Her first Sunday(8 days)! Almost two weeks old today. How fast it goes by, and how much I have seen and learned about this whole thing. Juggling marriage with parenting is harder than it would seem on first glance. It is harder to be on the same page with the spouse- harder to make sure that you both know what you plans are, respectively and co-operatively. And that is of the utmost importance. It is a must, otherwise, you end up going to take JC Penny photos alone while your husband is running around,forgetting about the photo apt because he has work stuff to do while he is on vacation. (Oh the joys of military life- of the ten days of leave that my husband took to be home- he has spent the first half of at least 5 at work).
I thought when we had a child, all arguing would stop- we have argued with the baby in the room and it kills me to think of it.
Women seem to have natural instinct when it comes to baby things- how to hold them, change them, clothe them, bath them, comfort them, feed them (obviously) which makes it awkward for the father to get in there unless he is very assertive about his role or the wife is extremely alert to his awkwardness and his necessity. Hard. Hard when you just want to do what needs to be done as quick as possible because hearing that baby scream for one second longer than you, as a mother, think necessary gets really hard. Hard to be quiet. Hard to hand her over. Hard to wait.
Easier in all ways listed above with only one parent. No discussion. No dis-agreements right there in the immediate presence of baby. No disputes over plans for the day or how to do simple things.
BUT, no help. no immediate support or hugs when there is a hard day. No partner to take the road trips with. No one to take over the diaper changing for a day. No one to watch the baby while I take a shower. (I will learn that art of the "Boot camp shower" and practice it for this year.) I will not be able to leave the baby home for a minute while I run out to get something. I will not even be able to go to the mailbox without packing her up and taking her with me.
These little things will be what adds up to make the year a challenge. On top of all the dog poop I have to clean up, the mowing I will have to do and the trash I will be taking out.
And all this aside from the fact that we have so little time to re-vamp our marital relationship to include all these joyous interruptions to the daily habits of it. Chris leaves before we can work all these things in. How hard will it be to assume our proper roles when he comes home? These are all things that I think about lately while I reign in my thoughts about May's health.
After waiting five days to be able to schedule an apt to see the pediatrician on the base so that he could refer us to a specialist, the nurses told us that we could skip that part and they would just write up the referral. We thought this was great! They wrote up the referral to UCLA and then told us the soonest apt they had for her was on the 20th. Another two weeks away. After doing some extensive reading on the subject of swollen bladder linings and hydro-nephrosis (There wasn't a lot about having two ureters from one kidney), it gets harder not to worry. Now, after finding that we have two more weeks to wait and watch while massaging her belly every day to make sure there are no enlargements within, it is nearly unbearable. I don't understand why this doesn't seem urgent to anyone but us. The first guy told us to get an apt with a specialist asap- why doesn't anyone else think this is necessary? This would be harder without Chris here right now, but he leaves in Oct- whatever the outcome of the apt with the specialist is. Whether or not she needs surgery. Her right kidney is over 2 cm larger than the left. It still collects fluid. But she urinates well and frequently several times a day. I try to hope that maybe that is the nephrosis working itself out. It is hard not knowing.
Please pray- for all of these things as it becomes more and more clear to me that huge task that Chris and I will face in caring for this baby while we are, literally, half a world apart.
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