Pain Everywhere.

Almost 36 weeks pregnant. The physical and emotional discomfort is the most severe in this phase. My right shoulder, arm, waist, thighs, calves, and feet all hurt, mostly from carrying too much weight. Emotionally I’m depressed; I’m lonely, angry, extremely anxious, and guilty.

I feel that I’m not competent enough as a mom. My physical discomfort is preventing me from engaging with my older son 100%. My emotional discomfort makes me worry that bad hormones would affect my little son’s growth. I’m doing a terrible job taking care both of them. On top of that, I have to take care of all the errands in the house, including driving, arranging logistics, coordinating among people, cleaning etc because my husband can not speak the language here. He’s getting a colonoscopy tomorrow morning and I have to be there with him. That leaves me less than 6 hours of sleep, again.

I want to feel good, feel positive and happy for my kids’ sake. But I have no one to talk to. Angel basically shuts me out no matter what feeling language I give him because he thinks whatever he says triggers me. So X, I’d like to talk to you.

Can you feel my pain? Can you understand my emotional and physical discomfort? I’m still very traumatized by the postpartum hemorrhage I had in my last c-section, and I’m so afraid of having the surgery again. I’m so afraid of hospitalization and rehabilitation because I’d have to be away from my son for almost a month. How is he going to deal with this emotionally? I’m so afraid that he’d be scared and angry and eventually hate me and his little brother. I’m so afraid of the pain. Can other people do a good job keeping him safe while I’m away? How can I ever not worry about my kids? I’m so lonely. All the anxiety is driving me crazy and yet nobody has reached out to me. Dear X, can you hold me? Can you take care of me? Can you drive me to the hospital instead of me driving you and my son while being so pregnant? Can you learn the local language and cultural nuances here so that our life can be easier? So that I don’t have to translate for you anymore? So that you can use all the appliances at home?

A letter to you two.

Dear O and N,

Thank you for being so brave and strong. You two are mommy’s precious babies. I thank the universe for you guys every single day and you guys make everything worthwhile. Mommy is willing to suffer from anything in the world to give you the best life, safety, and health.

I am very sorry that mommy and daddy‘s arguments these days have caused you stress and discomfort. I blame myself every day for not being able to suffer more and suck it up more. After all, before I married your dad, I had always known he had very limited life skills and poor health. I had a lot of hesitation but I still agreed to his proposal right away because he was a kind man. I didn’t and still don’t think that there would be a better man for me. Before your father came along, I had pretty much given up on love. When you guys get older, I can show you my diary that I kept before your father showed up. There, you can see that no other man wanted to be with me for more than a month. Your father was the only one who wanted to commit to me.

After your father became a father, the difficulty caused by his lack of life skills and poor health has exacerbated. He cannot read anything here nor communicate with anyone here, which means I have to do all the talking and reading that are necessary for our daily functioning. For example, after having lived in this country for five years, he is still unable to use the remote control to adjust the AC or to talk to a customer service representative without my help. He is not able to take you guys to a doctor because he cannot speak the language. He cannot buy any household supplies because he cannot read the language for online shopping and he cannot drive a car to pick up these supplies from a supermarket. He cannot fix most things in our apartment because he cannot use a screwdriver. He cannot communicate with our landlord because he cannot speak the language. We wouldn’t have been able to find this apartment without my work because all the best deals can only be found on local websites in our local language. 

Now that mommy has finally bought a nice car for our family, I know Little O doesn’t like it when mommy drives because in Peppa Pig the daddy can drive and in every kid’s video it’s always the father that drives. Also to purchase and to maintain a car, it takes a lot of time and errand running. Obviously mommy is the one doing these things. This takes me away from you guys a lot, and I know Little O already resents it. What can mommy do instead? Having a car will give you guys more safety on the road and we can have a lot more fun experience traveling around the island. With our own car, you guys can push the buttons, stand on the leather seats, puke in the car or eat in the car without getting trouble; if we always hired a car, we would have a lot more bad experience because the driver/car owner would ask for compensation and get upset at us. It would also be impossible to have road trips and travel farther away. Having our own car lets us create our own happy memories and gives us privacy and intimacy for each travel.

You might think that mommy is having fun running all these errands and spending time away from you while your dad plays with you. It’s quite the opposite. Mommy has to do all the things your father cannot do and on top of that mommy has the same full-time job as daddy. I can only trade for more time by asking your daddy to play with you while I run the errands for our home. I wish I could be a superwoman so that my full-time job and all the errands running could take a lot less time so that I can be with you guys all the time. Mommy feels very sad that daddy is the one who plays with you while I’m the one who’s doing all the masculine work. Mommy cannot quit my job because we don’t have enough money; for example we wouldn’t be able to buy our current car if mommy didn’t save up from my current job. Your father puts all his money in investments and refuses to liquidate them in order to avoid tax. As a result, he is very short on cash, and I don’t approve of it. There’s nothing I can do either because he never listens to me. Even though he says he has money, when it comes to buying a car or buying a house, he actually does not have the cash for it.

Little O and Little N, this might be difficult for you to understand but I hope by the time you see this letter, you can understand me better and blame me less. I love you more than anything in the world, and I would sacrifice my everything for you two.

Mommy July 11, 2020