Thursday, October 14, 2010

Anxious

One thing that's hard to understand is the anxiety that comes along with being a new mom. At least it's very hard for me to understand. When my kid is in the car seat and screaming as if someone is murdering him, bringing him back to life, and then murdering him again, I just want to pull the car over and get out. Go for a walk maybe, or get a latte. Then resume mom duties again after about 20 minutes of peace. Our Honda Pilot does not let any noise out or in, so when I close my door on my way to get him out, I often take a few extra seconds on the walk to the back. It's so peaceful in those moments.
But what gets me is when other people have him. While in the doctor's office yesterday, David sat with Abe in the waiting room trying to feed him. Abe was pissed off, tired, and generally ungrateful for being alive. I felt so free walking to the nurses station to have my blood drawn. Then, and without warning, anxiety hit. I heard a brief scream. I'd know it anywhere. And I looked at the nurse and said, "That's Abe." She smiled. SMILED. As if it's just like, oh wow, some baby is screaming. NOT some baby. MY BABY. He's SCREAMING. Do you not HEAR THAT? I got super squirmy and told her that I got anxiety whenever he screamed. He screamed again. Ever fiber of my being jumped and wanted to be NO WHERE but there where Abe was screaming. What is going on? He's with his dad in a waiting room with other babies about 30 feet away. I don't even like this kid and I HAVE to get to him when he screams?
Finally, after the longest 10 minutes ever, she told me to go back to the waiting room. I ran like a bat out of hell. My husband looked like his head was going to explode which made me angry, a strange response. I wanted to say, "Seriously? It's been 10 minutes! I do this all day! Suck it up buttercup!" Then, the fact that he got so overwhelmed after only 10 minutes gave me, you guessed it, anxiety.
All this anxiety has got to affect Abe. This could be causing him to have trouble eating or bad dreams or sleep apnea or diabetes or SOMETHING. And then when I think about how my anxiety level is affecting his temperament, I get more anxiety.  I do the things Dr. Sears tells us to do: go for a walk, eat right, drink plenty of water, sleep when you can, etc. I even asked his website if I could take Xanax while breastfeeding. Turns out that's a bad idea. Vodka, however, he didn't mention...

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