Baby Mama Drama

Dear Lorenzo,

If you compare parenthood to a prison sentence (as I often do) then single motherhood can be likened to life without even the possiblity of parole.

It's 2:00 a.m. and I've been up for the past hour (or rather, the past four days) tending to Amira. She had an asthma flare up a few days ago and has been struggling ever since. As usual, she's okay during the day but nighttime is an entirely different story. She coughs herself awake seemingly every hour and can't get comfortable enough to get back to sleep on her own. Inevitably, each night ends the exact same way: with me, foggy from exhaustion, pulling myself out of bed to give her one last nebulizer treatment before propping her up on my chest so that, completely upright, she is able to attain a few hours of uninterrupted sleep at last.

After realizing that all the Albuterol in the world wasn't ending this particular flare up, I took her to the emergency room last night where, after receiving two breathing treatments, a course of Solumedrol, and a prescription for Prednisone, Amira was deemed well enough to go home.

I'm just not sure that I am.

On a good day, motherhood is fucking exhausting but on a bad day, when your kid is sick and you have to figure out how best to care for her...On a bad day, when your kid is scared and afraid to go to sleep without you...On a bad day, when you can't go into the kitchen to do the dishes, or run down to the basement to put a load of laundry in, or even go to the bathroom without your nine year old running behind you...it can feel unbearably overwhelming. I have an amazing support system all around me but...it's not the same as having a partner to do this with me.

Ultimately, I am on my own.

I have to figure out if she's well enough to go to school after an asthma attack or if I should keep her home with me for one more day. I have to remember to give her her vitamins and medications, to make sure her homework's done, to sneak veggies into her stews and chilis without her noticing. I have to play PayDay and Mancala when my allergies are kicking my ass and I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. I have to convince her that we are safe and that I will never, ever leave her. I have to find a way to be her everything because that's what a mother is to a child.

Everything.

Especially when that child has already lost one parent.

So...

Like single mothers have been doing since the dawn of time, I'll find a way to make it work. I'll lean on my friends and family for support. I'll take my ass back to therapy to learn how to properly cope with all of the changes that we're undergoing. I'll get through it. But tonight, this moring, I just needed to vent.

Thanks for listening.