Stress

Well, that was a first.

My child had a full-blown panic attack.

I could feel her fear when she said she couldn’t breathe.

That her heart hurt.

She was climbing onto me, spiraling out of control, desperate for me to save her.

“You aren’t dying. I know it feels like you are but you aren’t. This is a panic attack. Look at me. Take deep breaths.”

Ironically enough, her father and I had just spent an hour the night before discussing the need for our family to spend more time listening to one another.

Sure, we go, go, go! We love adventures and experiences. We spend quality time swimming, playing and exploring.

But how much time have we set aside for listening?

We are living during a historical time- a pandemic- yes, this will be one for the history books.

As much as we all have tried to buck up and just keep on, keepin’ on, many of us are silently suffering.

And you know where it shows itself?

At the zoo. Late for a train.

Suddenly, it’s just too much.

And we cannot any longer.

So tonight, during our first, nightly family meeting, we opened the flood gates- offering our girls to let it out.

It’s a process.

When you’ve spent so much effort keeping it all in, it takes time.

But we are committed to giving our children and each other the space to do just that.

Let It Out. Let It Go.

Welcome to the world, Elizabeth Joy! Our fourth daughter arrived two weeks ago, abruptly ending months of anticipation and successfully shifting the dynamics of our new “norm”.

We’ve experienced this change before. Beginning with the dance of labor, the rocking, lunging, swaying back and forth. The sensation of extreme heat immediately followed by chilling tremors of apparent sub-zero temperatures. The digging-in, the roaring-out. My arms, wrapped around my husband’s neck. My doula’s steady hands, applying counter pressure to my spine; propping me up, when all I want to do is fall.

Yes, we’ve journeyed along this road many times. When one is too weak to stand, the other is there to hold. And yet, what do we do when we are both weary, unable to withstand the weight of another in addition to the weight of the things we already carry?

My husband and I found ourselves in that position just a few weeks before Elizabeth’s birth. I, carrying an extra 30 pounds on my front-side, preparing for our fourth child’s arrival while trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for our 2, 4 and 6 year-old daughters. My husband, juggling pressure from work and the sense of urgency to complete any and all major house projects before the arrival of our newborn.

Our tempers were short, our stress, high. We refrained from burdening the other with our concerns, afraid that our additional weight would throw the other over the edge.

Withered and worried, along we trudged until we simultaneously erupted, hurling accusations and proclaiming “I’m doing the best I can!” Our molten lava seeped from our mouths until there was nothing left to say except, “I know.”

Too weak to stand alone, not strong enough to carry another, we leaned-in. And it was there, forehead to forehead, hands to hands, we discovered that together, we were strong enough to hold.