When the Emergency Ends and the Grief Begins
There is a strange thing that happens when you have spent months, or years, running on adrenaline for a child. You hit the goal you were chasing, and instead of relief, everything you pushed aside comes rushing back. That is where I found myself this spring, and I want to share it honestly with the readers of Profoundly Seth.
Since the start of the year I believed I was healing. We had a surgery date on the calendar and we met every milestone along the way. Eli's birthday arrived and I moved through it without falling apart. Seth's surgery came and went, messy and hard, but he came through it and is doing well. Activation is Monday, and we shift from the urgent push of making implants happen into the long, steady work of therapy and mapping appointments.
Every goal was met. Seth is days away from hearing. I should have been overjoyed. Instead I found myself more depressed than I have been since Eli died.
Running on Autopilot
Looking back, I can see how much I refused to feel. Seth survived being born, unlike Eli, but he was critically ill. He had persistent pulmonary hypertension and could not breathe on his own, and his metabolic numbers were so far off that the doctors feared his liver had stopped working. I never let myself sit with how sick he truly was.
Then he improved, and we learned he was deaf. I spun that into something to chase, too. If the standard was hearing aids by two months, I wanted them at one. If therapy usually began at six months, I pushed for three. He was aided at six weeks, started therapy at three months, received implants at eight months, and was later diagnosed with hypotonia, which meant more therapy. I never paused to process any of it. I simply did what needed doing, sometimes pushing hard against the system to get him what he needed.
What Surfaces When You Finally Breathe
Now that we are leaving the surgery stage behind, I can finally take a breath, and I am falling apart. My marriage, my home, and my sense of self are strained because I have been eating, sleeping, and breathing Seth's care. I miss Eli, and without the emergency mode to distract me, his loss is hitting me harder than ever.
My husband and I are speaking two different languages in our grief. Money is tight, he works long hours, and I am home with the kids all day. We take it out on each other. I remember who he was before Eli died, and I grieve that version of him too. My faith, staying busy, and Ava and Jace carried me through the darkest months, but I still carry guilt I cannot shake. I love God and I have tried to honor Him in all of this, yet I find myself asking why losing a baby and raising a child with high needs is not enough, and why my marriage and our finances have to be tested at the same time.
I know how blessed I am, even when it is hard to feel it. I am sharing this because I want readers to know that faith does not make anyone perfect, and that I still question and wrestle with God. I am under real attack right now, and I would be grateful for your prayers.
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