September | 2017 | thechroniclesofanonbellymama

My good friends lost their baby yesterday.

No parents should have to feel that. To have their nightmares played out in real life.

No one should have to know that pain or carry that weight.

It feels even heavier hearing the wavering, hysterical voice on the line of my friends, screaming to me that he was gone. Trying to put her grief and her pain to get me to understand what she is feeling in the handful of words she can choke out.

My heart broke for them. For my dear friends who are missing one third of their children, one fifth of their family.

I cried myself to sleep last night thinking about the unfortunate events that have taken place in their life this past year. I can’t wrap my head around it.

I held my kids super tight, and then found myself climbing into bed with them at 3am, and then spending way too much time at drop off this morning, crying and hugging, and crying and kissing, and crying and hugging some more. I was realizing that instantly, all of that joy, pain, craziness, affection, love can be ripped away from me at any moment.

Keep my friends in your prayers. Do what you can to help them. No parent plans to put money away for their toddlers services. We only plan on loving them.

This weight is so heavy for them, for those connected to them, for their other children who lost their best bud. Help however you can…$1 can go a long way for a family that feels like they are losing everything. And prayers are miraculous. I believe their family is getting a food train together too. I’ll keep you posted on that. We can try and lessen this burden, if even an iota of it. This is what this community that we ALWAYS lean on is for.

Kiss your kids hard today, hug them with your entire heart, tell them you love them and then tell them again, and then again and again! Be PRESENT in the moments you spend with them, and hopefully during this unspecified and unguaranteed time we have together, we can let them know how very much they are loved. I’m sure baby Leo felt every second of that love….

Keep the Ladd’s in love and light….they REALLY could use it…

(shared with their permission)

https://www.gofundme.com/4f83hig

https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/5n3gzw

It’s true! I DON’T! Not now, not ever, but it has been a discussion.

Divorce.

That’s a thing. Well, let me rephrase that. It’s not a “thing” in the sense that it’s gonna happen ( I don’t think), but it’s something that in the past year, in all of its craziness and joy and happiness and flow, has been something that has been thrown into our arguments now and again. About 6 months ago, it became a real discussion, and so, we began to go to couples therapy.

Has it worked? Welllllllllllllllllllll ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, that’s subjective. I would say for me it has. Callie would say, probably not, but I keep going and I keep showing up, and I keep practicing what we are told to do. Whether or not it’s been reciprocated seems pretty subjective as well. So, we’re here, another week of arguing and another week of trying to figure out where we go from here.

The thing is, it has nothing to do with love, and I think we both know that. It has everything to do with communication and listening. See, most of you know, I did quite a bit of intensive therapy for the better part of 2 years. I spent 2+ months inpatient, then did 3 weeks in a partial program, then did 90 days in a substance abuse program, and then did 20 months in an outpatient, M-F 8-3pm DBT program, where I really worked on the things that had been plaguing me my whole life and I became very aware and in tune, and was taught and learned how to be an effective communicator and active listener. Callie struggles ~~like hell~~ a little with the “active” part, and is so quick and chomping at the bit to get her point across that she totally misses what I’m saying, and sooooo, arguments start because I refuse to listen since I wasn’t listened to, and boom! Disaster, and then divorce comes up.

I get it! 5 kids in about 3 years is no joke! It’s just been transition into transition into adjustment and then adjusting to THAT adjustment. These 3 years have been beautiful but also bananas! So I get it, especially when you have a person like Callie who generally speaking, doesn’t do well with change , who needs a lot of sleep to function (so you can imagine that with 4 under 3 currently, is quite impossible), and who needs things planned out pretty strategically in order to make it all work. I, on the other hand am pretty much the complete opposite. I LOVE change and embrace it (I move the furniture in the rooms in my home 2-3 x’s a year because I get bored looking at it the same way), I can survive on about 3 hours a sleep a night (so long as I get a day a month to just crash and vegetate!) and spontaneous plans always seem to be the best to me.

I’ll be honest though. This is sort of the abridged version of what has been going on in our relationship the better part of the past year. There’s the hoarding issue for me and the cleaning issue for her. There’s the “you don’t help enough” issue for me, and the “you want to do too much” issue for her. There’s the “can we go out and stop being antisocial because I need people in my life?” issue, and the “don’t we have enough people to entertain today?” issue for her. I mean, it’s lots of stuff, and it seems to not be getting sorted out quickly enough, which could potentially cause more damage since we both seem to just want this sorted out but can’t seem to figure out how to get there!

We are creeping up on 7 years together in 2 weeks, and I’m wondering if that “Seven year” nonsense could potentially be a real thing. With some of our close friends divorcing after 7 years together, we wonder if that’s where our lives our heading. Can we just not agree on anything? Can we just continue to not be intimate after months! Is it really all about winning and losing, or who is right and who is wrong? When will all of this anger, resentment, anxiety, and helplessness subside?

As much as I love my wife is the same amount as I have been struggling, particularly these past 3 months, to stay. To try and understand some of her needs that just seem really crazy and illogical to me. I’m trying! I’m really trying, because I love my kids, and I love this family, and I love the time that we share together, and I fucking love my wife, but admittedly, I don’t love to feel ignored, or to be treated like I don’t count, or to be so angry and sad all the time. We have amazing, beautiful moments nearly every day, but the arguments are so ferocious and so angry and so loaded with venom that it’s difficult to see past it sometimes.

I’ll keep trying and I’ll keep fighting because I don’t want to be away from my family or my wife, but for my own sanity, I don’t know how much longer I can take the arguing and the need for her to be right all the time. It’s really hard, friends. Really fucking hard. Hopefully, this is fleeting. Hopefully, this is just a “thing” kind of like conversations about separation and divorce are at the moment. Hopefully, we can muster up the courage to just say “Yes dear” for a little bit for the sake of peace and sorting things out. Who knows how this will all work out! Worst case scenario, we have a mother/daughter set up in the house, and the basement is currently rented. It could suddenly be unrented with 60 days notice according to their lease. Hopefully, THAT won’t also become a thing.

With anniversary looming, and seven years on the line, I’m committed to trying my best to make US our best and have THE BEST life possible…especially because our kids are so damn awesome and I’d hate to fuck them up with a possible divorce. That would be the worst thing I could have imagine for not only my life but their also. And I wanted to say in advance, thanks for reading this and letting me vent because I have 2 people that I have been able to talk to this about for the sake of not getting too many opinions and not talking to our friends who are invested in our lives and marriage the way we are in theirs. One is my bestie blogger friend, and the other is my mother, both who understand how difficult this is, but also encourage me to both follow my heart but also to keep fighting. My heart and the fight are one in the same. So, I’ll lace up these boots, fill my Camelbak (With Chardonnay!), and get to trekking on this journey of recovering what we lost somewhere between bliss and 5 kids.

To lighten up this post a little….TADA! The kids!