The Joys of Parenting

I have been very MIA lately. To be honest, I'm having a bit of a tough time lately. I don't know if it's Lily's quickly approaching 1st birthday or what, but mommyhood is seriously stressing me out. To be fair, she's been sick for nearly two weeks now, which leads (in her case) to very little sleep and all-around crankiness. She goes days without napping and is turning into a chronically tired girl. I'm having some really tough days. And I feel like I'm not allowed to have tough days because of what we went through to finally have her. I feel like because I prayed for her so hard and wanted her so badly that I'm held to a higher standard of parenting than other moms. Maybe I'm the only one holding myself to those standards, but I feel the pressure of them nevertheless. I feel like it's okay for some of my friends to complain about how hard it is to be a stay at home mom some days, but that it's not okay for me to do it because of how hard it was to get here. I feel like I'm supposed to be happy 100% of the time, and honestly, I resent it. I love staying home with Lily, but my husband works as an adjunct professor which means he works constantly and some days from 9:00am to 10:00pm with only a few hours break in between classes. Starting now, he's teaching classes every night of the week but Friday. He is amazingly helpful when he's home, but when he works so much, I'm doing all of this on my own. And I'm exhausted. But, the catch is that to be able to have me home, he has to work as much as he can. And full time university positions, especially in this economy, are few and far between though believe me, we're looking.

Part of the problem, too, I know is my fault. I feel so much pressure to constantly be a super mom. I feel like if she's awake, I have to be playing with her or teaching her something. And heaven knows, you can only read "Goodnight Moon" and play with the stackable blocks for so long until you're ready to pull your hair out. If I'm completely honest, I have days where I long to sleep late and go out for dinner and have adult conversation. That doesn't mean I want to go back to life before her, of course. I really hope nobody rips me for this because I know how lucky I am to have Lily. And I love her with my whole heart. This is, again, the sort of "survivors guilt" problem of parenting after infertility. We aren't allowed to be unhappy or struggle with any aspect of parenting because it was so hard to get here. And because we know there are women who would do anything to be where we are. But, for the love, I'm human. And being a mom is really hard work sometimes. And I feel how I feel, and I need to be able to talk about it somewhere - so this is my chosen outlet. I hate that I feel like I have to qualify this yet again by saying how much I love my daughter. I feel like anyone who didn't struggle with infertility wouldn't have to do that. They could just vent and it would be understood how much they love their child.

Sorry for this crazy, bummer of a post, but like I said, I'm having a hard time right now, and I needed to vent. I'm not even going to go back and reread what I've typed because I typed it as it was coming to me, and it's been a sort of therapy, so I'm just going to hit publish and move the heck on. :)