Calling it Quits?
Now we're quickly approaching that point in time that I was dreading deeply. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am highly emotional. I cry at happy things. I cry at sad things. I cry when a song comes on the radio that reminds me of college, and now I miss college, and my friends, and when life was simpler. Heck, sometimes I just cry because it's been a while, and my body needs to cry. Naturally, I was dreading Easter (my due date). I didn't know how I would feel. Would I be okay? Would I break down? I knew I didn't want to forget. It couldn't pass by without significance. This was my baby. It mattered. No. Forgetting was not an option.
I think the first time it really concerned me was on January 24th. I would have been seven months pregnant with only two months left to work before maternity leave. I walked around school and everything I saw seemed tinged grey (granted it was January) and everything I heard made me a little sad (again...it was January. January just seems to suck because the holidays are over). I was keenly aware of the different reality that could have been mine had we not lost Raphael.
Things at school were getting more stressful, more political, more challenging, and I felt that I was drowning. I even scratched out a poem comparing teaching to drowning at a meeting once. I was in a dark place. I was exhausted. I was miserable. I needed something to change.
Then, one random Saturday in early February, I threw up. Now here's the thing. Aside from two nights of poor decisions, I hadn't thrown up since I was a Freshman in High School...2009 people. I was entirely bewildered. I was having this preposterous acid reflux where I was constantly feeling like my food wasn't being digested, and things at work continued to stress me out.
There was one week in particular that I'm going to call Hell Week. Again, I can't quite go into details for reasons I will later explain, but I'll start with after school on a Wednesday. Things had been particularly intense at work Tuesday and Wednesday, and I had just found out that one of the teachers who quit wasn't going to be replaced. For some reason, this led me to panic. Not because I would take on almost 20 more students by the end of the month (which should have made me panic), but because now I couldn't quit. If I quit, my students wouldn't have a teacher. If there wasn't enough time to replace the teacher who left in December, there certainly wasn't enough time to replace me. That meant my students would have a sub for the rest of the year. I felt trapped, and I panicked. I drove to Encounter, and I got stuck in ridiculous traffic. I swear two drivers practically killed me. One turned left into me because traffic had come to a standstill at a green light, and he expected me to let him cut through us. I sobbed the whole way there. It was uncontrollable. The more I tried to stop, the worse it seemed to become.
By the time I got to Encounter, tear-stained would be an inadequate description of my appearance. I was a red-eyed, snotty mess. I went straight to the bathroom, and I didn't want to talk about it. Now anyone who knows me well, knows that's not true. I'm definitely a chatty-Cathy and perhaps an over-sharer. I blame it on the writer in me. As soon as Encounter got rolling, I started blurting everything out...
Oh wait. Right.
Remember how I said I'd thrown up and had acid reflux? Come on now, of course I took a pregnancy test! My NFP signs screamed pregnant - even more than when I was pregnant the first time, and I was sick? Sure, sure, I said it was the stress at work, but of course I didn't believe that. I had to be pregnant! So why was I an emotional wreck? Well because it was negative of course. So my day was ruined before I even ate breakfast. Naturally every little thing that happened that day was the worst thing that could happen to me. Plus, if I had been pregnant, it would have been the perfect divine sign that I was supposed to quit, so I could take care of the baby, but I wasn't. So now, the decision was harder to make. Could I leave my 71 students to fend for themselves when they already have so many unstable adult figures in their life? And for what? Because I had gotten too weak to handle the stress? Because I couldn't get my act together? How could I do that to them? Wasn't this just a cross for me to bear? After all, school would be over in just four months. I could do that right? For them?
So after some serious affirmation and soothing from my wonderful RC sisters, I decided to take a sick day. Clearly, I was in no place to be going to work, and I decided to put myself through a mini retreat. I woke up on Thursday with Daniel, and I spent the whole morning meditating on the day's Gospel and sleeping. Then, I went to Mass, and I scheduled a meeting with a priest to get some sort of divine advice and consolation. I was a mess, and it was time for an intervention. I was still late though, and the signs were still pregnant as ever. I begged God to either let the guessing be over or for the test in the morning to be positive. Remember in Part 3 when I talked about being angry at God? This was one of those moments. I begged God not to break my heart for no good reason. To give me an answer so I could function. To let me have some sort of peace.
Again, negative. So, we went to Boston and visited a dear friend of ours for a wonderful 3-day weekend - except I felt sick the entire time. It was the longest I had ever walked around nauseous and feeling light-headed. We had a wonderful time, but in the back of my mind that nagging hope tugged on my heart each time I had to close my eyes to stop seeing spots or to keep myself from throwing up. When we got home, I waited two more days, and then Daniel had had enough, so we got another pregnancy test.
It was positive, but I remember just staring at it. It couldn't be true. It had just been negative. So this was either a false positive, or my hormones weren't producing fast enough, and I would miscarry all over again. Daniel and I tentatively made a doctor's appointment, and figured we wouldn't get our hopes up, wouldn't tell anyone, until we at least got confirmation from the doctor that I was indeed pregnant.
In the mean time, I was ready to quit. This was all too much. If I wasn't pregnant, then I was too stressed to function healthily. If I was pregnant, then I couldn't continue in this environment. Either way, I was going to either quit or take time off. The decision was made. To top it all off, at my meeting with the priest his exact words were "I'm not going to tell you what to do, but you need to quit." Real subtle, Father. Real subtle. Now we just had to wait for the confirmation from the doctor. Was I quitting because I just couldn't do this anymore, and I had gotten so psychologically stressed that it was manifesting in these crazy physical symptoms? Or, was I quitting because I was pregnant, and this was clearly not a healthy environment for me? Or, was I taking some time off so I wasn't losing my TFA benefits or abandoning my children, but could still take time to take care of me?
Tune in Sunday, April 22nd for part 7 to find out how the story ends!
Oh wait. Right.
Remember how I said I'd thrown up and had acid reflux? Come on now, of course I took a pregnancy test! My NFP signs screamed pregnant - even more than when I was pregnant the first time, and I was sick? Sure, sure, I said it was the stress at work, but of course I didn't believe that. I had to be pregnant! So why was I an emotional wreck? Well because it was negative of course. So my day was ruined before I even ate breakfast. Naturally every little thing that happened that day was the worst thing that could happen to me. Plus, if I had been pregnant, it would have been the perfect divine sign that I was supposed to quit, so I could take care of the baby, but I wasn't. So now, the decision was harder to make. Could I leave my 71 students to fend for themselves when they already have so many unstable adult figures in their life? And for what? Because I had gotten too weak to handle the stress? Because I couldn't get my act together? How could I do that to them? Wasn't this just a cross for me to bear? After all, school would be over in just four months. I could do that right? For them?
So after some serious affirmation and soothing from my wonderful RC sisters, I decided to take a sick day. Clearly, I was in no place to be going to work, and I decided to put myself through a mini retreat. I woke up on Thursday with Daniel, and I spent the whole morning meditating on the day's Gospel and sleeping. Then, I went to Mass, and I scheduled a meeting with a priest to get some sort of divine advice and consolation. I was a mess, and it was time for an intervention. I was still late though, and the signs were still pregnant as ever. I begged God to either let the guessing be over or for the test in the morning to be positive. Remember in Part 3 when I talked about being angry at God? This was one of those moments. I begged God not to break my heart for no good reason. To give me an answer so I could function. To let me have some sort of peace.
Again, negative. So, we went to Boston and visited a dear friend of ours for a wonderful 3-day weekend - except I felt sick the entire time. It was the longest I had ever walked around nauseous and feeling light-headed. We had a wonderful time, but in the back of my mind that nagging hope tugged on my heart each time I had to close my eyes to stop seeing spots or to keep myself from throwing up. When we got home, I waited two more days, and then Daniel had had enough, so we got another pregnancy test.
It was positive, but I remember just staring at it. It couldn't be true. It had just been negative. So this was either a false positive, or my hormones weren't producing fast enough, and I would miscarry all over again. Daniel and I tentatively made a doctor's appointment, and figured we wouldn't get our hopes up, wouldn't tell anyone, until we at least got confirmation from the doctor that I was indeed pregnant.
In the mean time, I was ready to quit. This was all too much. If I wasn't pregnant, then I was too stressed to function healthily. If I was pregnant, then I couldn't continue in this environment. Either way, I was going to either quit or take time off. The decision was made. To top it all off, at my meeting with the priest his exact words were "I'm not going to tell you what to do, but you need to quit." Real subtle, Father. Real subtle. Now we just had to wait for the confirmation from the doctor. Was I quitting because I just couldn't do this anymore, and I had gotten so psychologically stressed that it was manifesting in these crazy physical symptoms? Or, was I quitting because I was pregnant, and this was clearly not a healthy environment for me? Or, was I taking some time off so I wasn't losing my TFA benefits or abandoning my children, but could still take time to take care of me?
Tune in Sunday, April 22nd for part 7 to find out how the story ends!
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