Pumping

Then Shael and I came home (this is my sidenote in my rant; now I'm just plain complaining). The girls were amazing. Patient. Helpful. Sweet. Shael slept for about 23 hours a day the first week, which was unnerving. We had stayed longer in the hospital because his bilirubins were too high; he'd had a hard time nursing. Once we got home, he quite nursing altogether. It was a mess. Luckily, the hospital sends out a nurse for one home visit. That was immensely helpful. However, Shael still will not nurse. Breast feeding is extremely important to me, so I have been pumping around the clock during his 9 week life. I remember talking to my friend Kim years ago about breastfeeding- she had said that she would never breastfeed, because it made her think of the pigs on the farm. She said, "I will not suckle my children." Of all the reasons I've heard for women not breastfeeding, this is the one I respect most. Seriously. It's cut and dried, she's not blaming "this" or "that", she is simply stating it as a fact. I couldn't relate, but I respected it. Now, I totally GET IT. I can't go anywhere fun with the kids, like the zoo, because I need to pump at certain times. I can't go more than a few hours. Images of dairy cattle lining up outside the barn during milking time pop into my head. As I pull out the pumping contraption and hook up the equipment, I am transported into the dairy parlor I milked in as a teenager. I hook myself up much like I hooked those pathetic cows up. I feel like I should chew my cud while I wait through another boring 20 minutes of "milking". The only difference between milking myself and milking cows, is that I can rest assured that I will not be slapped across the face by a tail covered in cow poo. While this only happened to me once when I milked as a teen (I'm a fast learner), this is a positive in my comparison.

A Message from a Bitter Wife

Here we are! This is our first family picture after our little bundle of joy arrived. I would like for everyone to meet Shael Patrick Jacobson. He was 7lbs., 15oz. and 21 inches long. He was born on August 5th, 2011, and he is perfect in every way. Miraculously, Shawn was able to watch the birth via Skype. I got to watch Shawn gnaw his fingernails down to the quick, which annoyed me so much when he was home. Via Skype, it was adorable.

But here is the start of my rant: So often while I was pregnant, people would say to me, "Oh, you're husband will be able to watch the birth with Skype." I think they were trying to make me feel better. All it really did was make me feel like they were trying to reduce what I was going through. And furthermore, civilians never know what the heck they're talking about when it comes to military life, so I wish they would quit pretending that they do. Skype is not infallible. Internet connections are tenuous at best on good days, and that's just on my end. Our calls constantly get dropped. In Kuwait, internet can act up for endless reasons. If they have a sandstorm, communication can be down for days. When someone is hurt or killed, communication is completely blacked out and shut down (as it should be- I'm not complaining about that at all). If it's too hot, the computers will quit (and hello, it's the Middle East. It's HOT there. They air condition the rooms with computers, but generators quit all the time). Shawn could have been out on a mission when I went into labor, and wouldn't have known he was a father until he got back. All these details are to let you know that it truly was an amazing thing that Shawn was able to be "with" me for the birth of his first child, but it was not a given. Yes, I am grateful. I am also so grateful to my cousin, Megan. She was there (for realsies), and made sure Shawn could see, kept the computer out of the way and yet with good angles, took lots of pictures, and took care of the girls for me while I was in the hospital. It was an unbelievable experience. The staff was absolutely wonderful, and I would like to nominate my cousin, my favorite nurse, and my OB doctor for sainthood.

Now that we are all settling into more of a routine, I find that my deployment crazies are back into place. Granted, I have more "independent, normal" days than I do of the "pathetic" days, but it still happens. I still wonder what is up with my Mrs. Jekyll and Hyde. Some days I just can't go wrong, and life as a single mother of three is a breeze. I cook, I clean, I am amazing! Other days, I suck at life. I know it's normal- the other deployment wives complain about the same thing. But it's still frustrating. And I pray that I'm being somewhat consistent with my poor children. (You know what? While I'm at it, I would like to nominate them for sainthood, too. The Vatican won't mind.)

A huge part of what drives me crazy is all the "advice" I'm suddenly receiving. From EVERYONE. It's as if people think that I suddenly don't know how to parent because my husband is overseas. Newsflash people: this is my third child. Newsflash #2: I've been a single parent before. I know I can do this because I've done it- without your help. If I ask for advice, then by all means, start talking. If I don't ask for your advice, keep your pearls of parenting wisdom to yourself. I thought that all the comments would end with my pregnancy. I bit my tongue when every single day (no, I'm not exaggerating), someone commented on how HUGE I was, and asked me "how many were in there". Unless you're talking to the Octomom, a woman is not comparable to a dog who is pregnant with a litter of puppies. You don't talk to a woman in such a manner. I still don't understand how a pregnancy instantly makes a women any less deserving of common courtesy. How would you feel if the next time I saw you, I said, "Oh my gawd, you are HUMONGOUS!" How nice to have those extra pounds noticed, yes? Don't. Just don't. Tell the pregnant woman in your life, or the pregnant stranger, that she looks beautiful. You can stop talking after that.

So do me a favor; do ALL of us military spouses a favor- leave us alone. Don't tell us how lucky we are because your grandparents didn't have Skype when Grandpa was in WWII. We know. And we're sorry they went through that, we really are. But we don't have to count ourselves as "lucky" because our husbands are gone from our lives and our children's lives for a minimum of an entire year. To us, wondering if he will come back home alive or at least in one piece is not something we should be grateful for. We don't need to be told how fat we are, we don't need to be made to feel inadequate. Trust me, we feel fat and inadequate enough. Skype makes us look like we're 300 pounds, and our children constantly make us feel like we're failing. Some of the wives don't have children, but you can leave them alone, too. Don't tell her that "at least she doesn't have children" while her husband is deployed. That just means that she has more time alone at night to contemplate the welfare of her husband and how lonely she feels. She doesn't have someone to take care of, which assures that she needs to take care of herself. I know that sometimes you don't know what to say to someone who is going through a hard time, but I can tell you from experience that the most meaningful, comforting words that I have heard yet through this entire deployment were simply, "thank you."