Mommy Guilt

I never knew how bad mommy guilt could be and how many different ways it can come up! Between returning to work or trying to take a girls night out or a date night even..... at some point it always crosses my mind that maybe i should be at home taking care of my boys instead. How dare i go to a 2 hour movie to relax? How dare we go out to dinner for my birthday and not take the boys with us?

Or when I was pregnant with our second... oh my the mommy guilt was bad! I felt awful that I couldn't lift my son, i couldn't rock my son or even put him to bed in his crib, and then the anxiety of when the second arrived set in. How would i love them both the same? I need to make sure my oldest doesn't feel left out or that i stopped loving him! Is my oldest going to be mad at me? These questions drove me crazy for the last 3 or 4 months of my pregnancy. But then when I saw my oldest meet his little brother for the first time all the anxiety melted away. He was obsessed with his brother. He loved him so much. Giving him kisses and checking on him all the time. As the baby got a few weeks older and i was more recovered I started doing more for my oldest when he got home from daycare. I wanted him to see that life wasn't going to change we were just adding his brother in to our life. He adjusted great to having his brother at home and any chance i got for him to help I would find a way. He would bring me blankets, his hat, sit next to us nursing and read. It was wonderful!

During all this great adjusting came the mommy guilt for my baby. We only have pictures of him right after he was born. We did have the hospital take pictures, thank god, but we didn't get a picture of him with me or him with dad or him with us both. We have some semi good photos of him with his brother but good grief what was i thinking?! After a week home I realized my baby didn't feel good. He was struggling with choking, gagging, and breathing. We figured out he has reflux really bad. So we had many doctor visits and tried several medications until something worked. But during those several weeks I got no sleep (my husband works nights .... joys of police work) and my baby was just miserable. Once the medication started working I remember there was a day when he was about 5 1/2 weeks old and he smiled at me. I instantly started crying... i hadn't realized that my baby hadn't smiled until that moment. It broke my heart and i felt so horrible. Here he was so miserable and uncomfortable and with a mommy that wasn't really bonding with him because I was so tired and barely surviving. Oh the mommy guilt set in overload then! So with him feeling better i decided that the last 4 weeks of me being home with him were going to be good! We did lots of cuddling, playing, talking, picture taking, and I promised him that this is the mommy he will have forever not that crazed zombie mommy.

But over the weeks i have come to realize that mommy guilt doesn't go away it just roars it's evil head every once in awhile and you have to find a way to move past it. Like the first night my husband worked a double shift and it was just me and the two kids. Everything was going great until i was rocking my oldest before bed and the youngest had been crying for 5 minutes. I could tell he was getting really worked up. So i sang only 2 of our 4 songs to my oldest and put him to bed. The whole way to the family room i felt so guilty about cheating my son of his bedtime routine...... and then i saw that the baby had spit up everywhere. And I felt so guilty that i hadn't gotten to him sooner. I wanted to sit there and just cry. Both my boys .... i failed both of them that night. But I didn't cry..... i rocked my baby, nursed him, and gave him his medicine. I checked the monitor and the oldest was still awake and just laying there. More mommy guilt. I trucked on.... the baby wanted to play so i put him on his playmat and we played... he smiled and made noises. I checked the monitor again and my oldest was sound asleep. *Deep breath..... he is peacefully asleep* I picked up the baby and he started to nod off so we cuddled a little and I put him down. Both boys were sound asleep, both had been fed, the oldest had a bath, and both were smiling in their sleep. I made myself stop and think about this. Ok so we missed 2 songs and ok that baby spit up on himself instead on both of us. They are happy and ok .... the mommy guilt started to melt away.