When Doulaing, College and Motherhood Collide

Any one of these things on their own can be stressful. And when they collide into one another the results can be overwhelming. To make matters worse, I am a procrastinator. I try not to be, really I do. I try to look at my week and spread things out and then, all of the sudden, it's 3:30PM on Friday and I have a blog due at 5PM and my kids are begging for some attention but the 13 year old won't play with them, the phone is ringing, people are hungry, the dogs are barking, and I'm wishing I had one of those "easy" buttons from Staples, but one that actually works. I guess my point is that I realize much of the stress of this week was my own doing by procrastinating and I own that.

This was my final week of summer quarter. I have one final next week then I'm done. The final week of the quarter is often when final papers and projects are due. Typically it is a good idea to not schedule too much else for this week, and, because I know this, I didn't schedule anything else for this week. Apparently I forgot that you can't schedule life, 'cause it just happens whether you want it to or not.

After working all day on Sunday, I came home to a very upset husband. He and one of his daughters, the very same one who watch Cole and Lydia during the week for us, had an argument about babysitting and other chores. In the end, it was decided that she would no longer be watching Cole and Lydia, leaving us trying to find childcare for 8:30 the next morning at 10pm Sunday night. I guess God thought we did such a good job handling the situation because it was only the beginning.

Apparently, allergic reactions from an allergy shot, which requires racing your 13 year old to the ER, don't care that you've got a project and a paper to finish. When you are the 7th & 8th grade volleyball coach for the non-competitive team, you don't get much of a say for when to hold tryouts. To be fair, none of the coaches do, we are all at the mercy of the gym the tryouts are being held at. And then, as I was just starting to get caught up with school work, my last doula client went into labor early Thursday morning. Again, I take full ownership on this one. I didn't have to take a client who was due at the end of the quarter. Maybe I was hoping that because she was a first timer and not due until the 24th I would be pretty safe. I was wrong. So after struggling to find someone to watch the kids (Jim had already taken two days off this week and had a meeting in Dayton he couldn't reschedule) for a couple of hours I headed to be with my laboring clients. I brought my work with me in case I got the chance to get some of it done but that was wishful thinking. The labor and birth was awesome. Mom did an amazing job, as did dad. Their birth was was just fan-freaking-tastic! But shortly after the baby was born into the hands of his mom (with help from the doc), he started having trouble breathing. He ended up going to the nursery for oxygen and further evaluation. The doctor and nursing staff debated on if he needed to be transfered to Children's Hospital. Side note: the hospital mom birthed at has a nursery and the ability to stabilize babies who aren't doing well, but they don't have a NICU. This means if their son hadn't started to show any signs of improvement within a certain time frame he would have to go somewhere that could do more for him. By midnight baby was doing better, not great, but better. After convincing mom and dad to go to bed and get some sleep, I too went home to get some sleep. After tossing and turning most of the night, I got out of bed by about nine this morning to hungry kids. Made them waffles for breakfast as I called my clients to check in on them and returned some other calls. After breakfast I sat down to finish my paper for History. My kids had other plans. They were being wild and crazy and driving me nuts. Now don't get me wrong, I totally get that they were acting this way because they were in desperate need of my attention after not seeing me much for almost two full days. I knew and understood why this was happening. But that doesn't mean my history instructor who has already given me an extra day because of the birth will understand. We finally work something out and I get my paper finished a little after 3 this afternoon. Thinking I'm done, we run out for some Chipotle. When we get home around 4 I check my email and see a reminder about my final blog post for Women's Studies that is due in an hour. I start working right away but still have the kids to deal with. An hour and a half later I publish the post just in time to take one of my stepdaughters to crew practice.

And now here I sit, doing something just for me for the first time this week after snuggling with my little ones until they ran outside to play with friends. I didn't get all of my school work done but I believe I did the best that I could with what I had. I'm short two digital scrapbook postings for Women's Studies and one reading response for History, but it isn't the end of the world. Regardless of my grades in these classes, I learned so much from the classes themselves. Grades are just letters and numbers, knowledge is way more valuable.