Best Mom of the Year Award Goes To...

So last time I was talking about how my son was so grouchy and upset about the breakup and how he was having such a hard time adjusting...  Turns out that SOME of that could possibly have been due to the fact that he had an ear infection.  Whoops.  He had been talking about "ouches" all weekend but every time I asked him where he would tell me someplace different.  Perhaps that was because he had the aches and it hurt all over.  So after a visit to the pediatrician, he is now on antibiotics and seems to be feeling much better.  Until today that is.  the only thing my mother asked for for Mother's Day was a new, more current picture of her grand kids.  SO today my brother and I and the three kids went with my mom to get pictures taken.  That is always somewhat amusing however, their ages are almost 5, 2 1/2 and 1 1/2.  Trying to get them all sitting down and looking and [GASP!] smiling was...umm...difficult to say the least.  The photographer was pretty good at getting the kids to smile with the typical tricks.  Then he started saying "POP POP POP POP" like popcorn and everyone seemed to enjoy that.  Until my son actually heard that he was using the word "pop."  He immediately started looking around for a lollipop, and was getting very excited to have one!  Once I realized what he was talking about (you know the whole speech therapy thing and all) and tried to explain to him that there were "pops" here and that if he would just sit quietly and smile that I would give him all the pops his little heart could desire...well...we had meltdown.  He lost it.   Again, sort of out of character for him, but what are you doing to do?  So we have some decent pictures from the beginning before meltdown occurred and then we got a couple of decent shots of the entire group, and also a fabulous shot of my crying child.  he was cranky and whiny all the way home.  Got home and changed his diaper and realized he seemed a little warm.  I got out the thermometer and took his temp.  Result?  Yeah, 102.7 degrees.  Best Mom of the year right here ladies and gentlemen...

Not What I Expected

It isn't what I expected.  I expected to be sad.  I expected to miss her.  But I didn't expect the boy to react like this.  Is it possible that a 2 1/2 year old little boy could understand when his two moms break up and one of them moved out?  I wasn't aware that he was so capable of cognitive thought like that.  But he knew that even though the "playroom" had all of his toys in it, even though we painted the walls and bought new furniture and played only his music, even though I busted my ass all weekend long to make it into something else, it was still his Mom's room.  And why was all HIS stuff in here?  And didn't I see those holes in the walls?  That's where the shelved used to be.  The shelves that held all of Mom's stuff.  And those shelves were gone.  And the holes are a bitter reminder that they are missing.  And every time we see said holes we will look at Mommy and say, "Uh oh.  Mom fix."  And then proceed to walk around the house saying, "MMMOOOOOOOMM  Are du Mom?  Mom...are du Mom?"  And come up to me and ask me where his Mom is.  To which I reply, "she's living at her new house.  Mommy and the boy live here and Mom lives at her new house."  He then says, "du house?" and then wanders away.  Only to repeat the same exchange about 10 minutes later.

Then she comes over tonight after work to see him.  He gets big hugs and big hugs and immediately becomes a happier boy.  Like he hasn't been cranky crankster from cranksterville ALL DAY LONG.  The he starts asking for random things.  

***I must take a moment to point out that the entire time we lived together, he would get MAD if we were cuddling or hugging or, god forbid, kissing.  He would wedge his little self in between us and make us stop the activity immediately (of course we continued whatever we were doing anyway...)***

However, tonight it was like he was trying to play cupid and throw the arrow in our direction.  He and Mom were playing trains and she started tickling him like always.  He immediately stopped everything and looked up at her and said, "iickle Mommy?"  "You want me to tickle Mommy?" she asked in amazement (as mentioned NOT usual for him), and he sat there nodding his head like, yeah, that's the greatest idea I have ever heard.  So she came over and tickled me and I proceeded to squeal and call out for help and he loved it.  He ate it up.  "Get Mommy?"  Over and over again.  And then he took each one of us by the hand and pulled us next to each other and instructed us to give each other a "BIG" hug.  Again we went with it and gave a big hug.  He nodded in appreciation.  Then he instructed us to give a "baby" hug as well.  He was pleased when we followed through with this request as well.  Then before Mom was going to leave he told her to give me a kiss.  At this point it just seems sad.  I honestly don't know if he truly could understand what is going on, or if he is feeling just confused and unsettled and wanted to make sure that we still have love for each other or what.  All I know is that this is not what I expected.

The Back Story

We met in December of 2000 and by February of 2002 we had had a marriage ceremony and bought a house together.  Beginning in June of 2002 we started trying to get pregnant.  We started (naively) buying frozen sperm and trying to defrost it at home and shove it up there.  We thought that would work.  Yeah, it didn't and we moved on.  The farthest we got in our journey was through IUI's with injectables.  In November of 2004 I ran into an old friend of a friend.  Long story short he offered to be our donor.  We talked AT LENGTH for months and finally started trying to get pregnant with him in April of 2005.  The first month we tried with his fresh sperm I was pregnant.  Ironic doesn't even begin to describe it.  3 years of treatments and thousands of dollars and it worked when he came over, "used the bathroom," handed out a specimen cup.  We used a syringe we bought off the Internet and did it ourselves in our bedroom.  And it worked.  Amazing stuff.

Back to the relationship.  Fertility treatments were ROUGH on my relationship.  Like a lot of couples I read about, everything became about having a baby.  And our relationship suffered.  Like a lot of couples.   Then when we finally got pregnant, "Happy, happy, joy, joy," right?  Well it was until around week 6 of my pregnancy when I started to constantly feel like I had the worse hangover of my life and it would NEVER go away.  I lost some of that joy.  I wanted to have it, I wanted to feel it, but I just couldn't.  I wanted to die.  I had tried so long to get pregnant that once I actually WAS pregnant I thought the hard stuff was out of the way.  Plus my mom never had morning sickness so I thought I was in the clear.  Well I wasn't.  And I hated it.  I even went so far as to buy a book entitled "Pregnancy Sucks."  The beginning of pregnancy sucked.  And like the previous 3 years, it took a toll on my relationship.  I feel bad about that.  Ex was very excited and wanted to read books and stuff and I just wanted to die.  I basically killed her enthusiasm with my bad attitude.  And then by the time I felt better and how wanted to start to talk about it and read the books, well most of her excitement had gone right out the door.  So it was tough.  Don't get me wrong, we were both very excited to meet our little guy, I am just pointing out it was tough on the relationship.

So in January of 2006 I had The Boy.  Ex was wonderful.  I had been on best rest for high blood pressure for about 3 weeks prior to his delivery and ended up having him by emergency c-section.  After the birth she was also great.  Helped me in the hospital, took total care of The Boy (I couldn't even pick him up for the first week) and also took care of me.  She changed my nasty pants and used the lovely little water bottle to spray off my girlie parts.  She was great.  This continued when we got home from the hospital.  She had taken 2 weeks off after the baby was born and stayed home with me.  This was a wonderful time.  I think it was for both of us.  Then she went back to work.  That's when it got tricky.  I still needed lots of help (took quite a while to recover from my c section since I was on bed rest) so my mom stepped in.  And the Ex suddenly didn't feel so much like she was needed.

***This post is totally from my perspective and I in no way mean to insinuate that I know exactly how Ex was feeling or if I am representing her correctly.***

There is so much background that goes into this that I could never properly give it justice, but it was a tough situation on her.  One night I was playing around with her when The Boy was about 4 months old and I (jokingly) asked her if she was still attracted to me after pregnancy.  Her answer shocked me.  This was obviously something that had been on her mind for quite a while and this was the time that it spilled out.  She not only wasn't sure if  she thought I was still attractive, but she wasn't sure if she was in love with me.  She felt we had drifted apart during the past 3 years and she had needed us to feel closer than we were.  She didn't feel as though I held up my end of the bargain.  My end of the bargain being that we wouldn't lose "us" in this baby.  Well he was only 4 months old.  I think we were still in the newborn trenches at that point so it was hard to prove my love at that point.  I was pumping constantly and dealing with a new baby and post par tum hormones.  We went to counseling but really, it was too late.  She was done.  And I was crushed.  More than crushed.  She moved out in July of 2006, the exact same day that our son turned 6 months old.

I could write for days about the time between then and now, but let's just sum it up at this.  We split up and spent a good deal of time away from each other, all the while each attending individual therapy.  We thought we could make it work, so we tried.  Ex moved back in and we continued in therapy.  I can honestly say that I tried everything and that I worked my ASS off to try and save this relationship.  And so did Ex.  Most frustrating thing of all is when love really just isn't enough.  So we split up again for good on Memorial Day Weekend.  It is different this time.  I am not angry, I don't feel hurt.  I feel sad.  I feel sad for both of us.  But I don't feel duped and I don't feel tricked.  We both did everything we could to make this work and it just didn't.  But we are committed to being the best of friends and raising this amazing little boy that we created together.  And we will make sure to do that the best way we know how.