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Today I'm having a bad day and I need to get it out.

Tomorrow we leave for vacation and I should be ecstatic that all I have to do today is finish up the fun work I do at my wonderful new job and then I can spend a whole week with my family and my wonderful baby.

But instead I feel extremely upset. I feel very sad. I feel totally inadequate. I know that I'm hyperfocusing on an event that I shouldn't even be that worried about. I know that when I do that, it's a big fat red flag that I need to stop focusing on it and use by CBT skills to stop it in it's tracks or go for a walk or write it down or do something else so that I can move past it. And I'm doing that, but I still need to share it.

Last night, Amelia was the happiest baby on earth. I mean the HAPPIEST baby ever. She laughed without us doing anything. She just looked at our faces and smiled huge smiles and laughed. It was amazing and wonderful. She went to bed by falling asleep in the car seat last night and then Aaron put her in her crib. She ate a fair amount as usual before this and didn't eat great throughout the day for Aaron, but we figured she was just no longer growth spurting or something.

I went to bed around 9:30 for my early 5:30am wakeup call. I have a lot of stuff at work and a lot on my mind, not least of which is my personal issues, specifically my frustration with still being on my sleep meds. I was a little concerned last night that I'd have trouble sleeping because I'd drunk a lot of caffeine that morning and I didn't know if it would interrupt my sleep. But, I was good. So I went to sleep with a little worry, but kept it under control and fell asleep in about 10 minutes! Hooray! Success!

But, it was fitfull and the next thing I knew Aaron was getting into bed and not just getting into bed, kicking my legs over back to my side of the bed. It woke me up. "what are you doing? Stop that. I'm trying to sleep," I said loudly (I wear earplugs to bed). "you're on my side of the bed," he said. I don't remember what I said but I was trying to get him to leave me alone and let me sleep, as always stressing the fragility of my ability to sleep (or my perceived ability to sleep).

"Stop yelling. You woke Amelia up with your yelling!" he exclaimed to me. I just rolled over and went to sleep. I didn't feel like dealing with it. And I got up a little later to use the bathroom and easily went back to bed.

Today he told me that Amelia had woken up around 10 when he went in to put on her sleep sack and was inconsolable. I guess it took him an hour and a half to get her back to bed. Except he was so tired he just set her in her crib and went to bed and she was still fussing. Later, she was quiet and then my talking disturbed her. So it was all fine and good and worked out. I guess she wouldn't take a bottle.

But this makes me feel terribly inadequate for the following reason: because I am so concerned about my sleep, I couldn't even be there for my baby. If Aaron had woken me up, I would have been so upset and worried that I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. I was so concerned about my ability to sleep and the possibility that I might have trouble that I actually forced myself not to be anxious about her being awake and rolled over and went to sleep (I knew Aaron would take care of it, but still). Aaron couldn't even wake me up or rely on me to breastfeed her because of my sleep issues.

And lets not forget the fact that I won't do anything in the evenings with my friends past a certain time so that I don't mess up my sleep schedule and my sleep hygiene. Let's not forget that I cut off all social ties if they interfere with sleep. Granted, I make a bigger effort to see my friends during the day, but my sleep is such a focus right now, that I cannot move on.

The good news is that I am only taking 1.5 mg of Klonopin for the last week and haven't needed so much as an extra mg. I am so ready to go down to 1 mg and continue the taper, but I won't meet with the psychiatrist until next week. I have half a mind to do it anyway, but I won't unless he says I can. I have a vacation coming up tomorrow and a few weeks later, we are moving, but I don't want to wait that long, but I fear I might have to. I'm ready NOW to go down to just the 1 so I can go down to half and then, hopefully nothing. But alas, I'm stuck. And I wish beyond everything that I could be better so I could be there for my baby when she is up in the middle of the night and needs me. I feel so terrible I wasn't there for her and can't be there for her. My sleep is before everything... And I know it's okay because I need to take care of myself before I can take care of anyone else, including doing good work (which I'm having trouble doing because I'm so damn fixated on this), but I still feel terribly guilty and unable to be there for my family.