It is July 9th, and I feel like my brain has too many tabs open.
That is the only way I can describe it.
There is no single crisis. No one dramatic thing. No clean beginning, middle, and end.
Just a series of moments stacking on top of each other until suddenly I am standing in my own kitchen wondering why I feel so irritated, so raw, so overstimulated, so entirely unlike myself.
My husband’s family was here for Fourth of July weekend.
And I want to be careful how I say this, because I do not think anyone came here with bad intentions.
I really don’t.
But sometimes something does not have to be malicious to still hurt.
The entire time my mother-in-law was here, I felt like she was taking inventory.
Not in an obvious way.
Not in a rude way.
Just quietly noticing things.
The toys I saved up for.
The things my mother bought.
The items this community has purchased for my daughter.
The little pieces of our home that took thought, time, research, budgeting, and in some cases, the generosity of strangers who have shown up for us in ways I still cannot fully wrap my head around.
And then she would ask me to send her the links.
Not to buy them for my daughter.
To buy them for her other granddaughter.
The one who lives closer.
The one she watches two days a week.
She would say how helpful those toys would be when she was taking care of her.
And I just sat there, smiling, swallowing whatever came up in my throat, because what am I supposed to say?
No?
Do your own research?
Maybe buy something for this granddaughter too?
Obviously, I said none of that.
Because that is not who I am in the moment.
In the moment, I am polite.
In the moment, I send the link.
In the moment, I convince myself I am being ridiculous.
But later, it sits with me.
It bothers me more than I want it to.
And then I feel guilty for being bothered.
Because yes, children can have the same toys. Of course they can. Cousins can share interests. Grandparents can buy whatever they want for whomever they want.
That is not really the point.
The point is that so much of what my daughter has, I have had to save for. Or work for. Or sell something for. Or wait for. Or be deeply grateful that someone in this community was kind enough to help us with.
So when someone comes into our home, sees what my daughter has, asks for the link, and then uses that thoughtfulness for another child while rarely doing the same for mine, it hits a nerve I wish it didn’t.
It makes me feel like my daughter is a reference point.
Not the priority.
And I know that sounds harsh.
Maybe it is harsh.
But that is how it feels.
This has been a theme I have been trying very hard not to obsess over.
My husband worries about that.
He worries about scorekeeping.
He has seen it ruin family relationships. He has seen people remember who called, who didn’t call, who visited, who didn’t visit, who bought the gift, who forgot the birthday, and suddenly the relationship becomes a ledger instead of a relationship.
And I understand that.
I really do.
I don’t want to be the woman keeping score.
I don’t want resentment to become a hobby.
I don’t want my daughter to grow up around bitterness that I could have chosen not to feed.
But I also don’t know how to pretend I don’t notice patterns.
That is where I get stuck.
Because I don’t feel like I am keeping score.
I feel like I am noticing.
And maybe that is the same thing.
Maybe it isn’t.
I genuinely do not know anymore.
What I do know is that when you are raising a child largely alone, when you do not have a village, when your husband is in neurosurgery residency and has spent most of your daughter’s life either at the hospital or away for rotations, you notice who shows up.
You notice who asks how you are.
You notice who asks how your child is.
You notice who calls.
You notice who FaceTimes.
You notice who sends things.
You notice who doesn’t.
Not because you are trying to punish anyone.
But because you are tired.
Because you are stretched thin.
Because you would give anything for someone to look at your life and say, “You could use a little help.”
Instead, I feel like I am constantly watching help flow naturally toward everyone else.
And I am happy for them.
That is the annoying part.
I actually am.
I love my sister-in-law. I love that she has support. I love that she has family nearby. I love that if she needs help, someone is there. Truly.
But I also look at her reality and then look at mine and think, wow.
If she needs to go somewhere, there are people.
If she needs childcare, there are people.
If she needs to run an errand, attend an appointment, breathe for five minutes, there are people.
If I need to go to a doctor’s appointment, I have to turn it into a full logistical operation.
And then somehow, on top of that, I am expected to be gracious. Unbothered. Mature. Above it all.
I am trying.
But I am human.
The IVF questions over the weekend didn’t help.
My mother-in-law kept asking when we were starting. What was happening. Where things stood.
And I gave vague answers.
Not because I am trying to be secretive for fun.
But because I do not want to provide intimate updates to people who do not really check in.
That might sound cruel, but it is honest.
I have reached a point where I do not want to offer access to the most fragile parts of my life if there is no consistent care around them.
If you are not really asking how I am doing, if you are not really present, if you are not really checking in beyond occasional curiosity, then I do not know that I want to hand over the details of my uterus, my cycle, my medication, my fear, my hope.
Those details are not small to me.
They are not conversation fillers.
They are my body.
My heartbreak.
My marriage.
My future.
And right now, all of that feels messy enough without narrating it for someone who may or may not remember to ask again.
Then there is the other huge thing.
My husband is home.
Finally.
After six months of him being away for a rotation at another hospital, after one car being split between two places, after me walking to grocery stores and veterinary appointments and doing everything alone because that was the only way to make it work, he is home for research year.
This is what I wanted.
I have been waiting for this.
Our daughter gets her father for an entire year.
I get my husband for an entire year.
At least, in theory.
And I am happy.
I am.
But I am also realizing that when someone has been gone for so long, their return is not as simple as opening the door and everything magically feeling whole again.
He is coming back into a home that I have been running.
A rhythm I have created.
A system I have built out of necessity.
I know where everything goes.
I know what time the dogs need to go out.
I know how to walk them safely.
I know which streets to avoid.
I know how to read their bodies before they react.
I know my daughter’s cues.
I know when the house is too quiet.
I know when everyone needs stimulation and when everyone needs calm.
That has been my job.
Not because anyone handed it to me formally.
But because someone had to do it.
And now he is home, which is wonderful, but also disruptive in ways I feel guilty admitting.
On his first day back, we went on our usual morning walk with the dogs and our daughter.
At first, it felt great.
A family walk.
The kind of normal I have wanted for so long.
But very quickly, I remembered something I already knew.
He does not handle the dogs the way I do.
I do not mean that as an insult. I mean it as a fact.
I am with them every day.
I train them every day.
I talk to them constantly.
I am always aware of my surroundings.
I know when another dog is coming before they do.
I know which leash grip gives me the most control.
I know when to redirect, when to tighten, when to soften, when to praise, when to move.
Walks are not just walks for us.
They are structure.
They are exercise.
They are nervous system regulation.
They are training.
Especially because one of our dogs was attacked while I was pregnant, and that trauma is not some distant memory for me. It is tied to one of the worst losses of my life. So when I am walking them, I am not just strolling around. I am managing history.
My husband, on the other hand, walks like a person who has never had to be the one responsible for everything going right.
He holds the leash loosely.
He looks around like the world is not full of variables.
He gets frustrated when the dogs react, but he has not put in the same daily work to understand how to prevent the reaction in the first place.
And then yesterday, things escalated.
The dogs saw another dog they do not like.
They started barking.
He got overwhelmed.
And he smacked one of them to get her to snap out of it.
I was appalled.
The woman with the other dog saw it.
I saw it.
And I immediately told him that could never happen again.
Never.
He said he was trying to break her focus.
I understand that he was frustrated.
I understand that he was embarrassed.
I understand that sometimes dogs can be a lot, especially two big dogs who have not been able to walk normally because of the heat wave.
But that is not how we handle them.
That is not how I handle them.
And it made me question things I did not want to question.
Not because I think he is a bad person.
He is not.
But because I know what can happen when someone is frustrated and overwhelmed and not in control of the situation.
I felt protective.
Of the dog.
Of the work I have put in.
Of the routine.
Of the home I have kept together while he has been away.
And maybe that is another layer of this.
I do not have the career he has right now.
I do not have the external identity he has right now.
I run the home.
That is the thing I control.
That is the thing I have built.
So when he comes in and criticizes the dogs or acts like they are untrained, I take it personally.
Probably too personally.
But I take it personally because I know how much of myself I pour into this.
The dogs.
Our daughter.
The apartment.
The cleaning.
The meals.
The routines.
The emotional atmosphere.
All of it.
This is my work.
Invisible, unpaid, and constant.
So when it gets dismissed, I feel dismissed.
And honestly, there is another piece that has been bothering me too.
When his family was here, my husband made me the butt of a joke.
Again.
It was one of those stupid jokes that probably seemed harmless to him, but landed so badly for me.
He made some comment implying that I do not brush my teeth, which is so ridiculous and embarrassing that I hate even writing it.
The context is that one night I was exhausted and said I was too tired to do my whole nighttime routine.
I wear aligners, so brushing my teeth at night is not just brushing my teeth. It is brushing, flossing, cleaning everything, dealing with the aligners, putting them in, and honestly, sometimes I hate the process.
But I still do it.
Because the idea of going to bed without brushing my teeth is horrifying to me.
Yet somehow, that became a joke in front of his mother.
And she looked at me like, what?
And I just sat there thinking, why?
Why does the joke have to be me?
Why can’t a joke just be a joke without making me feel small?
I know I may be overly sensitive right now.
I can admit that.
But I also know this is not new.
Before he stopped drinking, there were plenty of moments where I felt like I became the easy target. The person the joke landed on. The one expected to laugh it off. The one who had to manage the awkwardness afterward.
Even during my pregnancy, when I was mostly alone here and he would decompress at the bar after work, there were nights that felt incredibly painful. I still had a beautiful pregnancy in many ways, but when he was around, it was not always the safest emotional place for me.
That is hard to admit.
And I do not say it to punish him.
I say it because it is part of the truth.
So yes, I was excited for research year.
But I was also scared of it.
Scared of what happens when someone who has been absent because of work is suddenly present again.
Scared of how we will renegotiate our roles.
Scared of whether he will respect the home I have built, or unintentionally bulldoze through it because he finally has time to be here.
Scared of whether I know how to share the space I have been forced to manage alone.
And then, because apparently this week did not already have enough emotional material, my body is doing whatever it is doing.
After taking estradiol on my own, which I will never do again, my body tried to ovulate multiple times.
Four times, I think.
And on the fourth attempt, I believe it finally happened.
Now I am waiting to see if my period comes.
Part of me thinks my body is simply resetting after I confused it.
Part of me wonders, stupidly, hopefully, dangerously, if maybe the estradiol helped something.
Maybe it gave my lining a boost.
Maybe we somehow got lucky.
Maybe I am pregnant.
I hate even typing that because I do not want to give the thought too much oxygen.
I have been disappointed enough times to know better.
But the thought is there.
Quiet.
Annoying.
Persistent.
And that is where I am.
A husband home, but an entire marriage recalibrating.
A mother-in-law asking for links to buy things for another granddaughter while mine feels like an afterthought.
A body that may or may not be doing what it is supposed to do.
A home that is no longer entirely mine to run alone, but also not yet ours in a way that feels settled.
A brain that feels like it has no space left.
I am grateful.
I am irritated.
I am hopeful.
I am embarrassed.
I am angry.
I am tired.
All of it is true.
And maybe that is the hardest part.
There is no clean emotion to land on.
There is no single narrative.
Just life, happening all at once.
Before I end this, I want to thank everyone who continues to read these pieces and support us in whatever way you can.
Every message, every comment, every registry purchase, every Venmo, every box of diapers matters more than I can explain.
Especially in weeks like this, when I feel like I am holding so many things together with thread.
Your support has made parts of this season feel less impossible.
It has helped me feel less alone in a life that can be unbelievably isolating.
And if you have ever helped us with diapers, wipes, or anything for our daughter, please know that it is not small to me.
It is relief.
It is oxygen.
It is one less thing sitting on my chest at night.
I am trying to figure out how to be honest without becoming bitter.
How to be grateful without pretending I am not hurt.
How to let my husband come home without resenting the fact that I had to become so capable without him.
How to move forward with fertility without losing myself in the process.
How to keep building a life that feels safe for my daughter, even when I feel like a complete mess inside.
And today, that is where I am.
A complete mess.
But still trying.
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ABOUT ME:
Hi, I’m Fiona — a writer in the midst of an unexpected chapter.
In April 2024, I lost my job. Since then, my husband and I have been getting by on his modest income as a medical resident. After stepping away from IVF, we were shocked — and overjoyed — to find out we were pregnant naturally. While it was the happiest surprise, it also brought new financial stress as we prepared for our growing family.
Then, our baby arrived early — on April 29th, 2025, instead of the expected due date in late May. With no paid maternity leave and no room in our budget for childcare, I’ve returned to part-time jobs and writing just a week after giving birth to help cover essentials like groceries, bills, and a few things for our 🌈 miracle baby.
If you’d like to support my writing — and by extension, our little family — your kindness would mean the world. Every bit helps: $1, $2, whatever you can give.
🍼 Baby Registry — Or if you’d prefer to help more directly, we’re also gratefully accepting support through our baby registry — every burp cloth, diaper and/or bottle goes a long way.
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Read also: Two Days After Bringing Our Baby Home, I Asked for a Divorce
Read also: Our Marriage Ended Before It Began: The Pregnancy That Shattered Everything
Read also: I’m Pregnant And Broke — My Cry For Help
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Derek Thomson On Unsplash
