Bringing down the Curtain

It finally happened.

A meltdown on par with the 'the great crash of 2007'.

With my own godsent mum here, I was able to hold it together for a week. I was able to sleep in the afternoons, and when I couldn't face another round of 'try to feed the baby' or 'baby seems tired, lets try to put her to bed", my mum was able to take over and happily at that.

I made it through for four whole days, and then, after I waved goodbye at the airport. Things fell apart at a great rate of knots.
By the time I got home, tears were prevalent. I had managed to stop myself from deliberately crashing the car in to the median barrier. I had managed to safely carry my daughter inside and gently put her on the mat rather than dashing her onto the ground in the driveway. I considered these a success.

Over the course of the next two hours I spiralled up and down so fast that I didn't know what had hit me. I decided to stay home and relax and stay calm, but Bean wasn't cooperating with that plan and so I put us in the car again and drove across town to our mothers matter support group. By the time I got there, tears were only one 'are you ok' away. There were a number of Phone-calls from a number of phones, to a number of different numbers in the C ward at Princess Margaret Hospital and half an hour later I was sitting in my counsellors office.

I was unsure how I'd managed to drive myself here and was trying to recall the last time I'd eaten. Bean was playing with some brightly coloured giant keys on the floor, and I was trying very hard to concentrate as Tracy (my counsellor/registrar) asked me what I needed right now. What did we need to make happen?

I looked up at her, dazed, a headache playing behind my eyes. "Sleep." Wasn't it obvious?
"If we can get you to sleep, will that be enough?"
I shook my head thinking over and over 'give me somewhere different to sleep, please put me in a hospital, I need time away from baby'. But I couldn't say it. The thought made me sick.

What kind of mother am I, who needs time away from her own child. What kind of mother begs to be put into a hospital so that they can sleep uninterrupted?

Suddenly there were two therapists in the room, they were talking about respite options, one involving in house help, the other involving inpatient stays with your baby, and respite houses without. The respite house sounded like heaven. But still, when they asked me which one did I think I needed, I couldn't bring myself to say it. I couldn't bring myself to admit that I, Mum, needed time away from my child. 

Finally, the therapists decided for me. I would go to respite for the night. Husband would have to come home early and take tomorrow off to look after the Bean. I was so relieved at the idea, and sickened by my own reaction at the same time.

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, there were no free beds in any respite houses or inpatient wards anywhere in christchurch. I would have to stay at home, or preferably, at a friends house. But I couldn't think of a single friend to ask. I have friends. But not a lot of friends with kids. Or friends with spare rooms. Or friends I wanted to ask.

So I went home. I don't remember anything about that drive except that I was driving rather slowly, because I was scared of doing something stupid. When I got home to my Husband, I instantly burst into tears again and couldn't stop apologising for being such a pain to everyone. Other mums hold it together, so why am I not coping??

That night, Husband slept in Baby Beans room. I slept in our room with the door closed, ear plugs in, and a message to not get up for 24 hours or more. I took 1 tiny blue zopiclone pill, but one hour later I was still awake, so, as prescribed, I took a second. I was still awake 40 minutes later and too scared to take another one so I found a sleep hypnosis app, and after listening to it twice (yes twice), I finally fell asleep.

I slept till 4am, and had to repeat the whole process again in order to get back to sleep.

Today, I am drifting in and out of a sleep state. I do feel better, but I know also that if I were to get up and pretend everything was fine right now, I don't know if I would actually survive the next few days.

I'm sure things will get better soon. I'm sure that I will figure out what's really going on and be able to finally manage it properly. I want to show my baby how much I love her, but clearly, that is not an option right now, as what I need is just to sleep. sleep. sleep. sleep.