For most moms what our household went through this past weekend would have been enough to make them spiral into a state of despair… but for me, I was able to remain calm and know that our body was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing and I could even pinpoint the exact cause of it all…
So let me explain…
On Friday morning I woke up at 6am with the plans to get a 30 minute workout in (finally getting back to that after having Maggie… 😊) but my stomach just didn’t feel quite right. I went to the restroom and then decided to crawl back into bed and not push myself. Well, that whole morning my stomach was bothering me quite a bit, I was very tired and thankfully Kyle had the day off as we were planning on having a family day…
So, he took care of all the things that morning, besides feeding Maggie and I said I would rest and after lunch I would hopefully be up for doing something fun together for family day…
Well, when he went to get Jane from Quite Time, she had vomited all over everything... so there went our ideas of having a family day. Thankfully she was in her usual chipper Jane mood but due to this, she rested on the couch with me the rest of the day, which I was not upset about as I was still not quite back up to speed myself.
On Saturday morning, Jane and I felt back to our usual self as we had remained calm, gave our body the rest that it needed and made sure to hydrate and eat simple foods. We had a few things planned for that morning so we went out and about and did that and when we got home, Kyle mentioned that his stomach was starting to hurt.
I told him to rest during quite time and after that we would see what we would get into that afternoon. Well, he ended up laying in bed the rest of the day and vomited a couple of times. He was still very sluggish all day on Sunday but with some gentle encouragement from me, he got up and moving and was back to his normal self by Monday morning.
So, as you can see, kind of a wild weekend for us… nothing went the way that we had expected it to and most of you are thinking that we must have had a virus run its course through the family. Well, what if I told that you it was not a virus but it was due to a very specific event, well 2 actually, that happened on Tuesday.
For Jane, the cause of her vomiting was actually very different than what resulted in Kyle and I having our stomach issues. See, on Tuesday, we had our first day at a homeschool co-op and for just a few seconds, Jane didn’t know where I was and was very distraught about that. It didn’t help that it was at the end of our day and she was very tired already. I have talked before about this happening to Jane previously when she ‘lost’ us for a split-second leading to her vomiting a couple days later. This is a track that she is running that resulted in her vomiting. (This would be a similar situation to someone getting seasonal allergies due to a certain feeling…)
As for Kyle and I, on Tuesday afternoon when we got home after homeschool co-op I heard water spraying in the basement, you know that sound that you know you shouldn’t hear… well, water was shooting all over in the backroom as a pipe burst from the water heater and water was running into our recently finished basement (thankfully not the office). I called Kyle immediately and told him to come home and we then spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning it up, ripping up some carpet and setting up fans and dehumidifiers. Thankfully no extensive damage occurred and we don’t think that it was occurring for too long before I got home!
So how does this relate to the vomiting? Well, you see the 3 of us all went through an emotionally distressing event on the same day and then we all went into healing around the same time leading to all of our symptoms occurring in the same weekend. It was not due to a virus, because if it had been, why didn’t Anna get sick? Why didn’t Maggie show any symptoms when I was feeding her though it all?
Well, when we experience an emotionally distressing event, our body changes to be in a more sympathetic (fight or flight) state, but once we know that everything is going to be okay (Jane knowing that I didn’t leave her, Kyle and I knowing that the basement would be okay) it switches into healing mode and becomes parasympathetic dominant. This resulted in us being more tired and for digestive processes to change.
Thankfully I am aware of how the body works when in stressful events and was able to stay calm and remain peaceful. If this is something that you would like to learn more about and learn how you can become more calm even when situations like I just described occur, please reach out as I have an exciting opportunity to work for a few moms 1-1 to guide them out of their overwhelm and bring peace to their life!