Confession Time

I took a lot of time thinking of how to approach what I'm about to write.  I posted (pretty vaguely) about it on Facebook and didn't really like the response to the issue.  Despite that, I've decided to take a few minutes here and flesh out what I was really trying to convey in that desperate, sleep-deprived Facebook status.

THE status.

Let me start off by saying I love my daughter, whether she's crying or not.  She makes my life wonderful and magical and I love watching her grow and knowing that God entrusted her especially to me and Daniel.  But sometimes you have those nights when you're holding that same sweet, precious child and thinking to yourself, "Will you ever stop crying?  You hate me, don't you?  What am I going to do?"  To top it all off, my moods can be completely unpredictable when I'm pregnant.  When I was pregnant with Zooey, I cried before going out because my regular t-shirt was too tight and I just KNEW I would never look pretty again in my life.  Anyway.

Zooey started screaming around 1 o'clock in the morning.  Daniel, who is on second shift, rolled over just long enough to tell me to turn off the baby monitor so he could go back to sleep.  (I understand he needs his sleep; this isn't me dissing on my husband.)  We're in the habit of allowing her to cry it out for a while, so I turned down the monitor and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  At this point the crying had escalated to full on screaming.  To save our neighbors from the unexpected auditory disturbance I finally pulled myself out of bed.  She didn't calm down when I walked into her room like she usually does, so I thought maybe she'd had a bad dream.  Can kids her age even have bad dreams?  I don't know.  Since she was so hysterical, I went against my normal "cry it out" rules and picked her up, walking her around until the screams turned to whines and whines turned to sad hiccups.  Finally, I thought, we can all go back to bed.

Nope.

I put her back in her crib where she stayed calmly for all of ten seconds.  As soon as I tuned to leave the room, she flipped over, stood up and started screaming all over again.  I took a deep breath and went back to my own bed, turned on the monitor and waited.  More screaming.  I let this go on for about fifteen minutes more before I was back in her room, holding her, shushing and pacing.  Now, Zooey hasn't slept in the bed with us since she was about 8 months old (if you ask Daniel, you may get a different answer).  This is not really something we encourage although I love having her there to snuggle between Daniel and me.  It used to be a sure-fire way to get her to snooze at least for a little while.

Nope.

As soon as I lay down with her the screaming starts all over again.  This, of course, wakes papa bear who is none too pleased.  (Again, I totally understand...in retrospect.)  The only thing that keeps her quiet is me sitting up and rocking back and forth with her against my chest.  Of course.  This is the point where I start crying.  I was completely heartbroken over the fact that I couldn't comfort my child.  I didn't have any idea what to do.  I was tired.  Not only that, but I was experiencing some pretty intense guilt.  I've known several very wonderful people in my life who wanted children so desperately, but (try as they might) couldn't conceive.  What wouldn't they give to be in my place right now?  How much would they love to be sitting here with my screaming child, thinking of ways to comfort her, just praising God for the little life they had been entrusted with?  I hadn't even planned to have Zooey or her little brother or sister, yet here I was, upset that I was losing sleep when I had become so accustomed to our "sleep all night" routine.

And speaking of baby #2...  How in the world could I ever hope to be a decent parent to two children?  Most of the time I feel like I'm just barely scraping by with Z.  I don't feel creative enough, I'm not engaging her enough...  Am I teaching her everything she needs to know?  Does she know how much I love her?  More guilt.  How can I ever love this second baby as much as I love the little girl I'm holding now?  When Zooey was born, when I first laid eyes on her, I felt like I'd known her my entire life.  I recognized her.  I had dreamed of her so many times while I was pregnant and, yes, this was exactly the little angel I knew I would have.  I grew up not wanting children, but figured I'd end up having one some day.  I never, ever, ever thought of having two.  I can't imagine this child's face like I could Zooey's.  I don't know how this baby is going to fit into my heart when it's already so full.  How can someone think this about the child they're carrying?  How do I get to be so selfish when there are people out there who already know they would love this child so dearly?

I'm not saying I don't love my second little surprise.  I do already and I know my heart will just expand as this pregnancy progresses and as our family of four changes and grows.  I'm just terrified of becoming a parent for the second time and I figured it was time I let someone (well, lots of someones) know about it.