My Baby Got an Owwie

Olivia had her 8 week checkup today and got 3 shots.  For the record, even before they found out that British doctor falsified his autism/vaccine research, I called bullshit and to this day I refuse to read anything by Jenny McCarthy, no matter how funny or informative it may be.  Moving on...
Josh has been out on a job for almost a week and will be gone another few days so I had to take Liv by myself to the pediatrician for the first time.  I've never been scared of doctors or dentists (my mom is a dental assistant so those irrational fears didn't fly in my house growing up) so it didn't bother me much to fly solo but I've been dreading this appointment for awhile.  I'm tough and unafraid of needles but my sweet, precious baby hasn't had so much as a bump or scrape since we brought her home so I was doing my best to mentally prepare for the tears from both of us. She's also an awesome baby in general and only cries when she really needs something so I'm not quite numb to her squeals yet.
Everything went well.  She weighed just over 10lbs, a whole 4lbs of weight gain since birth!  I felt proud standing there in front of the scale since that's all thanks to Mama's good boob juice right there.  As we waited for the doctor, Olivia looked around quietly and smiled at all the pictures in the exam room.  A smiling baby is the most amazing thing in the whole world, I tell ya.  I know I'll say the same thing about her first laugh, her first words, steps, etc but still. 
I've never been picky about my physicians as long as they have a degree and they're accepting new patients so I didn't exactly do the whole pediatrician interview sessions.  I was scheduled for a consultation a day after I ended up giving birth (since my water broke a week ahead of my due date) so I just picked the first name the receptionist threw out in the multi-doc practice.  I wasn't sure about Dr. Barret when we first met him in the hospital. He seemed kinda dry and not very warm when handling my baby.  After meeting him a couple more times though, I realized he's just the type of doc I need.  I know I have a tendency to worry about things I can't control and I go on WebMD anytime I or a loved one feels slightly off.  He's so laid back that he makes me feel more at ease.  He's also very nice and funny even though he doesn't smile much.  Oh, and those pictures Liv was looking at?  They're of him in Africa on some kind of medical mission trip.  Such a nice guy!  I can still speak so highly of him because he isn't actually the one who gave my baby her shots...
Just kidding.  The nurse came in, explained everything, asked me to hold Olivia's arms and administered the shots in just a couple seconds.  Oh my god. The look on her face made me want to die.  It was that frozen, silent cry of trying to catch her breath for a good 8 seconds then a couple minutes of really awful screaming.  I tried not to be a baby myself but the tears just welled up in my eyes (like they're doing now just remembering it).  After the nurse did her thing as quickly as possible, she gave me the ok to pick her up.  Holding my baby and feeling her slowly calming down with my touch over the course of a few minutes is just such a powerful feeling.  She was a tough little girl and had stopped crying completely by the time we left the office, which is more than I can say for myself.  She then slept aaaaaaaaall day.  She only woke up about every 3.5 hours to eat and when she did, that distinct painful cry is what she gave me.  She would then eat and go right back to sleep, which was nice because it gave me the time I so desperately needed to finish getting my portfolio online and some resumes sent out.  You'd think that the sleep time meant she was free from her pain but nooooo.  Every time she moved, she whimpered like a little puppy and tore my heart open again.  I put a simple post on Facebook about how she cried only a little more than I did, intending to be funny.  A girl who had a slightly premature baby that was in the NICU for two weeks then made her own post saying : "has a hard time empathizing with moms about shots. Guess that's what happens when you watch your baby constantly get stuck with needles, IVs, and tubes for the first two weeks of his tiny little life.."  Seriously?!  What a bitch.  I'm sorry your baby and your family had to go through that but I didn't and this is the hardest thing I've dealt with so far so don't make light of it. I should tell her about my marital problems and then she and her sweet husband can count their blessings in their new house with their new car that at least they had each other to lean on during the hard times.  I can deal with me being in physical and emotional pain but putting my child through that is really hard even if I know it'll make her stronger in the long run.  Sorry, I'm a little hormonal tonight.
Anyway, Olivia is fine now. We took a walk and she was quietly awake the whole time so she'll survive.  She's also sleeping again so I had better do the same in case all the energy she was lacking during the day decides to make an appearance at 3am.
 

I Can't Do It Anymore

I've said it so many times before now but this time I'm really done. 

I thought I could get over a lie here and there and I wanted so badly to believe him when he said he would never talk to her again. He always assured me that he now realized how awful he'd been and he was sorry he changed when we moved to Texas and he wanted to be in love with me again. Goddammit, I wanted to believe him when he said he wanted to be a family with just me and his daughter like any decent man would!

I've done nothing wrong except stay as long as I have and let my self-worth wither like the trees and flowers in this hell called East Texas. We were so happy in Atlanta when we didn't have any money.  We had a cute little house that we were slowly renovating and it was the place all our wonderful friends came to hang out.  We had my family an hour away and his family next door.  We went on walks in our awesome neighborhood and we were close to every great clothing, furniture, or grocery store we could ever want.  He would often tell me out of the blue that he loved me more than anything and he was so happy to be spending his life with me.  He wasn't perfect, of course. I know that nobody is and I accepted his flaws because he was so great in so many other ways.

Everything was ok when I unexpectedly got pregnant soon after moving away.  I was very understanding of his extensive travel and was his rock when he came home hating everything about his job. He told me to hang in there for the first three years because the hours would be long, the travel hard to deal with, and we'd move several times but then he'd have an office position in Houston and we could start a family.  He was so supportive when I was dealing with depression a couple years earlier.  I thought he knew the signs but he denied being depressed when he finally told me in April that he wasn't in love with me anymore.  After three months of trying to deal with his sudden emotional abuse while very pregnant and far from any family support, I found out he had been cheating on me the whole time.  The next couple months were a rollercoaster of emotions and lies and apologies and tears and more lies. 

I always told him that if things were to somehow go bad between us, I'd stay in Texas with our baby so that we could raise her evenly and she wouldn't have to go several hundred miles between parents like both of us had to do as kids.  I can't stand by that promise today.  I've been hurt too bad and lied to too many times to do him any favors.  If I were to stay, my daughter would see me as a sad, bitter woman missing her family and clinging to the memory of her happily-ever-after that was so brutally crushed.  She'd have both her parents but I would not be setting a good example by rolling over and continuing to live his career dreams if we weren't a couple anymore.

I start my story here and I'll slowly backtrack over the events of the past 2 years or so.  Some of you will think I'm stupid for staying as long as I have, others will think I should still stick it out, and most will wonder how the hell I'm still sane.  Some of the things I'll write about what he said or did to me will sound inhuman but I swear I have not made up a word of it.