Retired Waif

I have been all around and here, there and back. I have a still-brand-new son, very expensive infusions (thank my husband’s union for the first decent health coverage I’ve ever had in my life), ouchy injections (again, union), and a demoralizing leave-of-absence from school. And I want to write about all of them.

I’m taking my time, however. Taking my time.

I came perilously close to torpedo-ing my academic career, and it’s hardly out of the woods yet. A lot depends on the next few months. Was this, technically, my “fault”? Can I be blamed for letting chronic illness and pregnancy take their toll?

Well, unfortunately, yes.

I can’t go into all of the ways I screwed up last year, between untreated depression, untreated MS flare-ups, an unwillingness to use the lovely disability resources at college because disability? nuh-uh! i have ms, but ms doesn’t have me! not to mention a deer-in-headlights response to some beyond-the-pale professorial harassment that really merited, again, a trip to the Disability Services office and yeah, I probably could have salvaged last year had I gotten off my ass and done so.

That said, I am… well… beyond thrilled to get to play wifey and mama for six months with some reading and paper-writing my only responsibilities.

Life is actually rather good.

Back, finally. What feels like “a return after long wanderings” but really hasn’t been that long, or that far. Still, things got pretty intense there for a while.

The baby is a peach. I, however, have been in peices, and am slowly being put back together by various hands.

Had the baby, a strapping baby boy, at home as planned. With much trauma (emotional) and surprisingly little (physical). I got the homebirth everyone wants–fairly short labor, straightforward delivery, nothing scary or weird happening–and all I could think about for a week was a chance remark someone made to me as I was looking at the new baby and how much it had hurt my feelings. It was like that.

It took about a week for me to get used to talking to or touching my husband again. Once that was settled, we spent the next week trying to get all my medical issues in order so that he could return to work. That in turn was derailed by my getting suddenly, mysteriously, ill. I’m now climbing back up from a really terrible in-1860-I’d-be-dead postpartum infection, starting MS meds (Copaxone and IVIG for right now), and getting to know the new little one.

So I’ll be posting more later. Much to say… any interest in my blogging the birth story? I’d like to get it down before it fades from memory, or then again maybe I wouldn’t like that. It’s worth telling, I think.

Oh, and here’s another picture, just for fun:

(image description: Me again, carrying the baby in a sling, wearing a fixed, shell-shocked, “I’m-making-eye-contact-damn-it” expression that pretty much sums up my post-birth mood)