struggle

Uuuurgh. I am trying to blog, really I am, but the new year has brought with it a case of crippling anxiety and general sense of unease. I have found myself really struggling over the last few days, to the point where food tastes like lumps of sawdust and I can't sleep very well (bad, indeed, when I only have 6-ish hours to sleep at night anyway).

I am frustrated because I can barely leave the house - say I feed AJ at 11:00 am. By the time I finish it is close to 11:45, and then I have to try and eat lunch, feed my daughter lunch, prep for the therapist du jour, have the therapy session (45 mins to an hour), then hang with my breastpump for 15 minutes, and kabam! It's time to feed him again at 3:00 (which will take until about 3:45). If he sleeps after that, Daughter is getting up from her nap anyway so I can't do much for myself. Can't really leave the house because AJ does need some consistency in his day and deserves a quality naptime, and then we're running into the dinner hour anyway.

I am considering the possibility of quitting the pumping at 6 months. I dearly want to give my son the best nutrition for as long as possible, but if I could at least mix a bottle and bring it along with me, I could go somewhere and feed him on the run, and not have to race back home to pump (5x/day to keep up with his needs). I mean, we are not getting any kind of bonding experience out of it, obviously. I just have terrible guilt over quitting. Stupid, I know! There is nothing wrong with formula! I can tell myself that, but my heart would break knowing I voluntarily ceased providing breastmilk. Good heavens, what is my problem?

And we discovered a few problems with our house that is currently up for sale - problems that require diligence and constant upkeep, which I just simply cannot do. And Hubs, bless his heart, is not as good at taking care of that sort of thing. He has said he will try, because his only obligation (not that it is small) is to go to work each day. But we have a double open-house this weekend and I am terrified the house will not be in showing condition. It is truly keeping me up at night.

It is almost time for AJ to start eating actual food and that is killing me softly as well. I could just go to the store, buy the stupid rice cereal, and try him with it, but I am so scared it will be a failure. Then what will I do? We've been in a pretty nice holding pattern for the past couple of months, knowing how to feed him, and it's become quite easy for me. But having to make this change is scary because of the unknown. If he chokes on his food and cannot eat orally.....well, I don't know what I will do because all along I've been telling myself he will be fine.

The weight of it all is crushing me. I'm so, so frightened of PPD, but even more frightened that it could smack me in the head without warning. I have heldittogether, heldittogether, heldittogether for so many months, for the sake of my daughter, my husband, my son, my parents, and myself. But there are cracks in the armor just now, and I'm not sure how bad they're going to become. I'm not one to feel sorry for myself, but I do just now. I do. I've been through it, I'm still going through it, and I'm so, so tired.