I am the Mama

Political wives are a strange breed to me.  The most famous example to illustrate my point is Hillary Clinton.  I am sorry, but there is no way in hell that I’m going to stand by my man when he embarrasses me in front of the entire country by having an affair with a much younger woman.  It’s not going to happen.  He would be kicked out on his behind the minute he admitted to me that it was true.  Even if there was an “arrangement” in place that allowed for straying, (harf!) I am not going to stand by and be thought of as the woman that condoned her husband’s cheating.  Period.  I think this is why I could never support her politically.  She didn’t stand up to her own husband when he cheated on her, but wants to be the president?  Perhaps a weird and shallow reason for not supporting someone, but she never appealed to me after that.

I’m kind of fascinated by the fact that so many well-known political figures do seem to stray.  Seriously?  You think that a young and indiscreet girl won’t blab the intimate details?  You think that you won’t be followed to that hotel you have no business being at?  You think people won’t find out that you were in Argentina with your mistress instead of hiking on the Appalachian Trail?  If you really do believe you won’t get caught, I have a bridge I can sell you!

But Jenny Sanford has earned my utmost respect for her handling of her husband’s affair.  I love that she wasn’t standing at his side when he admitted what he’d done.  That she had already left him/kicked him out.  That she has said she doesn’t care about what happens to his political career.  That she is showing her 4 sons that behavior of the sort their father has engaged in is not acceptable.  But in all of that, she is also willing to work things out.  I like to think I’d try to repair my marriage if it happened to me, but that I would do it in such a way that allows me to maintain my self-respect.  Based on the news reports, it seems like she’s doing her best to achieve this.

And shame on Governor Sanford.  Choosing to fly to South America to spend Father’s Day with your mistress rather than your own 4 children? Disgusting.  And if I was his wife, that is probably the point the whole thing would have been unforgivable.  Especially if we had just started a trial separation to see if things could be worked out.  The fact that he took off to see his girlfriend right away would have been enough to tell me exactly where I stood.  He deserves to have his political career ruined at this point.

I was going to skip the asthma stuff again and talk about the death of Michael Jackson.  But what is there to say?  I was really overwhelmed with the news earlier today but realized that “my” Michael Jackson is long gone.  He had gotten way too creepy over the last 10 years or so and was certainly not the pop idol he once was.  So, while I hope he has found the peace he seemed to be seeking in life but never found, I am moving on to a topic that *really* affects my life and that of my family.

Last Friday night, Baby V developed an absolutely terrible cough.  She was having trouble catching her breath after the fits were over and it sounded terrible, as if she was choking.  Being the paranoid freakazoid that I am, I was googling pertussis, reading up on the symptoms, and trying to find sound clips to see if that’s what she had.  Some of the clips sounded similar, so I proceeded to really start freaking out.  I considered going straight to the ER but decided to simply call for a sick appointment with the pediatrician the next morning.  She’d been vaccinated for pertussis, so that decreases the likelihood quite a bit.  Plus she’d had hives the previous Sunday and I managed to convince myself that it was much more likely that this was the residual effects of a bad allergic reaction of some sort.

So Saturday morning we get to the doctor’s office and I hear the dreaded news: asthma.  This is not something new for our family.  I have asthma, though it’s not bad unless I over-exert, and even then I’m fine unless it’s very hot or very cold or the air quality is bad.  My oldest son was diagnosed right around his 3rd birthday, so I’ve dealt with his breathing problems for several years now.  I suspect my younger son has it also, but again, I’m used to dealing with an older child who has it.  And of course I knew that her having reflux greatly increases her risk for asthma…but I wasn’t at all prepared to get that diagnosis the day she turned 5 months old!  I have managed to scare myself to the point that I can’t sleep at night.  I have terrible insomnia because I’m afraid she’s going to stop breathing in her sleep.  When I do finally close my eyes out of simple exhaustion, my sleep is plagued with nightmares of babies who have stopped breathing and I’m desperately trying to remember the steps for infant CPR, only to have them die in my arms.  Completely irrational, but incredibly terrifying.

I think my fear stems from the fact that we weren’t given a nebulizer or told to do breathing treatments.  Instead, I was told to use my oldest son’s inhaler with the spacer and pediatric mask on her occasionally if the coughing/choking gets too bad.  I’m not at all comfortable with this plan for a reason I just can’t put my finger on.  Maybe because it feels very reactive and I’d prefer to be proactive?  Plus I’ve never heard of anyone using an inhaler on a baby, much less one that belongs to somebody else.  I think it’s strange but since I’m not a doctor I am trying to simply trust our pediatrician.

Her cough is improving, slowly.  The hives were gone within 24 hours and we think it was a reaction to the fabric softener my mom uses.  She won’t be using it again on anything Baby V would be exposed to so I am glad that won’t be a problem.  But who’s to say there won’t be other places where this could happen…the church nursery where someone washes their clothes in something that makes her sick, a friend’s house where the house is cleaned with something she’s allergic to, or any number of situations that could result in another bad reaction.  It makes me more and more thankful that I’ve made the effort to reduce our dependence on harsh commercial cleaners and try to go with things that are natural.  Unfortunately I can’t protect her from the rest of the world, which is perhaps the hardest thing about this whole situation.  It’s something I’ve known for a long time but the lesson has really been brought home over the last week.  Even if the hives were unrelated to the later respiratory problems, it’s not something I’ve ever had to deal with before in a child this young.  Yes, I freak out if someone smokes around my kids…but now I’m worrying about things like perfumes, cleaning products, and other things that most people don’t have a second thought about.  And it’s (literally) crazy-making.

Mama needs a Xanax.

Today I planned on talking about Violet’s asthma diagnosis, but I’m putting it off to discuss the very hot topic of people who got famous for using fertility treatments in a dangerous manner.  I’m referring to Jon and Kate Gosselin and their 8 children.

I’m disgusted by their irresponsible use of fertility treatments.  I am assuming they used a similar process to the one I used while trying to get pregnant with my 2nd child.  Without getting into the overly graphic details, we used a drug that stimulated my ovaries to produce more eggs than the average woman produces during any one cycle.  As the months went on and I didn’t get pregnant, we increased the dosage (on my doctor’s advice) gradually.  The higher the dose, the more eggs I made.  Some we knew were definitely mature, and some were borderline and unlikely to fertilize.  But our doctor played it safe and when I got pregnant, it was with only one baby.  We did take some calculated risks with our doctor’s blessing but were very, very cautious to ensure that we didn’t end up with more babies than we could handle.  I do not know exactly what happened in their situation, but I suspect that they ignored their doctor’s advice.  If not, they had a very irresponsible doctor.  It is people like the Gosselins who give fertility treatments a bad name.  You rarely hear about the millions of cases where people end up with 1 or 2 healthy babies…it’s the ones like Jon & Kate or Octomom who make the news.

Unless you’re living under a rock, you probably heard that they filed for divorce on Monday.  I was SO surprised…NOT!  I rarely watched the show, generally catching it when they ran a marathon on a weekend or something.  But even in the first season, I remember thinking that she was so hateful to her husband.  Maybe I am lucky to have a husband with whom I share a mutually respectful (but playful!) relationship where that would never be OK, especially in such a public forum.  I can guarantee you that we would never be so ugly and disrespectful to each other in front of the camera.  We’ve certainly had our moments, but they are always behind closed doors where nobody, even (especially?) our children, could hear.

None of this excuses Jon for his immature behavior, of course.  He’s culpable, too.  You don’t jump into marriage and fatherhood at a young age if you’re not ready to do that.  Considering they used fertility treatments for their first 2 children (twins) he had time to think it over and make sure he was doing something he wanted to do before they brought innocent children into the mix.  And then if he did feel that he hadn’t had the chance to sow his wild oats enough, there were certainly ways he could have done so without hurting his wife and family in the process.

I think the whole thing is disgusting and shameful.  She treats the children horribly, treated him like dirt, they exploited those kids for a nice house, a tummy tuck, and teeth whitening…and the losers in this are those 8 kids.  It is them I feel sorry for, them I worry about.  Their parents have made their ugly bed and are lying in it, but who will make sure these children are not damaged any more than they already have been?  It’s a sad story and I hope they all disappear so it can be worked out without a camera in their faces recording every moment of pain.  Personally I’d be happy if I never heard another word about them all.  At least then it would be easy to believe that their children really do come first in their lives!

Yes, I’m still doing it!  Who is surprised?  I am!  I’ve never stuck to anything this long in my life.

I am working on week 4 right now.  I’m able to complete the intervals on the elliptical, but the heat and humidity along with impact related pain are preventing me from finishing it at the track.  I barely break a sweat on the elliptical and don’t really even have to breathe hard to do it.  Obviously my endurance is in good shape.  But the heat and humidity wreak havoc with my asthma.  I think if I was able to breathe I could push past the pain, but my inability to do more than gasp for air after the first 2-3 intervals prevent me from finishing.  It’s incredibly frustrating!

Another thing that is currently frustrating to me is the scale.  I am not seeing the pounds drop off like I want to and that irritates me.  I have never in my life been this active…they should be dropping off, right?  Apparently not!  The good news is that I am losing inches, so obviously I’m going in the right direction.  I noticed just how much I’ve lost yesterday while I was on the elliptical.  It is strategically placed in my bedroom so that I can see only my gut in the mirror.  When I want to quit, I only have to turn my head to the side and look at my flab and I’m suddenly motivated to keep going!  It had been a couple of weeks since I was on it, so when I looked to the side I was really amazed at much less there was of me.

There are a couple of factors that might be preventing me from losing weight.  First of all, I’m nursing.  Most women  find that the first few months of breastfeeding will have dramatic weight loss (generally what was gained during pregnancy, though I’m an exception since I tend not to gain much while pregnant) but that it settles down and can become difficult to lose weight once you hit a certain point.  I think I’m at that point now and I may not lose dramatically until she is fully weaned.  I’m fine with this, because I know that breastfeeding is best for her and it’s not worth sacrificing her health (which is even more important now since she got diagnosed with asthma Saturday, but more on that in a later post) so I can see a prettier number on the scale.  I’m OK with this for now.

The second is that I’m still building muscle.  I’m losing fat, but gaining muscle.  This is good, but I’m told it may take a while to really lose weight if I’m still working on building muscle.  Not sure how true that is, but it’s an intersting theory.  If muscle is replacing fat right now, once I’ve built up muscle as far as it will go with the activities I’m doing, then the weight will come off as I continue to lose fat.  Makes sense, I guess!

And then there’s the whole problem with me not changing my eating habits.  Well, that’s not really true…I guess I’m not changing them enough.  I am trying, but I am so hungry all.the.time.  I’m sure it’s because I’m nursing and burning lots of calories, but it’s hard.  I’m just trying to eat lots of protein and cut back on sodas and other empty calories.

So that’s the current status of the C25K and weight loss efforts.  I’m (mostly) happy with the results so far.

Today is kind of a hard day for me.  I am blessed with a wonderful husband and father to my 3 children, and for that I rejoice.  But I am also remembering my own father today and wishing he was here to see his beautiful, intelligent, amazing grandchildren.  I’m sure I’ve shared the story here in one form or another, but I want to write in memory of him today.

First of all, let me start by saying that my dad wasn’t perfect.  I still have some major daddy issues and I’m doubtful that they will ever go away.  He tried his best, but he was an older father by the time I came along and my brother, mom, and I were his 2nd family.  He had raised his first 3 children in a different era and I think that shaped his parenting philosophy with us.  Also, I was a *lot* like him in that I am stubborn and opinionated.  This led to some major personality clashes!  But he was a good man and took his role as a father seriously.

He started smoking in college and never quit.  Back in the late 70s and early 80s when I was a kid, it wasn’t quite the taboo it is now.  I remember going on road trips and being cooped up in the car for hours with the cigarette smoke.  Something that is unthinkable to me as a parent!  When I was in 6th grade, he had a massive heart attack and multiple (either triple or quadruple, can’t remember right now) bypass surgery.  After that he continued to smoke, but hid it from us.  We knew because we would smell it on him when he came in but he just couldn’t quit.  Then the summer after I graduated college he had a series of mini-strokes.  My mom begged him to quit and I think he did cut back but again…the addiction was stronger than he was.

In the year before I got married, he had some unusual symptoms.  He’d get hard lumps in his neck, terrible pain in his back, and other things that just weren’t normal.  His doctor told him it was because he was getting old and prescribed narcotics for the pain.  About 2 weeks before my wedding, he told me he wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk me down the aisle because the pain was getting so severe.  One night he had trouble breathing and my mom took him to the emergency room.

After multiple tests, he was diagnosed with lung cancer.  Stage 4 terminal lung cancer.  It had metastasized and was incurable.  He might buy time with chemo and radiation, but the cancer would eventually kill him.  This was about 10 days before my wedding.  I considered postponing it, but he wouldn’t let me.  He started undergoing treatment right away.  I prayed that he would be able to see me get married.  I wasn’t even worried about him walking me down the aisle at that point.  I had my bridal portraits done the Tuesday before the wedding and I remember going to the hospital in my wedding dress and veil so he could see me the way I would look on my wedding day…just in case.  I got a lot of funny looks and we had to explain why I was there in full bridal regalia over and over.  I could see the pity in people’s eyes and it was then that I realized just how terrible the whole situation was.  I’d blocked it out until that point because I just wasn’t able to deal with it.

He did make it to my wedding.  He walked me down the aisle and gave me away.  We have some beautiful photographs (our photographer was wonderful, and took extra care to make sure we got some great pictures of him) and I am so grateful for that.  He even came to the reception.  He danced half a song with me, then passed me on to my husband.  And then he danced with my mom.  I huddled in a corner and sobbed, asking people to hide me so that my parents wouldn’t see how upset I was.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the room…everyone from our family and friends to the caterers and servers cried with me.  They’d all heard the story by that point and were deeply moved by their obvious love for one another.

He died on May 4, 2001.  Less than a month after I got married.  Less than 6 weeks after the day he was diagnosed.  We’d barely had enough time to come to grips with the cancer diagnosis, much less begin to wrap our heads around the fact that it would kill him.  It was the worst day of my life. I always told him as a little girl that I wanted him to stop smoking so that he would be there to walk me down the aisle at my wedding.  He was there, barely.  I have ridiculous thoughts of what if?  What if I’d told him I wanted him to stop smoking so he would meet his grandchildren?  What if I’d told him to stop smoking so he could see those grandchildren graduate high school?  Or graduate college?  Or have babies of their own?  What if?  Stupid and irrational, but it haunts me.

When I see people smoking, I often want to share my story with them.  Because it’s more than what happens to you…it’s also about what happens to the people you leave behind.  My mom lost her soul mate.  My kids will never meet their grandfather.  My siblings and I are fatherless.  Knowing that this could have been prevented makes it even harder.  So if you’re a father and a smoker, consider the health issues to yourself but also remember that it’s not just you that will be affected if the smoking takes your life.  Give your kids the gift of a healthy dad this father’s day.  You won’t regret it.