Blooming Conifers

I keep seeing it in my brain, over and over.

He recovered quickly, we got home the same night. While there's follow ups to do, he's back to his normal spunky teething giggly self.

If tomorrow I'm mending the empty bones

There are roses that come without seeking

There are the ones I have to sow

Endless loop of baby crying, nursing to sleep, transfer to bassinet, transfer failed, baby crying, nursing to sleep, failed transfer, baby crying..

While drunk neighbor blasts shitty music with bass turned up so my house shakes (I live in the country and have only two neighbors).

While I can hear every single FUCKING potato chip my husband chomps down stairs

While the white noise machine that baby can't sleep without is blaring.

While the room is 10 degrees warmer than is comfortable for me.

While my greasy hair is itchy and begging to be washed.

...all while baby is still suckling, clawing, and kicking because he's overtired. Nursing is the only way he falls asleep.

Oh, lastly, I haven't gotten more than 90 minutes of sleep in a row in 3 days. That's the long stretch. Most are 45-60 minutes.

How am I supposed to give a single shit about spreadsheets and ERPs and FSMA and Infolog and Q2 growth when the other half of my dyad is away from me? Even on work from home days, how am I to stomach hearing my husband fumble the baby who is crying for his mom, all so I can listen to some prick talk about UAT results and his protein shake?

How am I expected to share one shred of my attention with corporate America while the whole world is literally in my lap.

How the fuck am I supposed to attach myself to a machine that extracts my baby's only food from my swollen body, like feeding some cold middle-man robot that doesn't just take milk but steals the warmth, love, comfort, and closeness my baby needs from me?

The company I work for has one of the most generous maternal leave policies in the state, and it's still.. laughable. The way this country treats mothers is fucked.