nose, etc. They didn't clean her up when she vomited, they just handed me a clean gown and bedding. When they did their "nursing stuff" they had me hold her down which was physically and emotionally taxing. Over in the Concentrated Care Resort the nurses were so skilled they could do their thing and hold her down at the same time or they brought in another nurse to help. So I was doing it all and on zero energy reserves. The only good news is that my Baby Girl was sleeping through it all and getting better and better. After one night in the Pediatric Unit Baby Girl was ready to go home! Praise God above!!!!!!! I cried tears of joy when the doctor said he felt she was ready to be discharged.

Now we are home and I have to go back to life. My sweet husband still played homemaker yesterday and let me sleep. He cooked dinner last night and got the boys in bed by himself but even so I'm still not ready to go back to being a SAHM today. Frankly I have not recouped enough yet to take on the house, care for the boys and a still ill baby. I found myself snapping at my sons during breakfast and crying before 8 am. How I'm going to pull it together and get through today will be interesting to see. There will be lots of prayer of course. Prayer got me through the whole hospital experience and I will be speaking to Jesus often today. I will have to rely on Him to regenerate my waning spirit. Praise be to God that we can call on Him in times of trouble and weakness. I was encouraged this morning when I realized that this valley in my life can bring me closer to Him. I will choose to be thankful for this trial as it is an opportunity to shine a light on our Savior's goodness and provision. Even just typing this whole experience out I am encouraged. It always helps to simply get things off one's chest.

God bless all the mothers out there who are depleted today. May we all find rest and ways to pace ourselves through the valley of our current circumstances. May we trust God to provide that respite and regeneration. May we also find encouragement in each other.