(Apologies in advance, for the whining and bitching.)

There is no way around it. I am in an ugly, ugly mood. M is sick again, and even though it is the mildest of colds, she’s the biggest fucking sissy in the world when it comes to being sick. This means she slept for 6 hours last night – one 4 hour block, and one 2 hour block. It was fun.

There are days when I really don’t want to be a mother. Today is one of them.

The rage, frustration and resentment I feel scares me. I understand that it is directly correlated to lack of sleep, but I find it deeply troubling, nonetheless. I am ashamed to admit that I had fantasies last night of wrapping my hands around M’s neck and shaking her, shaking, shaking and screaming SHUT THE FUCK UP WHY WON’T YOU SLEEP WHY WHY WHY WHY!?!?!? Just reading that makes me want to cry, but it is the truth.

I am feeling very despondent about life today. I am one of those people who needs eight hours of sleep to feel like a normal human being. In my pre-child life, I was greatly upset if I only managed to garner seven hours before rising to go to work. I stumbled through my day in a haze, longing only for it to end so I could return home to sleep. I would struggle through meetings, pinching myself to stay awake, often in vain. When it was really bad, I would scooch my laptop over so my back was to the door of my cubicle, lean my head on my hand and doze.

Needless to say, it has been a long ass time since I’ve gotten anywhere close to eight hours of sleep. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve slept six straight hours in the last 15 months.

In the beginning, we had the nursing woes, and it was common to be up until 1, 2 even 4 AM, night after night after night. For months. When we cleared that, the gassiness began, and M kicked me, night in and night out. I think I averaged maybe four hours of sleep a night during this period … often in fifteen minute chunks. This lasted for months on end. And let’s not even talk about naps … naps that would occur only in the car, with the engine on and wheels moving. Naps that resulted in an insane number of near misses as I constantly struggled to maintain consciousness while piloting my precious, sleeping cargo. Out of sheer desperation, I finally moved her to her crib around nine months, and she stopped kicking me, only to start fussing instead. Without me at her side, the gas pains would wake her briefly … she would moan and cry out, then go back to sleep for a few minutes, repeat, repeat, repeat. After seeking help from a chiropractor and craniosacral therapist, I finally bit the bullet and took her to a holistic pediatrician. We paid for this out of pocket, and after piling it on top of all the chiro and CST visits, I figure I’ve easily spent several thousand dollars on health care practitioners since M was born. As a friend so succinctly put it the other day, “How much is your sleep worth?” A lot, apparently.

Amazingly, the holistic pediatrician helped (and it should have, for how much it cost). I never had much faith in homeopathy, but I do now. The gas (and frequent night waking) disappeared overnight, and after a while, M even started pooping several times a day. We had a few good weeks, maybe even a month or two. She was still up at least once a night to nurse, but other than that, her sleep was good. Mine, however, was not. I’ve battled insomnia off and on my entire adult life, and it chose that opportune moment to rear its head again. I …

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Um, excuse me while I go yell at my child, throw and break a few things, terrorize the cat, curl into a fetal position on my husband’s lap and cry uncontrollably for a while.

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Okay. I feel a little better now.

The long and short of it is, I’m tired. And not “I’ve had a few bad nights” tired. This is deep and pervasive, bone-aching tired. Night after night, week after week, month after month of not getting enough sleep. My life is fuzzy and gray around the edges, and if I didn’t know better, I would think I was depressed. But I’ve been there before and this is different. I’m just plain tired, and after 15 months in survival mode, where the house is always dirty, and it’s a struggle just to keep food in the fridge and clean clothes on our backs, I’m tired of it. I stagger through life, barely on my feet, overwhelmed by the simplest things, and like a giant stone wheel, the days keep coming, nipping at my heels; one false step and I’ll be crushed. There is no cushion, no factor of safety. I’m scraped to the bone, and it only takes one moderately bad night for me to lose it.

Even if I were to start getting eight hours of sleep a night (and I’m not, oh no, I’m not), it wouldn’t be enough. I’m not foolish enough to think I can recapture every minute I’ve lost in the last 15 months, but some of it has to be made up. At least a little.

The frustrating thing is that I think M has finally become a “good sleeper”. It’s just things keep getting in the way. She’s sick, or teething, or the gas is bothering her again. When she’s comfortable, she falls asleep easily, and sleeps well … I think she’s even getting close to sleeping through the night. But fucking-a if stuff doesn’t keep coming up, and we’ll lick one thing only to have another take its place. I’ve even got my insomnia in hand – thanks to the wonders of homeopathy, herbal remedies, and aromatherapy (lavender, where have you been all my life?). It feels like we’re so close, so fucking close, and yet, so far away.

I want to live my life again, not just survive. I want to enjoy the time I spend with my daughter, not count the minutes until I can put her down for a nap, struggling to contain the monster that’s unleashed inside of me by the lack of sleep. Sometimes I don’t even know who I am, this hateful, vengeful person who can’t see past her desire to inflict hurt and pain. I am truly a stranger to myself, and find small comfort only by remembering that sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture for a reason.

I know it will get better. I know it won’t be like this for the rest of my life. But frankly, that is of no comfort to me now. I am spent, I have nothing left to give, I need more sleep. Now.

M is finally asleep. I’m going to bed.