Separation Anxiety

All good things must come to and end...and unfortunately, the end of my maternity leave/summer vacation is here.  :(  I've tried to avoid thinking about it, but because this weekend is slowly coming to a close, and with work starting-- I really can't avoid it any longer.  Technically, though, I went back to work last week...although I wasn't getting paid for it.  Like most teachers, I wanted to put some time into my classroom to get it ready for the new school year.  Michael came with me and helped me set up my classroom furniture and decorate my bulletin boards.  Abigail came too...she didn't help much, but she was a good girl and sat in her seat and played with her toy and watched us work.

Sadly, once this weekend is over I'll have to go back to work again, and this time, I won't be able to have them with me.  I've felt this anxiety about being away from my baby for quite some time now.  I think it first started the night we were discharged from the hospital after she was born.  Michael's mom & stepdad had brought us home from the hospital and told us not to hesitate calling them if we needed anything at all.  Little did we know that we would be calling them later that night.  It was supposed to be our first night at home as a family....but things changed as soon as I got a call from my brother telling me that my dad had had a stroke and was being rushed to the hospital.  At first I didn't want to leave, and prayed that it wasn't anything major.  He had had a "mini-stroke" before, and was just kept in the hospital overnight to be observed.  But within the hour, I got another call from my brother telling me that I NEEDED to come to the hospital right away because things were very bad and my dad would need surgery to clear out the blood that was filling his brain.  My brother, who is usually very serious and reserved with his feelings, was crying and he told me that the doctors told him that they were going to do all that they could, but they weren't even sure if he would survive the surgery.  Knowing that you really shouldn't bring a newborn baby to the hospital to wait in the emergency room, we knew that we couldn't bring Abigail with us.  I felt so torn because I had just brought my baby home for the first time, and now I had to leave her already.  I didn't want to leave--- but on the other hand, my dad was rushed to the hospital after having a severe stroke and was dying.  There was no question that I needed to be there.  That's when we called Michael's mom & dad back and asked them to watch the baby.  You can only imagine how much my heart hurt that night.  In case you didn't know or may have forgotten, because of the complicated delivery, I had separated my pubic bone and wasn't even able to walk.  I had the use of a walker, and even making my way out of the car and up the stairs to our apartment took almost 40 minutes when we first came home.  But that night, the rain was pouring down and I hurried down the stairs and into the car in less than 10 minutes.  I was so numb from what was going on inside my head that I didn't even stop to think about the fact that I was in physical pain.  The sad part is, that although we hurried, we didn't make it to the hospital in time to see my dad before he went in for surgery.  My brother asked the doctor to wait for me, but they couldn't wait any longer and they needed to take him in.  When we got to the hospital, we sat in the waiting room for hours.  I didn't sleep at all that night.  All I could think about was my dad and my baby.  I think it was around then that I started to get my separation anxiety.  As my dad's condition worsened over the next few days and until he passed away, Abigail was the reason that I was able to keep my head straight and cope with everything.  My dad's last words to me were to take good care of her.  And I think I took all the sadness I felt and channeled it into love towards her.  Whenever I missed my dad, I'd put that energy into taking care of her.  Take all of those feelings, plus the normal bond a mom has with her baby and what do you get?  Apparently that's what I have.

Anyways, in the weeks leading up to this, I've been making a list of things to help me feel better about leaving my baby to go to work.  This is what I have come up with:

• I should be thankful that I've been able to have this much time off with her, and still have a job to go back to!  I've been out of work since April 1st.  I started my maternity leave 4 weeks before my due date.  She was born on May 13th, and is a little over 14 weeks.  In total, I've had almost 20 weeks off of work....and I still have a job!  In fact, not only is my job safe, but as soon as I go back, I get my tenure!  I'm tellin' you...it's all about timing!  As a teacher, if you get pregnant in the summer, you go out on maternity right around spring break and you can ride it through until summer vacation!  I'm so lucky it all worked out that way for me! :)
• Every one works.  It's rare to find households where only one parent works.  In this day and age, and especially with this crappy economy, we need two incomes.  Maybe if Michael hadn't been laid off from teaching, there could be a possibility that I could stay at home with her, but still.  We need the money and the health insurance.  I'm going to work because I love my family and I'm doing this for them.
• Abigail will be in good hands while I'm away.  She will be spending her days with her Grammy (Michael's mom), who I trust to take very good care of her and love her as if she was her own.
• At least I'm a teacher!  The pay isn't quite what a doctor makes (haha, yeah right!), but that's because I have all weekends, holidays and summers off.  I am guaranteed to be home with her all those times, which is more than what I had with my parents who were the typical workaholic doctors who I rarely saw.  As a teacher, I only work 186 days a year...which is pretty great, I think!
• Lastly, returning to work means that I'll be something else other than just a mom.  Don't get me wrong.  Stay at home mommyhood is hard!  Sooo much work to do taking care of a little one and a household full of chores.  But being at work means that I'll get to use my other talents.  I went to school for so long in order to become a special education teacher, why throw that away?  I will be able to help children with special needs and make a difference in their lives.  Also, I'll be able to have adult conversation about things other than laundry, dirty diapers, drooling or sleeping schedules. 

I keep telling myself these things over and over again.  I think it'll be okay though.  I know I'll be sad at first...but I'll be fine.  I just hope I don't cry (at least not in front of my coworkers). 

40 Days

Yesterday marked 40 days since my dad passed away. In Filipino tradition, it is believed that 40 days after a loved one dies, their soul officially goes to heaven and is no longer wandering on earth. This is the point when the family can stop wearing black and mourning. On the 40th day, the family of a lost loved one will get together again to pray for the family member and celebrate their memory. The number 40 is significant because just like Jesus' ascension into heaven 40 days after his death, the lost loved one will also go to heaven after 40 days.

For my dad's 40th day, prayers and masses were dedicated to him by all of his family that is located all over the world. Thanks to Facebook, I've been able to reconnect, and in some cases, "meet" some family from his side for the first time. It was nice to see that they posted about the goings on in their areas in honor of my dad. I saw that masses were dedicated to my dad in not only different areas of the Philippines, but also in Dubai and Australia, to name a couple. In the Philippines, where most of my dad's side of the family lives, they probably will never be able to come to America to visit my dad's grave...so what they've done is added my dad's name to his dad, my paternal grandfather's tombstone. My uncle in the Philippines posted this picture of it on Facebook:

My dad's name was added to his father's tombstone in the Philippines so that his family there will have a place to visit in his memory.  Antonio was my grandfather that I never got to meet, but I hope that I can go to the Philippines with my family some day to visit him at the cemetery, as well as the rest of the family living in the Philippines.

I really hope that I can get the opportunity to visit my dad's side of the family in the Philippines and be able to visit family at the cemetery too. I'm so sad that I never got a chance to return to the Philippines with my dad while he was alive. I know that was something he was always hoping to save up enough money for. He wanted to be able to take me and my brother and sister to the Philippines to meet his family, especially his mom. She has only seen my brother and sister in pictures, and the last time she saw me, I was only a year old. I hope to be able to go there to visit them and hopefully bring Michael and Abbie too. Michael knows how important to me it is to visit there, and it helps to know that he wants to go too.

Anyways, getting back to my dad's 40th day here, my family did not do anything yesterday, besides go to visit him at the cemetery. However, today we are going to go to my dad's apartment, where his wife had arranged for the priest who did his funeral to come over and hold a special mass in honor of dad inside the actual apartment. In that apartment was where my dad was when he suffered from his stroke, so my dad's wife just wants the place to be blessed in his memory. I believe that while we are there today, my siblings and I will get the opportunity to get some things of my dad's for us to keep. I've never been to their apartment before, especially because they had just recently moved there. I'm kind of anxious and nervous about the whole thing because I'm sure that seeing everything of his will only make me more sad and bring back memories of him that will remind me how much I miss him. After that, though, my dad's old co-workers from Torrance Memorial Medical Center are having a very similar mass and celebration in my dad's memory at someone's home that we will also be attending.

I'm really anxious right now, and just really sad. It seems that just about every day here are points where my emotions really overwhelm me and I need to have a couple minutes to cry. I miss my dad so much. Literally everything reminds me of him. I try not to show it to my family, and no one other than Michael really knows how I've been feeling, but I've just been really sad. I keep thinking of the things I should have told my dad before he passed away. It's not like we were on bad terms. In fact, right before he died, things were really great, especially because I know excited he was about Abigail being born. But still, I wish I could have really let him know how much I love him. How important he is to me. And how thankful I am to him for every thing he's taught me and done for me. Although we had some difficulties in our relationship, he had really worked hard to mend things between us and things had gotten so much better. I should have told him so many things, but I just didn't get a chance because I assumed that maybe he'd already know how I felt, or maybe I had time to tell him later on down the road. But now he's gone and I won't be able to tell him those things. It's depressing to have regrets once someone is gone. I had heard all those cliches about how you need to live your life to the fullest...or to live each day as if it was your last....and how you shouldn't miss an opportunity to tell someone that you love them. I wish I would've listened and done those things. I really hope that I learn from that now, and start living my life more in that way.

Ugh. I still feel really crappy and sad. 40 days or not, I miss my dad and while "40 days" should mark the end of mourning and grieving, I doubt that will be true for me.  Not by a long shot.

My dad & me in the Philippines when I was about 6 months old

Last family picture we took all together from Christmas 2010

My dad meeting my baby for the first time