Nine months later...
A quick visit to the doctor provided some helpful information on why I was feeling so crappy at the start of this year. Well, the doctor and some time to reflect. I realized at the end of January, I hadn't really processed the previous year. By hadn't really, I mean I hadn't. At all.
December 24, 2016: I gave birth for the first time. Obviously that's a whole experience in and of itself.
December 26: We took Elsie home from the hospital and spent 1 night together before our first guest arrived.
December 27: My mom landed in Qatar after a long journey from Washington.
January 2: Lacey arrived in Qatar for the third time.
January 10: Jake, Elsie, and I, spent 1 day together with just the 3 of us.
January 11: Jeanne landed after a non-stop flight from Dallas.
January 24: We flew to Boston for the job fair.
January 29: We flew to Seattle and surprised our family with Elsie.
February 4: We flew back to Doha.
February 6: Jake went back to work, guests were gone. It was just Elsie and I.
March 20: I went back to work.
(Unfortunately from February 6- March 20 I stressed daily about going back to work.)
June 16: Our last day in Qatar. We flew to Texas.
July 3: We flew to Washington.
July 21: We moved to Bangkok.
These are some, most, of the things I needed to process. Upon arriving in Bangkok, I started a new job at a new school and met a whole new community of people. I struggled for months to balance mom-ing and teaching. I wanted to impress my colleagues and administrators, but was so impatient to get home to Elsie each day. Weekends were spent enjoying Elsie, and figuring out how to navigate the day to day life in a new city, without a car. Grocery shopping, getting a taxi, finding new doctors, figuring out where to eat, all took more time and energy than they should, in a brand new place. Making friends was near the bottom of the list of things to do. There didn't seem to be time.
By the time some of my family came to visit in December, I thought we were pretty well adjusted. Elsie was happy with Sunita at home. Jake was loving his position and students. I was starting to come to terms with the fact that I was okay with working full-time, and not staying home. I planned most of our December trips alone. Jake, Elsie, and I, did a week in Cambodia. We spent half of it in Siem Reap and the other half in Phnom Phen. Besides getting bed bugs, we loved it. It was a great trip, minus the blood sucking and itching and inability to sleep. We returned home on the eve of Elsie's birthday, so the day before Christmas Eve.
We celebrated Elsie's birthday with Sunita, Callie, Meagan, and Bonnie. It was small and sweet, with some of Elsie's favorite people. Elsie loved the Christmas trees and lights that were all over town, and even in our living room. We had a lovely couple of days together before Dan and Sarah flew in from Seattle. It was so exciting to have my little brother and his girlfriend in Thailand! We headed to the airport to fly to Vietnam and met up with my sister who had flown in from Turkey. Together we flew to Hanoi and transferred to a lovely hotel downtown.
We spent New Years Eve in Hanoi, counting down to midnight. We explored the Hanoi streets, ate lots of delicious food, and sipped on coconut or egg coffees at least twice a day.
We then bussed to Ha Long Bay for two nights on a cruise ship. We had heard disappointing things about the bay, but were so pleasantly surprised. It was definitely the highlight of the trip for all of us. We found it stunning, serene, quiet, impressive. We did not see any trash, nor feel like it was crowded with tourists. It was absolutely beautiful scenery and I am so glad we went!
After bussing back to Hanoi, we flew to Da Nang, and got a van to our Airbnb outside of Hoi An. We rented motorcycles and scooted around the quaint streets of Hoi An for a few days. We shopped and dined and drank more coffee. Elsie was such a trooper; she even fell asleep one night in between Jake and I on the scooter. I never thought I'd see the day!
The trip, the visitors, the conversations and memories were all overwhelmingly good. I felt grateful to have family travel around the world and spend some of the holidays with us. Elsie and I had made it through a year of breastfeeding and I was more relieved than I could ever express.
The last few days of having my family here were spent working all day and hanging out in the evenings. It was all so good, but looking back I was feeling heavier and heavier. The weekend they left I was depleted. Paralyzed with indecision. I felt like I had so much to do, to catch up on, but was so overwhelmed by every little tiny thing, I couldn't decide on a single plan of action. I didn't feel right.
Thankfully, Jake is eager to spend as much of his weekends as possible with Elsie, so he is always happy to take her and play for a bit. I remember laying on my bed trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I needed to do so many things but I was so exhausted mentally.
I finally went to the doctor to check up on some female issues I'd been having. Turns out I had another ovarian cyst and my hormones were quite a bit off. The doctor said the hormones could have been affected by breastfeeding and then stopping. Anyway, she gave me a prescription for hormones (I really don't remember specifics at this point) and put me on birth control to help reduce the size of the cyst. Within a week or so, I felt totally normal.
It was strange to me, to be putting chemicals in my body to feel normal. I was trying to be natural and get my body back to normal after birth and breastfeeding, but it turns out that made me feel terrible.
Hormones, a cyst, visitors, and three weeks of traveling, coupled with the previously mentioned timeline of the year 2017, had done me in. It was only after they left and after I felt so terrible, that I started to think about and process the previous year. Adrenaline had been my lifeline from giving birth, to traveling around the globe four times, starting a new job, and trying to fit in in a new place. I was beat.
I started to think, reflect, write down, all the events that had taken place, that I had yet to work through in my mind. I thought about Elsie's birth. The excitement, accomplishment, fear, and joy, of bringing her into the world. The family and visitors in Qatar and getting to share Elsie with them. The breastfeeding struggle. The time, oh the time, spent breastfeeding. The return to work. The stress. The international move. The paperwork. The quick trips home filled with family, friends, and so much love, but a lot of leaving, too. Thailand. The bugs, the heat, the job, the expectations, the reality. The trips, the planning, the adventuring. Bali. Cambodia. Vietnam. Malaysia. The gratitude for all of it. Another trip to the states, this time longer. Washington. Texas. Family. Cousins. So much love. So many people. So full. The leaving.
It has taken me this long...this many months to wrap my head around last year. Here we are just a couple of months from a new year. I'm not ready, but it's coming for me. I'll embrace it as best I can by practicing presence. Through gratitude. It is the only way I know how.
While I can't say I am back to normal now, I'm not sure I ever will be. To return to who I was before last year would be to undo Elsie and motherhood and this little family we've made. I am okay with becoming a different version of myself. I hope and trust and believe that it is a better, stronger, more grace-filled version.
January 29: We flew to Seattle and surprised our family with Elsie.
February 4: We flew back to Doha.
February 6: Jake went back to work, guests were gone. It was just Elsie and I.
March 20: I went back to work.
(Unfortunately from February 6- March 20 I stressed daily about going back to work.)
June 16: Our last day in Qatar. We flew to Texas.
July 3: We flew to Washington.
July 21: We moved to Bangkok.
These are some, most, of the things I needed to process. Upon arriving in Bangkok, I started a new job at a new school and met a whole new community of people. I struggled for months to balance mom-ing and teaching. I wanted to impress my colleagues and administrators, but was so impatient to get home to Elsie each day. Weekends were spent enjoying Elsie, and figuring out how to navigate the day to day life in a new city, without a car. Grocery shopping, getting a taxi, finding new doctors, figuring out where to eat, all took more time and energy than they should, in a brand new place. Making friends was near the bottom of the list of things to do. There didn't seem to be time.
By the time some of my family came to visit in December, I thought we were pretty well adjusted. Elsie was happy with Sunita at home. Jake was loving his position and students. I was starting to come to terms with the fact that I was okay with working full-time, and not staying home. I planned most of our December trips alone. Jake, Elsie, and I, did a week in Cambodia. We spent half of it in Siem Reap and the other half in Phnom Phen. Besides getting bed bugs, we loved it. It was a great trip, minus the blood sucking and itching and inability to sleep. We returned home on the eve of Elsie's birthday, so the day before Christmas Eve. We celebrated Elsie's birthday with Sunita, Callie, Meagan, and Bonnie. It was small and sweet, with some of Elsie's favorite people. Elsie loved the Christmas trees and lights that were all over town, and even in our living room. We had a lovely couple of days together before Dan and Sarah flew in from Seattle. It was so exciting to have my little brother and his girlfriend in Thailand! We headed to the airport to fly to Vietnam and met up with my sister who had flown in from Turkey. Together we flew to Hanoi and transferred to a lovely hotel downtown.
We spent New Years Eve in Hanoi, counting down to midnight. We explored the Hanoi streets, ate lots of delicious food, and sipped on coconut or egg coffees at least twice a day.
We then bussed to Ha Long Bay for two nights on a cruise ship. We had heard disappointing things about the bay, but were so pleasantly surprised. It was definitely the highlight of the trip for all of us. We found it stunning, serene, quiet, impressive. We did not see any trash, nor feel like it was crowded with tourists. It was absolutely beautiful scenery and I am so glad we went!
After bussing back to Hanoi, we flew to Da Nang, and got a van to our Airbnb outside of Hoi An. We rented motorcycles and scooted around the quaint streets of Hoi An for a few days. We shopped and dined and drank more coffee. Elsie was such a trooper; she even fell asleep one night in between Jake and I on the scooter. I never thought I'd see the day! The trip, the visitors, the conversations and memories were all overwhelmingly good. I felt grateful to have family travel around the world and spend some of the holidays with us. Elsie and I had made it through a year of breastfeeding and I was more relieved than I could ever express.
The last few days of having my family here were spent working all day and hanging out in the evenings. It was all so good, but looking back I was feeling heavier and heavier. The weekend they left I was depleted. Paralyzed with indecision. I felt like I had so much to do, to catch up on, but was so overwhelmed by every little tiny thing, I couldn't decide on a single plan of action. I didn't feel right.
Thankfully, Jake is eager to spend as much of his weekends as possible with Elsie, so he is always happy to take her and play for a bit. I remember laying on my bed trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I needed to do so many things but I was so exhausted mentally.
I finally went to the doctor to check up on some female issues I'd been having. Turns out I had another ovarian cyst and my hormones were quite a bit off. The doctor said the hormones could have been affected by breastfeeding and then stopping. Anyway, she gave me a prescription for hormones (I really don't remember specifics at this point) and put me on birth control to help reduce the size of the cyst. Within a week or so, I felt totally normal.
It was strange to me, to be putting chemicals in my body to feel normal. I was trying to be natural and get my body back to normal after birth and breastfeeding, but it turns out that made me feel terrible.
Hormones, a cyst, visitors, and three weeks of traveling, coupled with the previously mentioned timeline of the year 2017, had done me in. It was only after they left and after I felt so terrible, that I started to think about and process the previous year. Adrenaline had been my lifeline from giving birth, to traveling around the globe four times, starting a new job, and trying to fit in in a new place. I was beat.
I started to think, reflect, write down, all the events that had taken place, that I had yet to work through in my mind. I thought about Elsie's birth. The excitement, accomplishment, fear, and joy, of bringing her into the world. The family and visitors in Qatar and getting to share Elsie with them. The breastfeeding struggle. The time, oh the time, spent breastfeeding. The return to work. The stress. The international move. The paperwork. The quick trips home filled with family, friends, and so much love, but a lot of leaving, too. Thailand. The bugs, the heat, the job, the expectations, the reality. The trips, the planning, the adventuring. Bali. Cambodia. Vietnam. Malaysia. The gratitude for all of it. Another trip to the states, this time longer. Washington. Texas. Family. Cousins. So much love. So many people. So full. The leaving.
It has taken me this long...this many months to wrap my head around last year. Here we are just a couple of months from a new year. I'm not ready, but it's coming for me. I'll embrace it as best I can by practicing presence. Through gratitude. It is the only way I know how.
While I can't say I am back to normal now, I'm not sure I ever will be. To return to who I was before last year would be to undo Elsie and motherhood and this little family we've made. I am okay with becoming a different version of myself. I hope and trust and believe that it is a better, stronger, more grace-filled version.
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