A Post In Which I Complain Just a Little Bit

I've been feeling low recently. I mean looowwwww. Down in the dumps. Trying to do everything I need to do at work and at home (which includes, you guessed it, work) has been a real trial lately. I'm tired once the BabbyDaddy gets home; I don't want to sit down at 7 p.m. to start a second workday. How to balance it all - the work, the chores, the life - has been a real challenge. So much so that I've let a few things slide. 

Me! Let something slide! I know, I can hardly believe it myself.

There are the people who like to cheerfully say "Something's gotta give," as if that's some real actual possibility. (These are probably the same tactful people who once upon a time told me to sleep when the baby was sleeping as if that wasn't when I worked.) What do you suggest? Exercise? The tiny sliver of something resembling family time I get each day? The odd jobs that put money in our savings account?

It's all very stressful, of course. BUT here's the thing that struck me yesterday morning as I dabbed at my mascara-ed eyes with a tissue: Nothing has changed between this week and last week. All these things sitting heavy on my shoulders were there just seven days ago, so what's different about this week?

I'll tell you what's different... something stupid and sad.

I was writing a newsletter for a client about how Mother's Day can be extremely sad for moms whose newborns are in the hospital and moms who've lost their babies and, yes, moms who've had miscarriages and stillbirths and aren't really allowed to go around calling themselves moms in polite society. The end result of my efforts was sweet and sad and will hopefully open a few eyes (and wallets) but was one heck of slap upside the head for yours truly.

So I'm writing and thinking and thinking and writing, and it occurs to me as I'm getting a little descriptive to help people understand what it's like to sit in the NICU next to a baby in an incubator that if I hadn't miscarried, there was a pretty good chance that the twins would have arrived right around now. If not earlier, given my history of premature delivery. Not that having a pair of 8 weekers or 10 weekers stuck in the NICU would have been a laugh riot, but I would have had them. No wonder I've been a wee bit cranky and just a little leaky in the eyeball department this past week, right? Can you blame me?

Hello, latest mental and emotional roadblock! Nice to finally meet you!