Friday, April 30, 2010
Feels like my heart is being torn in two...
This has been one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make and no doubt, there are many who would condemn me for it too by saying that I'm not being as good of a mother I should be and a good mother would do anything and everything possible in order to make the other choice but it wasn't just my decision either. I am not my daughter's only parent. She has another parent, a parent who is equally as important to her as I am. Why is it that ONLY the mother is the best parent? Is that ALWAYS the case? I can understand that when a child is very young, a newborn and an infant and even the first years but isn't there a point at which this changes? John is just as much of a good father, if not a BETTER father than I am a mother. All I really can offer (especially right now) are the boo-boos and maybe some story time. I cannot give her as much of the play time or the patience or the religious influence that John can give her. I've tried (and struggled) to help her with learning but John does better with that too, understandably as he is the one with the teaching experience! And right now, he can give her the attention she needs more fully than I'm able to. My attention right now is divided between her and this baby that is coming. It is attention that will be more and more divided as the time gets closer to my giving birth. It is attention that will be divided in the days following the birth as I learn once again to nurse a helpless infant. It would have been a struggle enough, I'm sure, with John around but without him there, that's one mom whose attention has to be split between two girls and there's no way to make that an equal split. Exactly how fair is that?Here, she will have the attention of her father. She will be going with him when he goes to work and she will be home with him each night. They will do things together and go places together. He will be here with her when the baby is born (since it's very unlikely he'll get home in time for the birth, not with the price of plane tickets during the summer) and he will be here with her during those first several weeks following the birth. That's more than I can give her when my focus has to be on finding a place to live, finding a provider to help me give birth, keeping track of my health and making sure the baby and I both get what we need, going through the birth, recovering from the birth, getting breastfeeding going, all of these things will need my focus and I really have to wonder, why is it such a bad thing to leave her with the parent who DOESN'T have to worry about all of that? John is also the more laid back parent (not as far as discipline but just more laid back in general) whereas I'm more high strung and easily stressed out. And that could potentially cause problems for this pregnancy. Stress is the last thing I need and I'm already up to my neck in it this pregnancy. Having Natalie with me will bring about more stress, stress that I don't need at this time.
But, realizing this and knowing all of this doesn't help the guilt. I do feel like I'm abandoning my child. I feel like I'm shortchanging her for a baby that's not even born yet. I feel like I am, in a sense, telling her by leaving her here that I love this baby more than I love her. I don't want her to feel that way; I DO NOT feel that way, if anything I love her FAR more than the baby at this point and have a hard time not resenting the baby for making me choose her over the daughter I already have, I daughter I was perfectly happy having only one of so that I didn't have to make these kinds of decisions. It's one of those cases of making the best decision you can with the resources you have. If I had more resources (in this case money), Natalie more than likely would have been going home with me. That was the plan but money is a huge factor in this right now and stability is important too. I know that it will take me some time to get the situation in the US stabilized. And really, it's not exactly fair to take her home when things are that way. It was bad enough when John left us to come here and I was staying with my family. Natalie didn't do very well then. The changes were hard on her. At least in this case, the only change is me leaving. She will have the same living situation (at least until July), she will have the same space, the same toys, I'm just the one who's leaving. And she did okay with that before. It's just that this time, it's going to be longer but I do feel that ultimately, this is the better solution for her at this time. I just really hope that this will be the last time, that we all will be able to stay and live in one place and have some stability for awhile because I don't know how much more of this I can take myself. I really do feel that we have shortchanged Natalie in many ways during her four short years and hope that this will be the last of that and once she and John return to the US, things will become more stable. Maybe that's wishful thinking, I don't know.
| posted by Janeen at 11:57 AM
