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Part two, the reunion

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taking pictures

I wrote previously about leaving my son to go on a business trip for 8 days. Well, here’s how it went.

We took our boy to our friends house on a Sunday night, the 16th. That was his first night from both of us ever. He seemed fine and even closed the door for us when we left waving goodbye happily. Later that night, we got a call way past his usual bedtime. We were already in bed and this was the last thing I wanted to hear before going to sleep. Absolute shrieks and hysterical screaming for Mommy. Sigh. We talked to him on the phone but it didn’t seem to do much good. He did NOT want to go to sleep there. My friend lovingly cuddled with him on their couch until he passed out. After I got the text saying he was asleep, I could finally drift off to sleep.

On Monday, the 17th, I flew to California and my hubby went off to work. Our plan was for our son to stay at our friends until I got back on the 24th. Even though my husband was here, he was working everyday. We tried to find a nanny or someone to just come to our house so that Daddy could put him to bed every night, but every person we had lined up fell through due to sickness or something else. Obviously, it was not our ideal situation but we did the best we could to prepare what we thought would work best for our little guy. Honestly, I thought he might have a few hard days at our friends house, but then he would relax and adjust. They have 3 girls with one being his age. He’s been to their house a zillion times and feels very comfortable there and loves them dearly.

Day one goes by and later in the day after I get settled in Cali, I hear that my boy has been acting very aggressively. If you know him, you know this is opposite of what he’s normally like. He’s easy going, mellow, and super sweet with very rare outbreaks of aggression. I was shocked. It seemed the only thing to do was give him time outs and just love him through it. I was dying to talk to him but my friend suggested it might not be a great idea.

Day two comes and I hear my son is mopey and depressed. Oh man, this was so hard to hear. First, aggression and now depressed. He’s definitely going through a cycle of adapting to me being gone. He seemed angry and now it was just sad. Later that day, I finally got to talk to him. He sounded happy actually and said he missed me. I really needed to hear him and it really boosted my spirits. For him, it took him back to stage one.

And so the cycle went…aggression, sadness, normal self (talk to Mommy/Daddy), start over at aggression. Mid way through the week, we were cutoff. It sounds silly, but our friends basically said that when we talked to him on the phone, it made things worse. Just when he was starting to adjust emotionally, talking to us would set him back. This was so incredibly hard to hear. Why would talking to me create such things? Well, duh. He missed me and talking to me reminded him of the fact I wasn’t there with him.

I was super busy while I was gone, working long days from 6am to 11pm. I held it together Sunday-Tuesday. When Wednesday came, I thought maybe I wasn’t going to lose it at all. We were doing an outside event that day. I was taking pictures in the full sun and it was 85ish degrees out. I got a little sick and I think it was the heat. When the event was over at 1pm, I was headed back up this hill. As I was walking, I just began to sob. I got to the top of the hill and practically jumped into a friends arms. He held me while I sobbed for 5 minutes. After that, I felt a whole lot better. I think I had been trying to keep it all in and pretend like I was handling it all just fine. But I wasn’t fine.

Thursday came and I again didn’t get to talk to my munchkin. This was getting harder. I understood why they thought it was best for him, it was just not best for me! Well, Thursday is a big day at the event I was working at. It’s a power-packed emotionally charged day of awesome events and powerful speakers. I was in the middle of a bunch of work and I started getting very intense and painful sharp cramps. I wasn’t due for my period for another week or so and it never comes early.

About 2 hours later (I’ll say it this way to spare you the icky details), I realized I was having a miscarriage. It was a super early one. And after talking with my doctor, she said that it’s not usually recognized as a miscarriage in such an early week. Regardless, it was painful, gross, and took my emotions to an all time high of missing my son, whom I wasn’t allowed to talk to. Ugghhh. And I couldn’t call my husband because he was at work and super busy. I called a close friend and she helped me work through it. Thank God for her!

I was so engrossed in work, I didn’t have much time to deal with it all. Friday morning I woke up and just felt a hole in my heart. I felt a loss, I felt lonely, and I have been so aching for another baby, I just couldn’t face the thought that I just lost one. I needed to hold my baby. My husband was flying in that night at 10pm. At least I would have him to hold me.

Later in the morning, my friend called me and shared how my boy was doing. It was not good. He was really struggling. I got off the phone and immediately started looking up flights. It was over $700 to buy a ticket for that night. Sheesh.

Over 4 hours later, I had a ticket booked for my son to fly down with Daddy. The quest to get him down there consumed me until I found a way. (Thank you Alaska airlines mileage program and great customer service!!)

I cried throughout the day just thinking of how good it would feel to have my sons head buried in my hair, my arms wrapped around him, and to feel the soft skin of his face!

Later that night, I went to pick up my boys from the airport. I was happy to see my husband, but when I locked eyes with my baby, all was right with the world again. He screamed MOMMY! and jumped into my arms. I’ve never felt something so good ever! I had forgotten his smell even.

It was truly the best reunion ever. I know this was hard because it was our first time apart. He’s my first kid, this was my first trip alone, it was his first time by himself without us. Mostly it went good, but it could have gone better.

I know people leave their kids all the time. I probably sound like a baby with all this whining about how hard it was. It was just that it was a last minute trip and we weren’t prepared. If we had family that lived close, we could let him stay for a night with grandparents here and there, but we don’t have that.

I think I grew in my trust. I had to surrender everything to God and trust he would be ok, that I would be ok. And we all were. A huge thank you to our friends, the Gilberts, for loving on our little one and taking him him as their own.

Good and bad, it was a week I’ll never forget.


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