"The dark days": a pre-Valentine's day post

There was a time in my life that my husband and I refer to as "the dark days".  It was a time when I was kind of a mess. Okay, not kind of a mess, I was a hot mess.  I will explain...

I was a brand new mom of a beautiful baby girl.  My sweet Claire was in the NICU for the first 4 days of life and then sent home with us.  Breast feeding was not working.  At all.  She would scream and cry and feeding her was not even close to the bonding time described in all the "becoming a mommy" books.   I was in the pediatricians office bi-weekly to get her weighed and brainstorm what to do next.  It seemed like we tried everything and Claire was still losing weight and refusing to eat. We went to the feeding clinic and then ended up at Primary Children's Medical Center for 4 days of testing and hopefully some answers.  Instead we were sent home with a feeding tube, a mountain of bills, and labels like "failure to thrive", "eating aversion", and I am sure "horrible mom" was in there somewhere.  Just a month before our trip to PCMC  I went in for my first colonoscopy at the tender age of 23 and was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. It was not pretty.  I felt like I was treading water, barely staying afloat and not going anywhere, but I was sure that my head was going under soon.  Very soon.

My life revolved around attempting to feed Claire, feeling like a failure at motherhood, trying to cope with a body that didn't work and losing my happy self in the process.  I hated going to bed because I knew I had to wake up in the morning and feel the same emptiness and misery that I felt the day before.  I feared leaving my house because of the possibility I would have stomach problems with no bathroom in sight.  I remember wrapping Claire up in a blanket at least 2-3 times a week to stop her flailing arms and legs so that I could put her feeding tube back in place as she gagged and screamed.  I was hopeless and frustrated with God.  I would pray and I felt like my pleading and tears got no further than the ceiling.  Couldn't Heavenly Father hear me?  Didn't he know how badly I hurt physically and emotionally?  At this time of such deep pain and anguish had he forgotten me?  So, I decided I would stop praying because it didn't seem to be working.  Sometimes I just couldn't stop the tears as the despair seemed to encroach on all my former happiness leaving nothing but darkness in its place.  I was so lost.

I pulled into myself and away from the people I loved.  I remember days that I wouldn't answer my cell phone no matter who called.  I couldn't handle trying to pretend I was happy and holding things together.  And then other times when I was curled up in the corner as I sobbed to my sisters because I just didn't know what else to do. Laying feverish on the couch while I put on yet another movie for my little lady and then cringing when she woke up from a nap because that meant I had to get my body up and moving when it had no energy to give me.

I felt I had no well do draw from, trudging through each day and then feeling an overwhelming guilt because I wasn't handling my trials with more grace or faith. It was a vicious cycle that I didn't know how to stop. It was hard to have hope when everything I tried failed.  I just stopped hoping because I knew the bottom would eventually fall out.  I knew I should turn to my Heavenly Father but I felt so discouraged and heavy.  How could He possibly lift this burden that was crushing my heart, my spirit, and my faith?

 My doctor decided to put me on a liberal dose of steroids and that is when I finally turned a corner. The fog lifted just enough for me to see around the bend I am so grateful for what I saw and understood.

To be continued...