Day 73 -- 3 March 2009

Today has been an exceptionally bad day. I have been in a funk all day long and no matter what I do I just can't seem to shake it. I feel like no one ever listens to what I want but instead just tells me what they think I should do. I quit teaching to be a stay-at-home mom and as far as I am concerned I now have the best job in the world. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching and fully intend to go back to the classroom some day. Right now I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be though: at home with my little miracle man. About four months after Mason came home from the NICU Shane started looking for work-from-home opportunities for me. After careful research and much discussion we decided I would take an online course to become a medical transcriptionist. It took me 15 months to complete the course and I came close to quitting several times due to turnover. I had five different instructors within a 10-month timeframe which is pretty sad. Each time I would get frustrated and tell Shane that I wasn't sure I wanted to continue he would say it was my choice and that he would support me. He would also say that he thought I should finish since I had come so far and that if I did so I wouldn't have to work afterwards if I chose not to. I know a big reason that Shane encouraged me to continue is because he has been afraid that I will be unhappy just being a stay-at-home mom. It also probably has something to do with the fact that I am always saying that I feel like I am not contributing to our household because I don't bring in a paycheck. I have put pressure on myself to finish too because of my own expections for myself and because of all the effort that I have put into it. The majority of my family members and friends also encouraged me to finish because I had spent so much time and energy working on the course. The problem is it isn't really something I want to do anymore.

After I became pregnant I knew without a doubt that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. It took us 7 long years to get pregnant and I didn't want to miss a single moment of Maddie and Mason's life. After we lost Maddie I was even more determined to experience as much of Mason's childhood as I possibly could. I feel like I have been unable to really focus on Mason for the past year though because the majority of my time and energy has gone to my medical transcription course. I have been unsuccessful in finding a job so far but to be honest I haven't really tried very hard. Now I have to complete a prep course for the registered medical transcriptionist exam. I don't really want to take the test but again everyone keeps telling me that I should take the test. When did it get to be about what everyone else thinks or wants me to do? When do I get to do what I want to do? All I want to do is be the best wife and mother that I can be. What is so wrong with that? Why does everyone seem to think a woman is incomplete if she does not have a career outside of the home? I have been unhappy for quite some time now and every time I try to find the right path for me so that I can be happy I get sidetracked by others ideas of what should make me happy. I am tired of being unhappy and of having my needs and wants ignored or pused aside. I am tired of living my life for everyone else.

I want to be able to watch Mason grow and focus my energies on being a great mom and not just a mediocre one. I want to have another child and do the same for him/her. I don't want to wake up ten years from now and realize that I missed out on my son's childhood simply because I was doing what was expected of me. Afterall, children are only small once and you can't turn back the clock and recapture what you lost.

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Ok, if you are still reading this I am impressed. I needed to vent earlier and I figured the best way to do so was to just blog. I am feeling much better tonight even though I am still unsure of how to proceed. I am going to go ahead and take the RMT exam because it has already been paid for but I am still not sure if I am actively going to seek employment. If I do decide at a later date to find a job at least I will have the certification test behind me and it will certainly look good on an application. For the time being I am going to continue to concentrate on my family and my health because they are the most important things. I still haven't begun the South Beach Diet because I just didn't feel like going grocery shopping today. I ate fairly well today though considering I actually ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. Most days I forget to eat breakfast or lunch so that is a step in the right direction! I also got on the treadmill for an hour again tonight and burnt 188 calories. I was going to try to follow the schedule that I outlined about a month ago but plans have changed. I talked to Shane tonight and he said he wants to wait until next month to start P90X so we are in a little better shape which I agree with completely. P90X is a very intense program and it would be extremely unwise for us to start right now. I figured it would be best for me to just walk for an hour each night for the remainder of this month. I am going to continue to walk at 2 mph at zero incline for the rest of this week as well as next week without the heartrate monitor. The remaining two weeks of this month I will start walking with the heartrate monitor and try to bump it up to 2.5 mph. Hopefully by the time we start P90X I will be in a little bit better shape and be able to actually complete the first 30 minutes of each routine. I have to say I am very proud of myself for actually getting on the treadmill again tonight. I didn't really feel like doing so but I will never reach my goals if I continue to make excuses. Let's just hope that I am able to force myself to get back on tomorrow night :O)