This time it was over a month ! ! ! ! !

SO, what's been happening.

My INR (International Normalized Ratio) has been sort of stable. Hovering between 2.0 and 2.5.

They think I can go longer between blood tests now. That's fine with me. I don't mind needles but they have very limited hours in which they draw blood and sometimes I just can't get there in time. SO, okay, we'll try the 'every-three-week' thing
and see how it goes.

* * * * *

We have construction going on in front of our house. They are putting in new sewage and water pipes. Most of the soil around here is clay so consequently we get a LOT of dust. They have these big holes dug in the road. You never know from one day to the next which side of the road you'll be on.

This impressive looking machine is what they have go along the road above the concrete and it peels up the tar. Just ahead of where my car is, will be a dump truck. He stays just ahead and as the chewing machine works the old road way is peel, chewed and spit into the truck.

Wow, I am NOT what you'd call quick at this

On the way home from the hospital, we stopped at my parent's house to pick up my son and to let them see the new baby. I was so happy to see my son. He was happy at first and then started to cry that 'you left me alone and I didn't know where you were' cry.

Tore my heart out and I was so happy to see him. My parents were fussing with the new baby and I was fine with that. We got already, said our thank you's and headed home.

I was still trying to feel something.

We get home and I got her settled in and I take time with my son and then the new baby starts to cry. I pick her up and cuddle her and she just cries harder and I get a bottle ready and that quiets her for a little, but you can tell she is still not comfortable with me. I change her and put her down again and that is how it was for the next three months. I kept getting more tired, more angry, more confused, more fed up, more lonesome, more desperate, more alone.

Husband was working night shifts at the time, so he would come home, play with the kids, if they were awake, for a few minutes, go to bed for the day, wake up about 4, have dinner, play a little, watch TV, go to work and the whole cycle started again the next morning.

When she was 3 months old I felt I couldn't do this anymore. I seem to remember feeling so desperate, (about what I didn't know), helpless, alone, unloved, not needed. My parents didn't understand what was happening but they took her in for a few months. It helped take some stress off. I was sent to see a doctor because they thought there was 'something' going on. But no one seemed to know.

One doctor thought the answer was to put me on Valium which, if you have taken it, basically turns you into a zombie. Another one sent me to a psychologist who examined my daughter separately from me and decided that I didn't know how to relate to a child and that I "didn't know how to play".

Really????

^^$#*&@**(&(^@^$

Somewhere during this time I had a moment with doctor Valium where I felt like I could finally open up to him and he gets a phone call. He answers it and the next thing I know he is talking stocks with someone on the phone!!! I put up with it for a minute or two, then got up, told him this was supposed to be my time, and hung his phone up. I left and never heard from him again. No follow up, no nothing.

Most of this timeline is confused in my memory because I was living on and operating from some other planet.



Eventually there was one day when I was at home alone with the babies and I couldn't take the crying anymore. I found myself with my hands on other side of her in the crib, screaming my lungs out at her.

THAT was when I knew I would do something to her if I didn't get a break.