Baby blues 12-30-08

Inside of me I have been itching, itching, itching to type. It’s like playing music. I’ve never played a piano before, but I’d imagine it to be something similar when fingers flow together in this perfect rythym to create something beautiful. Not that I’m at all capable of creating beauty. But it feels so good.
I came to a wall today with Brielle. I wanted to throw my hands up, no, I wanted to lean back, cry, and just forget it all. But she was crying, which was frustrating, and also demanding. So I couldn’t just leave her to her own devices at that moment. She’s so small! So, I cried. Will took her. I took my first walk outside by myself in 4 ½ weeks. I really needed it. I feel sometimes as if these walls are closing in on me, things scream for me to do them, there is no time to do them, and then my one month old baby demands, then demands more.
On my walk I decided that the fresh cool air was definitely helping, and that I needed to pour out my soul, thoughts, and feelings to the One who really cares about it all. So I did. I can’t understand at times about this life that He is giving me to live right now. I always imagined myself single, a writer, living along the shoreline somewhere. Now, I am a mother of 3! I feel stretched at the least to say that a newborn’s demands are much greater than I anticipated, and I was already partially dreading those demands during my pregnancy. Now I have to find the time to give my older children attention (because they will just run off and play-which is nice sometimes, but I have to rope them back in so as not to loose my connection with them). I think I have lost sight of my efforts to trust in the One that has brought me to this. I see this very small picture of how I don’t know that a fussy one month old can do much in glorifying God. It just doesn’t feel that way right now. I understand that it’s extremely niave and ridiculous of me to question God like this. And yet, it’s so hard, when I can’t see past the cries and middle of the night feedings, and the poopey diapers, one right after another. I sound so ungrateful! I don’t understand it. Many people would love to be going through what I’m going through right now. Why am I so unappreciative of this amazing gift? I do appreciate my daughter, I think she lovely, wonderful, amazing, smart, beautiful, precious, and a genuine blessing from the Father. I really do.
I just don’t understand why God has called me to all of the OTHER things that having an infant contains.
And so on my walk, I just laid this all out to Him, along with my fears for the future, including my abilities to parent a daughter (especially with the dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships that run in our family). I go back to the time when I found out that I may have been pregnant. Nothing but faith then. Nothing but confidence in Him. Nothing but willingness to do what He’s called me to do. Anything less, or any wavering, and I would fall into this awful trap. That’s the place where I find myself now. It’s the enemies trip up, he uses it easily on mothers with new babies. It can send them into something called Post Partum Depression. Easily. But I won’t have it. And I type all of this not only to share with you, but to warn, to help us understand, and to prepare for battle while loving life simultaneously.