I am feeling all stressed by this post by Temerity Jane: You Don’t Know My Hypothetical Future Child. Should I Have It?“—because on one hand YES YES OH GOD YES, and on the other hand, last week there was a perfectly legitimate reason to give my 5th grader permission to cross a busy street with a friend without any grown-ups helping them, and I was so stressed out about it I started crying, and even though everything was fine and he got across the street and back again without being squashed, ever since then I’ve been continually stressed by the idea that THE CHILDREN’S LIVES ARE IN THEIR HANDS and, simultaneously, OUR HAPPINESS IS DEPENDENT ON THOSE LIVES, and, from that, WHY THE HELL DID WE HAVE CHILDREN WHEN ALL IT IS IS SUFFERING AND EXPENSE AND POTENTIAL DEATH-WISH-INSPIRING LOSS?? If one of my children died, I would EMBRACE MY OWN DEATH and I am not exaggerating even slightly. So what to advise someone considering children? It is the most wonderful thing that can ever happen, and it will make you consider scenarios in which you would embrace death? That doesn’t really fit on a “Congratulations on your pregnancy!” card.
Or maybe I am stressed because a cat that doesn’t belong to us is in our basement. We have the cat door set to “in only,” so that Benchley can always come into the house but can’t go out unless we let him out, or unless he darts sneakily past us as we open the front door. So anyway, an unknown cat came into the cat door and can’t get out, and it’s not wearing a collar so I feel responsible for its well-being, but it’s so scared of us it’s hiding in the basement and I can’t find it, and what if its owners are worried about it RIGHT NOW? Or what if it is a stray and it’s our next cat and all of this is part of The Story of How We Got Our Next Cat? And meanwhile Paul is saying, “Set the cat door to in/out, why don’t you,” and how can he find the situation so simple?
Or maybe the problem is that my headcold morphed into my annual Horrible Coughing Thing, where I cough and cough and cough and cough and cough and cough and cough and cough and cough and cough at 2:00 in the morning, and so I can’t get back to sleep even though I switch from the bed to the recliner to be more upright, and when I wake up at 5:30 I feel as if coffee might help but then it doesn’t really. And then I wonder if it could be asthma, but it doesn’t really fit the symptoms of asthma, and whenever I go to a doctor he’s all, “OH, well, a virus has to run its course, careless little dismissive laugh as if you’re being a hypochondriac about nothing!”
Well! A person might turn to Oreos in circumstances such as these! But a person is continuing to eat RAW SPINACH despite a lack of precipitous weight loss as a result of such righteousness, and so a person might feel VERY SORRY FOR HERSELF.
Raw spinach? That deserves a gold fucking medal!
I went off sugar for a week, not really to lose weight, but because I got in the habit of eating way too much sugar at Easter and didn’t stop even when we ran out of Easter candy. Even though I told myself it was just about being healthier, I did weigh myself before and after and I lost NOTHING, not even a pound. And my face broke out. The universe is so unfair sometimes.
Sorry about the stress.
I am currently being plagued by the fact that a friend of mine just lost her SECOND pregnancy in the third trimester, so I’m all gloom & doom reading Temerity Jane’s post. Like you, I feel like I would welcome death if my son were to die. In light of that, I can’t even imagine how my friend will recover from this, and for a second time. This also, of course, reminds of my son’s twin we lost early in my pregnancy with them and how heartbroken I was over a baby the size of a fingernail that I had only known about for a few weeks.
I almost want to just tell her to grow thick skin & hope to just make it to a healthy baby because there are things about being a mother that will rip your heart out without warning or immediate relief. But then I think that might be a little mean, so I typed it here.
Whoa, sorry for the melodrama. My mind is heavy with these things just now.
And my post above should read second BABY rather than pregnancy, obviously. I am having trouble processing.
I get that annual cough and cough and cough and cough thing. My doctor thinks I have scar tissue in my lungs. Which is troubling, but more satisfying than a dismissive little wave.
Does anyone around you have asthma? Try their rescue puffer. Once. See if it helps.
I say this because I have asthma, and it presents in me as a nagging cough and cough and cough and cough and on and on.
It usually takes me a good three days to remember Oh YEAH! I have meds for this!!
Clearly blogging is not enough to relieve your stress. Or cough. Or help you lose weight.
Yea, I’m no help either.
Do you have allergies? My husband’s nighttime cough-cough-cough activities were cured with Zyrtec.
Mmmm . . . Oreos.
(Notice how I have chosen to skip the child issues. I can’t even think about it.)
Oh, Great. NEW things to worry about when thinking about having babies! Because I already worry plenty about having them even though I know I WANT WANT WANT babies. Gah!
Does it help that some of us adore you? Because I do. I would eat both oreos AND raw spinach with you. And I would also totally come get that cat out of your basement for you. (Am not weird stalker, I swear, just a fan.)
Oh, I hate giving advice when it is not solicited- I really do- but have you already eliminated allergies? If so, stop reading!
Because my allergies don’t really manifest as the constant sneezing that commercials show. I get a racking nighttime cough and a stuffed-head feeling and also a general feeling of The World is a Terrible and Unlivable Place.
I use Zyrtec, which is drowsy making but a 24-hour pill so I just take it right before bed. Bonus side effect: the peaceful dreamless sleep of the dead. I am loving the sleep so much I might keep zyrtecing year-round.
Wow. I have absolutely no words of advice, so I’ll just offer: *hugs*
Oh I know. I was channel flipping last night and saw Man on Fire and well, I hadn’t watched it since BEFORE I had my child and OMFG I started bawling when the…well, bad part happened. I mean of course before having a child I thought it was awful but now? Multiplied by infinity awful. Um, anyway, not helping with this. Sorry.
You need a medal for the raw spinach thing.
Delurking to say, look into cough-variant asthma. At least according to my son’s pediatrician, the non-stop coughing can definitely be asthma. My son doesn’t usually get wheezing, just the cough. And it’s triggered by allergies or a cold. He’s actually in the middle of nonstop coughing now,and had been up frequently the past several nights, and my husband is in the middle of a 2 week business trip, and I’m definitely turning to the oreos over the raw spinach. :-) Hope you feel better soon (with or without oreos).
Ditto ditto ditto the cough variant asthma. I was plagued by the incessant night-time cough (it is worse when you lie down, right?) until I was finally diagnosed.
Yeah, a VERY BAD EFFING thing happen here to a mother and baby, and it has had me really depressed for 2 months. I have lain (layed, lied??) in bed a few nights sleepless. It is so overwhelming sometimes.
I have also been coughing all night, I will think of you tonight while I hack away. Good times.
I think you caught my weird coughing thing. I just got over it. Please don’t send it back. Um, the only thing that helped the middle of the night coughing fits were Ricola ass drops, I mean cough drops. They just taste like I assume ass tastes. ANYHOO. I hope you feel better soon.
Moving on to the Mama Drama, girl, the crazy things that run through your head when you become a mama for the first time would cause most men to buckle at the knees. I won’t even get started on any of the nutty things that popped into my head, only because I don’t want them to pop into yours. Sometimes you just gotta take a deep breath and let them go. And then you close your eyes real tight and pray like mad that they come back in one piece. And then you do it all over again. Being a mama is tough work. You deserve an Oreo, or six.
As for the cat? I think that will work out just fine. Cat has to eat sometime, right?!
You need another baby. Right now.
Jen- I knoooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwww!!!
Ugh. Yes, the embrace death thing is SO TRUE. I can’t even think about it without tearing up a little.
I hate that god damned cough. Both my kids get it every freakin’ winter then I get it and we all spend 2-3 weeks coughing all damned night. UGH. My daughter just finished with this (I think) so it’s freshly aggravating to me.
Considered trying to come up with something reasonable to say on the kid post, but was stymied. I’ve talked with my younger childless co-worker about this and the only thing I could think to say was that there are 800 objective reasons not to have a child but once you have a kid those reasons are all nothing compared to the joy (for most people). I say this as someone who wasn’t sure she wanted kids and then had one and wanted a second so badly I went through two miscarriages and just kept hoping until I finally had my second. Reason didn’t really enter into the equation for me.
Let me just say that you communicated just how freakin’ stressful things can be so very well. Also, I am so sorry you are feeling this way. It sucks. Hope you are feeling better!
oh! longtime lurker, now i have something hopefully helpful to add.
it sounds like you have a post-viral reactive airway. i’m trained as an m.d. and it sounds like this to me.
my husband has the same condition and coughs for weeks after a routine virus. basically, your airway gets irritated by a virus and then you cough for way too long after (a bit like asthma, but it is not that low in your lungs, it is an upper airway process). so, what usually helps him is a temporary inhaler and starting on a daily allergy medication (zyrtec would probably work, if you choose that one) just until the coughing passes.
i know you (hypothetically) tried your mom’s inhaler and said it (hypothetically) didn’t work, but you have to use it more than once. usually daily for 2 or 3 days makes a big difference.
also, you may need a course of antibiotics if you have other symptoms like fever or worsening of symptoms.
good luck.
Personal Troll- You know, you are pretty NICE and REASONABLE for a troll. Are you SURE you’re a troll?
Maria Blois, MD- I can’t even tell you how thrilling it is to have my own personal doctor opinion!!
I have zero idea what that giant bottle of my father’s generic Nexium is doing in my medicine cabinet.
I’m not sure how you can make me laugh in a post that has both ‘death’ and ‘children’ in it. You do it, though, miracle worker.