Here. I Give To You My Dreams In This Fashionable Medela Shoulder Bag. January 4, 2011

Say it.

Say you are formula feeding your baby.

FOREVER.

For the past 9 months, that has been the hardest thing for me to say.  I’ve actually even cried over my food at the kitchen table about it.  I’m trying to be expressive for a change.

I breastfed so I know it’s inconvient, painful at times, demanding, all consuming, let’s see what else?  So because I know that, it may seem  crazy to be so sad about it to others who are not enjoying their milkier times or didn’t enjoy them when they were the real Dairy Queen.  BUT something about knowing I can’t makes me remember all the sweet and precious moments of being your baby’s only source of nutrition and survival.  It’s like the external version of the umbilical cord and you just love caring for them that way.

However, I am severing my dream of breastfeeding my baby officialy with the  ceremonial selling of my breastpump.  I have picked it up and thought, “Well, you never know….someday….maybe….right?”  For real, I am just now exiting my denial phase. Throughout these past 9 months I have come up with a million different twists of how I can tweak breastfeeding so it works for me but  I know that the only way for me to try breastfeeding again is by taking the chance of not being medicated and going down that dark postpartum road again and if I was in that position again, speaking for that person, I’d tell you it’s not worth it.  Seems like everyone in my life, including my doctor, has told me its not worth it and I guess I’m getting to that point of seeing that clearly myself.

Coming to this realization, I actually feel a little bit of the excitement I felt when the doctor told me to stop when Eden was a few weeks old.  The feeling was something like screaming FREEDOM  butt-naked from the top of cliff in the rainforest while nature beasts gather around me like Snow White beckoning the birds with her vocals.

Breastfeeding is a huge responsibility and now I can have anyone help me at anytime, anywhere, when my baby is any age. I can appreciate that convience.  That’s huge.  Sure, I wish I could give my baby the best nutrition but I can’t give her excellent nutrition and a garabage can mom. 

I will be sad when, Lord willing, we have another baby and I don’t get those first sweet nursing moments and days in the hospital BUT I think I’m becoming okay with being a bottle slinger. 

Mommy is growing up sniff, sniff.  I get big so fast.

Women and Whoopie November 22, 2010

If I had a dollar for every mom that told me that they were now asexual, then I’d have about 15 dollars. That’s a lot of cold hard sexually dysfunctioning cash. Asexuality mainly being the lack of sexual interest or desire in a total sort of way, seems to be the common theme for many moms and married ladies. For the guys, it’s opposite day. As always.

I think women tend to start feeling this way after years of marriage, not only after becoming moms, but since I’m a new mom. Let’s talk about mommy.

Getting back to the marital basics after a baby is a weird thing. For Lance, pregnant marital basics was more difficult. There was something beautiful but not so tantalizing about his daughter being in my stomach. For me, I felt really weird when we tried to be intimate after having her. Seriously, all I could think about was, “I have a daughter in the next room. She would be grossed out. Hey, maybe I’m feeling grossed out! I can’t touch her with the hands of friskies!”  It’s a weird transition.  Actually, it’s a transition I haven’t fully had to make because of being out of commission and all.  If you are a new reader and don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s only about 3 blogs or so away from being brought back up again, I’m sure.  

Anyways.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to several things:

1.  You’re tired.  Unfortunately, when the time comes for marriage practices, you are way too exhausted.

2.  Your hormones may be plunging down low the depths of the estrogen lake of fire.

3.  Watching toys dangle from strings on a Baby Einstein video while your baby cries with teething doesn’t start your engine.

4.  You don’t like your new permanent fanny pack of loose skin and lard around your middle.

5.  You don’t like your new body in general.

I’m dangerously on a roll here…..

6.  As I always I saved the best for last and this is a big one.  We feel so tired and a lot of times feel like we are doing it on our own.  Maybe you have a helpful husband.  Maybe you don’t.  Maybe your husband will do anything you ask him to do, you just wish you weren’t always asking.  Maybe your husband tries sincerely to help but there is still leftovers on the changing table and I don’t mean macaroni.  Then you feel mad and frustrated and say, “I’ll just do it myself!”  and you cry into a spare diaper you find on the floor.  Ahhhhh, hormones and sweet exhaustion….how you know me so well.

That was a make-believe scenario.  Sort of.  I do find poop a lot of places I normally don’t when Lance watches Eden but that’s okay.  I’ve never actually cried in diapers.  Those are much too expensive to simply absorb tears.  BUT still, we all have that feeling from time to time where we just want a break resulting in our husbands not catching any.

What dear sisters and sisters does this have to do with sex?  When you feature ovaries and uterus….EVERYTHING.  When you feature parts that make testosterone?  Probably means nothing.

I think most women lose their sexual drive because the demands of motherhood hit right on our love language which is to be loved.  We don’t feel loved when we feel short-changed because of a late meeting that left us in momma overdrive for 13 hours straight.  When our hardworking hubbies get home, even if their hard work allows mothers like me to stay home which is priceless for me/us, it’s hard to not feel a sense of isolation in your parenting role.  No matter how much you love being a mom, no matter how much you love your child, no matter how much you appreciate their work cause BELIEVE ME, I don’t want the job as bread winner….you can still feel all those things and still feel a little overworked in your own mommy right.  Can I have a lunch break, hallelujah one time!!!!!

When issues like this seep into a marriage, and they do no matter the working arrangements, it’s easy to take on the attitude of  ‘if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody getting any sort of thing in our room that makes you happy’.  But then the problem is for real, ain’t nobody happy.  Except baby.  And maybe the occasional cat.

I have a perfect illustration of how this has proven itself true in my own marriage.  I can see Lance reading this at work, gripping his office chair for impact.    It’s okay brother Lance, ease down, ease down.

It’s actually a reverse example of how this works and it started after the delivery. 

As soon as I popped my baby out, I felt so loved and soooooooo close and emotionally intimate with Lance.  This lead me to wish that we could be close in ways that got me to the delivery room in the first place.  Not in a raunchy sort of way but more like an expression of love and togetherness over what we just shared.   Trust me, that was the last thing I expected to feel. 

Then once we got home, as I started kind of losing my way physically, emotionally, and mentally, he took such perfect care of me that, again, I wished I could’ve shown him love that way.  You wouldn’t think a lady hyped-up on PPD would even have that within a million miles of herself but, I really did.  Almost to the extent that it was like when we first married over 6 years ago.  Little did we know that just 7 months later we would get to finally share in that again.  Nope, just kidding.  Still can’t.

All giggling about my privates aside, my point here is that I wanted to be with Lance in the worst of physical and emotional situations because what was drawing me to him was his love for me.  I think it’s so different for men that it’s really hard for them to understand or rather even believe that- that is how we function.  I really and sincerely become more attracted to Lance when he washes the dishes un-asked or offers to take Eden so I can go in town or when he secretly buys me the picture frame I want at Target for 16.99 for limited time only in aisle B16. 

That kind of stuff gets me going.  Men are so visual that they really have a hard grasping that cooking dinner for the family is like the male equivalent of Victoria Secret.   SO, as life gets more demanding for the both of you, neither of you wanna cook or clean but one of you still wants to contribute to the physical area of the relationship while your wife has decided to become asexual.  And here we find the problem for many women.

The solution is a two-fold fix:  your husband meets your needs, whatever that may be, and you meet his.

This, however, is only a solution to inspire you to desire each other.  You have to still do your part to meet your spouses needs even they aren’t taking as good of care as yours as you’d like.  The only way to get back on track is not to both throw in the towel.  Someone has to be trying.  Better if you both are but when in doubt, try, try again.  When you take on the ‘ain’t nobody happy approach’, then you aren’t working as a unit which is what you are and moreover, that approach is totally selfish and apathetic to actually making changes.

Sisters of the asexual world, I hear you.  The cave women felt this way.  There is nothing new under the sun.  I guarantee that the cave lady would be like, “Where’s my Brontosaurus leg?” And when he said, “I don’t know I was rolling rocks down the hill with the guys”, then she would take two big sticks and make an ‘x’ over her body. 

It’s not always fun and it’s definitely not always desirable or an easy thing to do BUT it’s necessary for a healthy marriage and asexuality doesn’t seem to fit into the picture somehow.

I hope you and your cave man can make cave babies together through the good times, the wanted times, and the unwanted times.  It’s not easy and not something that most of us can snap our fingers back into but somehow there has to be a way even without Brontosaurus bones.  We just have to do our part to be selfless, just like we want our cave kings to be.  

PS- But for real, lasagna will go a long way for you.  Top it off with a freshly, cleaned tub and you are going to straight to Disney World!

The Other Side of Motherhood: An Ex-PostPartum Mom’s Journey from Xanax to Overjoyed November 10, 2010

I was digging through the big tub of clothes that Eden wore her first few months, trying to see if there were any pieces I could give to someone from our church. Somewhere at the bottom, I thumbed through the onesies that Eden wore over and over her first few weeks here. When I first stumbled on them, my face got hot and I felt a sensation similar to suddenly running into someone who you haven’t seen in a while…someone that it’s really awkward to see. Does that make sense? That feeling of being flushed, nervous, and uncomfortable, feeling the emotions that lead the situation to be uncomfortable in the first place….

I remember when I first bought some of those clothes. I was ecstatic for the little white one with red and hot pink strawberries. I had her wear that a lot when people came to see her. I thought when I bought that outfit that my memories of those days with her in it would be incredibly different. Seeing those clothes now triggered almost a flashback response of panic. An overwhelming sense of, in fact, how overwhelmed I was. When I told my sister about the incident, she asked me if I gave those outfits away, almost certain that I would have. I didn’t though. They are literally hard for me to look at but they were some of her first outfits and she was precious in them. Even if I was falling apart and they remind me of that, they remind me of her too and she was and still is a blessing.

I think what is so disorienting about that time is that I don’t know what feelings came from what. I can’t separate what was just normal new mom feelings and what was the postpartum. I guess in talking with other moms who didn’t go down the road I did, I know many things that are standard: anxiety, crying, sleep deprivation, and the sense of living in a fog. I just wonder sometimes when I look back, if I didn’t have PPD would I have felt many of the same things?

I’ll be totally honest with you. With a lot of guilt for a lot of months, I didn’t feel like ‘it was all worth it’. You hear moms all of the time say, “It was hard but I’d do it all over again.” Or some other passionate expression of their over powering love for their children. I loved Eden. I did. But with a lot of shame inside, I felt the truth of it all, at least initially, was that I didn’t feel like those moms. I didn’t feel like ‘I’d do it all over again’ or that ‘it was all worth it’. In those months, it probably made me feel even more depressed to know that I felt that way “but shouldn’t have”. At least according to the book of what a mom is supposed to be like from the get-go.

It was bizarre. I wanted Eden. I wanted to be her mom. I just wanted someone else to care for her and let me have her back when it was time to cuddle. I guess what I was saying is that I wanted to be Eden’s grandmother. I chuckle saying that because I think this is the first time I’m realizing what I was really desiring. I felt that way because I didn’t have the strength to cope with the shock of becoming an instant 24/7 caregiver overnight. I wanted her. I loved her because she was mine but I didn’t feel like I was tough enough to take care of her. Thankfully, that changed. And actually changed fairly quickly but when you feel like I did, time crawled. Sometimes it all but stood still.

In the beginning, it’s weird because you’ve always dreamed of the moment when the doctor hands you you’re baby and says, “Here she is, mom!”. And trust me, that moment was every ounce of what I had imagined and then some. BUT, I always watched A Baby Story on TLC and I remembered how every mom was like, “It’s instant love. Love like I’ve never felt.” Etc.

I had instant love for her, no doubt, but it was a different instant love. The kind of love that you have for someone because you have responsibility for them. Love because you labored for them and sacrificed for them. Love because they are beautiful. Love because it’s your family and you made them with your husband. There was a lot of that kind of love. What I didn’t feel though is love like I had known love. I know people always say that ‘it’s a love like they’ve never experienced’ but put that fluff to the side because that’s not what I’m talking about. Love before my child was always because of a relationship. Because I knew someone and built a relationship with them full of knowing them intimately and full of memories that made me love them. I was expecting that kind of love with Eden right away. But wait….I didn’t know her! She is a little face that’s reminiscent of family but she was a stranger. I didn’t know why she cried. She didn’t smile at me. She screamed and cried at me mostly. I couldn’t really interact with her at least in a reciprocated sense because, hey, she was only 5 minutes old.

So while I loved Eden, I didn’t know her. While I loved her, there wasn’t a bond…yet. There was a maternal bond but not bonding like I previously knew it. I think I felt troubled by that but the more I talk to other moms both PPD and non-PPD moms, I hear many singing the same tune. I don’t feel like anyone ever talks about it though. I know it really is that great for some women but it can’t be for all. We moms are supposed to be these all loving and perfectly maternal beings that pop a baby out with tears in their eyes with their baby in one hand and a tray of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in the other hand. We are the superheros of life. Literal life. Not much room left for looking at your baby with an ownership love and connection one minute and then looking across the living room the next minute thinking, “Who is that strange baby laying on the couch? Call the police! Someone left their baby at my house!!!” No one ever says that on a Baby Story. TLC should’ve had me on there. It would’ve been their most memorable episode. You could’ve been a star, TLC.

I’m telling you, both a Baby Story and Bringing Home Baby are as toxic to your expectations as Cinderella and Prince Charming to little girls learning about what to expect with a man.  No one even cries on that show except for the babies.  Give me a break.

In a non-TLC reality, I remember getting a letter from a mom who said, “It’s okay if you aren’t crazy about Mrs. E right now.” Funny, I hadn’t said I wasn’t. Again, I was but in that grandmother sort of way. I was crazy but a little crazy in the wrong the direction. I felt a bond and constant maternal desire to care for her and hold her to me but that drive mixed with anxiety and sleep deprivation was a lethal cocktail exploding in a mess of tears, panic attacks, and not knowing if it all felt worth it. It was nice to hear a normal mother of two on the other side of motherhood telling me that I was allowed to not be dancing around the crib singing praises of infants and my new parenting lifestyle.

Fast forward to a few months after that letter.

I remember when she laughed at me for the first time when she was 15 weeks old. I was holding her over my head while Lance took a picture and she giggled and my heart swelled ten times. There was healing to me in that laughter. I had been out of the fog for a while and enjoying motherhood but even after the weeks of her smiling at me, there was something extra about that laugh that really humanized her to me. I didn’t realize how much I craved that from her until she looked at me and laughed. I was desperate to hear it again because it was thrilling and THAT is what made the bond start to take off. Yes, smiling was such a reward but to have this little girl with a sense of humor that responded to things that really are only funny to a baby….it was amazing.

I can now say it was really all worth it.  The crying.  The laughing.  The screaming baths.  The pills.  The breastpumping sessions for 1/2 an ounce.  The doctors visits.  The pajamas I wore for 2 days with baby poop on them.   

I feel fearful to say I’d do it all over because just the thought of living through that experience again makes my heart beat rapidly as I type it. Still, I guess I would because I really look forward to another baby down the road and this time, I’ll have a toddler, too. Now I’m really getting cocky!

Ultimately,  what I would relive doesn’t matter because God doesn’t measure our love for our children or our devotion to them by what awful things we are willing to endure for them at our expense. Although I would endure a great many and awful things, I  no longer feel guilty that I’m not the first one to raise my hand and say, “I’ll do PPD again because I love my kid thhhhhhaaaaatttt much!”  Beat that mother’s of the world!!!!  (insert eye roll)

I love Eden. I truly, truly love her. I love her now in both ways: Because she’s mine and made of me and Lance AND because I know her. I know what makes her laugh and I’m one of the few people who can. I know which blanket she wants and what to do with her Zebra to make her smile. I know when I hear a certain sigh that she’s asleep in her car seat. I don’t even have to look.

When I see her trying to sleep in the car and the sun is shining on her squinted shut-eyes, I know I love her when I switch lanes to move the shade across her face.

I know I love her when I look for a tooth every day for weeks and then I find one and my cheeks hurt with a big smile and then my heart sort of breaks because she’s getting bigger. I know I love her because every day that passes, is one I wish I could have back. And those aren’t things that happen right when they hand you your precious wrinkly newborn and lay her on your chest. Some love is instant and some, takes time.

I may never know what it’s like to bring home a baby and experience as the “normal” version of me. I might always ask which of the things I experienced would I still have felt if I hadn’t had postpartum. But I suppose I’m no less the mother and a mother I wanted to be no matter how I got there. Maybe next time I’ll call TLC and see if they want to an 8-episode series on me called “Crazy In Love”. Pun Intended. Now THAT’S a reality show!

One of my favorite quotes is, “There are two roads in life. One is hard, and one is easy and the only reward of the easy road was that it was simple.”

I may have unwillingly taken the country back roads on a rickety old moped wearing ripped sweats pants and a cracked helmet following an incorrect map from goggle maps but, hey, I got there!  And the reward at the end was multiplied. I worked for the love that now is the clichéd love of my life………..all daddies aside.

Traumatic strawberry onesies and all, I’m so glad I made it. There is nothing…nothing as sweet as motherhood.  And in true TLC fashion, I’ve never lived or loved like this.

The laugh.

Sweet Nothings October 24, 2010

There comes a time when you become ready for things that you weren’t ready for before. For me, that time finally came when Eden was about six months and few days old. That time being, Thursday, aka tonight.

I finally decided it was time to let Eden learn how to go to sleep by doing some “sleep training”. We chose the Ferber method which is let them cry for 5 minutes, give comfort but don’t pick them up, then 10 min, comfort, then 15, comfort, and then twenty. After twenty you start back over at 5. Tonight it took exactly 22 minutes to get that cute chunky, big-eyed baby of mine asleep. Lucky, Lance was here for support because I think there is something about a mother hearing her baby cry and not responding to her that goes against nature. Every fiber of my being wants to go in there and be with her. I love comforting her. It’s what we mothers do. I love to be needed by her. Not only needed, but wanted.

Previously, I was holding her until she fell asleep because I savor those quiet moments of the end of the day where it’s all said and done and I can relax and hold my sweet girl. No more laps around the house to make.  Bottles to be mixed. Diapers to be changed.  It’s just me and her in the stillness and calm of the end of the day.  I can hold her and look at her little fuzzy head and still be excited that God gave me a baby with a hairy head. I always thought babies with hair were so cute and I thought I had no hope because no baby on either side of our family has ever had hair. After all those years of infertility, having this sweet little baby and then having even a fuzzy head is like the hairy icing on the cake. As stupid as this will sound to everyone else involved, I think God gave me those hairs.  It’s almost like that when I look at her that God just smiled at me and said, “I remembered.” I suppose hair can only be so exciting to someone who waited for years to see that one positive test stick.

If there’s anything I’ve learned about myself so far as a parent/parenting, it’s two things:

1. I’m not as strong as I thought I would be. I thought I would be able to hear her cries and have some perspective and self-control but I constantly yearn to go care for her immediately.

2. They change so fast. Not just them, but parenting them.

One week they are laying flat, the next they are sitting. One week they smack their bottle while you feed them and the  very next week it turns into a small grip and all of a sudden they are holding the bottle themselves and they don’t ‘need’ you to feed them. It really is rapid.

But parenting changes fast too. One week you are dying because they are fighting naps and you feel like you are gonna die and then for no reason, the next week that’s over and it’s on to the next one.

If you are like me, one minute you are struggling to breastfeed and dreaming of bottles even though you love to nurse your baby. You are wishing it all away: the pain, the long feedings, wrestling your baby awake, and then for me, without warning, I go to the doctor’s office for postpartum and they tell me to quit that day. I didn’t see it coming. All of the sudden, a phase I was struggling to survive but secretly loved under the turmoil, was all over. Just like that. Holding her to me and being her sole source of provision was done. And simply, another phase gone. 

This week was no exception. After many long sleepless nights due to Eden being under the weather, I finally reached the point where I thought, “It’s time to help her to sleep through the night.”

I need it.

She needs it.

We all need it.

Even the cat might appreciate it on nights she’s inside.

So even though I knew it was coming, I didn’t know I would start today. What that means was that last night was the last night that I got to hold her as she fell asleep on me. Sure, it will happen occasionally but life with my baby as I’ve known it for the past six months of this rollercoaster is changing one little bit at a time.

It all happened after being at the doctor today and he told me how to do it and that she was ready. My sister is coming in next week so I’m sure she’d appreciate the quiet and the process takes five days which was enough time to do before she comes in so we started.   Just like that, all of a sudden, that little sweet phase I enjoyed is over for the most part.

I think it’s so hard as moms to not be looking forward to the next milestone that eases our load or one that gives us more freedom but we are quick to forget that these little times with our babies are so fleeting and you realize that each time you lose a little thing you savored about that stage. Maybe it was a sound they made that makes you laugh that they just quit doing or a way you made them laugh that you enjoyed together that they seem to not care about anymore. It’s the little sweet nothings that season your days with your child.

I’ve been so tired lately that it’s been easy to forget that she won’t always call out for me or need or want to be cuddled. Even the sleepless hard times are irretrievable and even in the difficulties of watching the hours tick away every night, there’s something precious there. There are the moments where it’s late at night and your eyes are heavy and you run to their cry and hold them to your chest. You yawn and look down and those huge sweet eyes are staring at you, hinting at the smile behind that passy. This parenting thing is hard and exhausting but I don’t know if you can find a sweeter earthly joy.

Tonight before we put Eden down to start letting her cry some, Lance and I held her and said a prayer for my strength to get through it and for Eden’s to survive and learn quickly to sleep. I took a big breath to prepare myself and I held her to me for one quick second by her crib. I wanted so badly to just hold her and watch her drift off peacefully but I knew it was time for it to be different for us both.

I felt a wave of sympathy for what she was about to experience rise up inside of me and then the rush of maternal love and compassion that followed.

I layed her down and put my hand on her chest and felt a motherly weakness and some tears begin to well up inside of me. I kissed her face. Gave her the passy and her favorite ruffled blanket that she likes to rub on her face and squeeze with her hands.  Patted her tender fuzzy head and left the room.

It was bittersweet for me albeit a good reminder that all things are fleeting and that all things must be cherished even through the exhaustion.  It’s almost like I dream of the day’s end when I’m really tired but that I’m simultaneously not wanting the time to pass because it’s one more day gone with my baby and one more day she ages.  It’s almost like I know she is growing so quickly that I miss her while I have her.  I want to see her grow, but I want to hold on to today’s baby as I know her because that’s who I’m head over heels in love with.  Parenthood is a fulfilling tug of war between trying to stand in the sweetness of the moment and trying herd your surge of excitement as it’s on to the next big event: first christmas, walking, crawling, first word….

I bet when her gummy smile goes toothy and her hair grows long that she’ll turn into the most beautiful young lady.  I know she’ll be funny and make people laugh.  She’ll be kind.  Talented.  Compassionate.  Genuine.  Sincere. 

Eden will be so many great things.  Soon enough.

I look forward to many things but for now, the thrill will be finally holding her to me in the morning and savoring that she’s still my tiny, precious baby.  At least for today.

How to Survive a Newborn like I Kind-Of Did September 12, 2010

When you are a new mom everyone has advice. Sometimes you say, “Why that’s fantastic advice!” Other times you just nod and hope they don’t ask you if you did it later.

Since I am the recent somewhat survivor of a newborn, I figured I should post what I shall call

Rebecca’s Most Fabulous Survivor Guide Advice Encyclopedia Extravaganza of Living with a Newborn Jubilee:

First Step:

You betta get out of my room, son

This is an easy one to remember because it means get your baby out of your room.  Eden lived by our bed for approximately 2 weeks 10 minutes and 5.8 seconds.  Some people love having their babies in their room and, in some ways, it’s convenient.  In some ways you want to roll off your bed and hit your head on something hard so you can black out and be alone for a second.  Mmmmm, peaceful serenity. 

Eden’s pack and play was right up against our bed which means, hey, I can get you fast.  It also means, hey, I hear every grunt and snort and I’m awake all night long like a solider on high alert. 

I’d go into my room BAM….baby crap everywhere and in a way, that’s literal.  Diaper volcanos, passies, boob feeding paraphenelia….there was no escaping.  Every room in the house was drowning in babies I tell you!

One of the best things we did for ourselves was get our one little space back to ourselves.  It gave us some normalcy and big fat fantastic deep breath.  You need something of your own since not even your boobs are at the moment.  It made me less anxious too not having to hear or rather “listen” for her every breath.  So when you feel ready, kick your baby to her crib and say, “This room is mine!  Bwah hahahahahahaha!”  That’s what monitors are for.

Step 2:

I always feel like someone is watching me….mom

That’s clever of me  because this step involves monitoring your baby but, may I suggest the beauty which is a video monitor?  I think everyone needs a video monitor.  If you are a high-strung Type-A-er then it’s not an option for you.  If you are being anxious with your baby…again…not an option.  Plus, eyes in the back of your head are ugly.  Cameras look better.

At night when you feel like you need to check on your baby constantly, why get up when you can just roll over and see your baby?  I don’t disturb my baby. I don’t disturb me.  I could stay up all night worrying about if a blanket is on her face, was that a baby cry or am I hearing things, or is my bob cat breaking into her room? All common fears.   All I have to do is look and see if she’s sound asleep or rolling around.  I can take it outside with me and still see and hear her.  I can buy more than one camera for multiple rooms for when I have other babies.  I can use them when they are toddlers and I can put one in their dorm rooms one day and watch them from home.  Hopefully.

These little hand held TV guys have saved my legs from needless trips, my mind from worrying thoughts, and kept me sane in the membrane.  Video monitors…..they aren’t just for babies.  They’re for you.   Now that’s goooooooodddd.

Step 3:

I Run This Place, Fool

You are momma.  Hear yourself cry at night because you are so tired roar!!!!!    You and only you know what you are comfortable with doing and trying with your new baby.  If you don’t want to let your baby cry, then don’t.  If you want to name your baby Sir Charles Soggybottoms, then I would be honored to meet his majesty.  If you want to rock your baby to sleep every night, then get to swayin’. If you like to breastfeed, do it.  If you can’t and use formula, tell me so I’ll feel better about myself. 

You will hear tons of advice and it will all be different and people will feel really strong about what worked for them but YOU know your baby and what you feel like you can do.  Every baby is different and every mom and family is too so like the great rappers say, “do you, player…do you”.

When I was pregnant, I heard BabyWise enough times to make me want to make everyone unwise with a concussion.  For me, my baby is unwise.  For you, you may like a wiser baby but I chose a different method for getting my baby to sleep.  I’d rather hold my baby before she goes to bed at night because I cherish those fleeting moments.  Those times are special to me.  So I did me.  I can’t let my baby cry for too terribly long which is funny because I could let other people’s baby cry…..mmmmmm….interesting.  Anyhow, we do what works for us.  Don’t feel guilty.  There isn’t a wrong way.  No way is better than your own.  Unless someone else’s way is not letting their baby play with plastic bags or knives or something.  In that case, their way is best.

Step 4:

I can give you more.  (Just kidding that’s Step 4 in New Kids on the Block Step-by-Step song)

Mister Sandman, Will you accept my rose? 

I say sleep like you may never sleep again.  I say that because, it’s true.  And I’m not talking about the advice people give you pre-baby when they say, “Sleep now because you won’t later!”  As if you can stock pile sleep by doing that but ANYWAYS, I mean sleep as much as you can when you have your baby.  I had a hard time with this namely because I went to PostPartum paradise and I was so anxious that I couldn’t sleep and would have panic attacks if I did fall asleep like 30 minutes into my nap BUT if I could’ve slept I bet that would’ve been smart.

Of all the advice out there about brining home your first baby, ‘sleep when they sleep’ is the best advice to me.  My sister told me, “Take a nap whenever you can because you never know what the night will bring.”  Truer words have never been said.  Eden is five months old and just a few days ago she laid down for a nap and, even though I didn’t feel like I had to have one, I laid down anyways and we slept for 3 hours.  Fast forward to that night, she was an out of the blue teething terror and I only got 3-4 hours of sleep that night.  That nap I could’ve skipped saved me at least 1 Xanax. =0)

Although it’s hard for me, let the cleaning go when you can, turn the phone off, close the curtains, and snooze it out, G.  You can’t clean, be a good mom, a good wife, worker, or whatever you are if you don’t sleep.  You can’t even be good for yourself.  If you choose to wear PJs well into the day,  this is good for comfort and you are also ready for a shut-eye at a moment’s notice.  Let not a second be wasted! 

Step 5:

Don’t you know that your time has arrived (It’s those ole’ rascally New Kids again.)

Yes, Please, Thank you, My Dear aka Here’s My Baby See Ya Later

People, if you are lucky enough, are going to help in some sort of way.  Examples:  Let me bring you dinner.  Let me clean your house.  Let me give you company.  Let me buy you a gift.  Let me babysit while you nap.  Let me take your baby. Or my favorite, “Don’t write me a thank you letter.”  When people tell me that I’m like well okay then, sister.  There is a sweet old lady who made a blanket who told me that and she is still not waiting for a thank you and I’m still glad it was one less thing to do.  We are both winners.

The answer is YES to any help offered!  This is actually hard to do for a lot of people including myself but TAKE IT.  When your baby is 6 months old you will have no free dinners, no gifts, and possibly, fewer people to watch your baby.  Do it now!  It’s like baby Christmas and everyone is your Santa Claus.  Don’t get on the naughty list.  As long as it’s reasonable and you feel comfy with it, be a YES man.  I couldn’t believe how helpful help was.  It was helpable. 

Step 6:

And now for my disappearing act….

Can you see me cause I’m disappearing right now like abracadabra.  In this step you will be instructed to disappear and have time to yourself on a daily basis.  Maybe you feel like getting out of the house for a date or just a quick errand. Maybe you feel like knitting an eye-catching parka.  If you are like me, walks and showers were all about me.  I have never enjoyed my 15 minute shower to myself more in my entire life. I mean splish-splash I was taking a bath. Getting some time alone or with your spouse away from baby is a non-negotiable.  It is top two along with sleep in baby survival jubilee. 

Step 7:

Daddies Don’t Have Boobies, They Have Legs and Hands

Daddies are made for helping and that’s just what they’ll do.  One of these days these daddies are gonna help all over you.  Enlist the services of your husband or baby daddy in any way you can.  They are equal parents, even if you carry the milky goods.  Work the pants off of them.  Hopefully, you don’t have to ask.  If you don’t have a husband, or I suppose even if you do, build up a support system of friends, moms, buddies, whoever.  You will need whoever you can get.  Start with your spouse if you have one though because are right there with you and they are good for bottle making, feet rubbing, diaper changing, tear wiping, errand running, baby bouncing, baby walking, movie getting, taking the baby so you can nap kind of guys.  If they aren’t, kick them swiftly in the groin and call a woman whose pushed out a baby before. 

Step 8:

All Good Hamsters Come to an End

You will feel like a hamster on a wheel for a little bit.  Yes, it’s the same routine every two to three hours day and night and time slips into time and you are just sleep dazed going through the motions.  Encouraged yet?  The good news is…hamsters die really fast.  That’s good news unless you were my hamster that met his demish in the toilet…RIP, Sugar.  Sugar like his name not sugar like a term of endearment.

I remember when I was losing my mind with Eden…you know way back a few months ago….and people kept telling me it would get better.  It’s SO hard to believe.  Why would it get better?  You do the same thing and the baby needs the same thing so what’s gonna be different?  Then they tell you the first 4-8 weeks are the hardest and then you want to run  into your yard and build a large help sign out of rocks so maybe a helicopter will see you and swoop down  and take you away.  During the rough time, 4-8 weeks sounds like you just said 15-20 years.  You think,”I can’t do this one more night muchless weeks!”  But it does change.  It changes without warning and that’s what you have to remember when it logically seems like it won’t.  They change quickly.  One night for no reason at all they will sleep for 5-6 hours instead of 3…even though you couldn’t see it coming.  Your day or week can change with one helpful friend or a really restoring nap that helps you get through the next day and so on… 

For example, I’ve been super tired with Eden because she quit sleeping through the night a few months ago but for no rhyme or reason this week, she dropped all her night feedings.  SO sleepless friends, even when there’s no reason to think it will change, it will.  Just remember, you are a hamster and hamsters kill over in no time.

Step 9:

Ignore steps 1-9 if you don’t like them.  Ain’t nobody that can throw it down like you.

Might As Well Get Learned: Difference Between Baby Blues & PPD May 25, 2010

I figured since I wrote about my postpartum depression and had one bah-jillion readers on it that I might as well post what it clinically is and what the difference is between the baby blues and PPD.  Here is a very brief, professional, NON-exhaustive overview about the two with the site links attached.  At the end, I’ll write a little blurb about my symptoms and experience and when I knew it was beyond normal.  Remember that PPD is a spectrum and you could be anywhere from like me to sucidal or somewhere in between.  You will know when something isn’t right.

What’s the difference between “baby blues,” postpartum depression, and postpartum psychosis?

 

The baby blues can happen in the days right after childbirth and normally go away within a few days to a week. A new mother can have sudden mood swings, sadness, crying spells, loss of appetite, sleeping problems, and feel irritable, restless, anxious, and lonely. Symptoms are not severe and treatment isn’t needed. But there are things you can do to feel better. Nap when the baby does. Ask for help from your spouse, family members, and friends. Join a support group of new moms or talk with other moms.

Postpartum depression can happen anytime within the first year after childbirth. A woman may have a number of symptoms such as sadness, lack of energy, trouble concentrating, anxiety, and feelings of guilt and worthlessness. The difference between postpartum depression and the baby blues is that postpartum depression often affects a woman’s well-being and keeps her from functioning well for a longer period of time. Postpartum depression needs to be treated by a doctor. Counseling, support groups, and medicines are things that can help.

Postpartum psychosis is rare. It occurs in 1 or 2 out of every 1000 births and usually begins in the first 6 weeks postpartum. Women who have bipolar disorder or another psychiatric problem called schizoaffective disorder have a higher risk for developing postpartum psychosis. Symptoms may include delusions, hallucinations, sleep disturbances, and obsessive thoughts about the baby. A woman may have rapid mood swings, from depression to irritability to euphoria.

http://www.medicinenet.com/postpartum_depression/page2.htm

Depression after pregnancy is called postpartum depression or peripartum depression. After pregnancy, hormonal changes in a woman’s body may trigger symptoms of depression. During pregnancy, the amount of two female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, in a woman’s body increases greatly. In the first 24 hours after childbirth, the amount of these hormones rapidly drops back down to their normal non-pregnant levels. Researchers think the fast change in hormone levels may lead to depression, just as smaller changes in hormones can affect a woman’s moods before she gets her menstrual period.

Occasionally, levels of thyroid hormones may also drop after giving birth. The thyroid is a small gland in the neck that helps to regulate your metabolism (how your body uses and stores energy from food). Low thyroid levels can cause symptoms of depression including depressed mood, decreased interest in things, irritability, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, sleep problems, and weight gain. A simple blood test can tell if this condition is causing a woman’s depression. If so, thyroid medicine can be prescribed by a doctor.

http://www.medicinenet.com/postpartum_depression/article.htm

STATISTICS:

According to a report published in The New England Journal of Medicine, up to 13 percent of new mothers suffer from postpartum depression (PPD).

Since there are nearly four million births in the U.S. annually, a half million women cope with this disorder every year. For those who have suffered previous bouts of depression, more than one in four are at risk for another episode.

….70-85 % of women experience baby blues…

http://www.ynhh.org/healthlink/womens/womens_8_03.html

MY TURN:

First of all, everyone’s experiences and symptoms are different and only you know when you can’t handle it or need help.  Now that we have that out of the way…here’s my experience in bullet points.  These intense symptoms let me know that this wasn’t just the blues.

-not eating for several days

-vomitting because of anxiety

-gagging or dry heaving when I put food in my mouth because my anxiety had upset my stomach so badly

-waking up breathing hard and shallow like a panic attack with my mind racing which usually kept me up and then I’d cry and not be able to fall back to sleep again, thus, insomina

-insomnia inspite of being extremely sleep deprived i.e.- go to bed at 4 am and sleep one hour

-bouts of crying spells, many audible sobbing spells due to feeling hopeless, anxiety, defeated, OVERWHELMED and then some

-compulsive thoughts of things happening to my baby.  I, personally, didn’t have thoughts of hurting my baby although that is very common.  The thoughts I had very compulsive, anxious thoughts of things happening to her like being dropped or us getting in car wrecks etc.  In general, things that upset me greatly but the thoughts haunted me even though I didn’t want to have them and they were pretty graphic to me.

-feelings of deadness and not wanting to do it anymore, feeling incapable

-emotional emptiness and withdraw from others.  Visitors made me very anxious and I didn’t want to talk to anyone or even listen to voicemails. My phone was on silent for 4 weeks.

-irrational anxious concerns i.e.- worrying about the cats and feeling really deeply sad about not being able to take care of them

-trouble thinking/concentrating/remembering

-feeling hopeless like it would never end and so overtaken by it that I thought it was physically going to kill me if I didn’t have a remedy for my distress

For me, these things developed very quickly and were handled very quickly by seeking my dr.’s help right away.  The difference for me between these symptoms and the baby blues was the inability to function and the intensity of the symptoms.  I physically couldn’t bring myself to lift my baby to feed her when she was next to me because I was so physically shot by the anxiety and toll it was taking on me.  Lance would have to hand her to me when she wasn’t even a foot away.

I always felt love for my baby and wanted to care for her but not all women do in these cases.  However, I had feelings of “I don’t want to do this anymore” very frequently.  It was as if I wanted my baby and to be her mother but that I wanted someone else to take care of her because I thought I couldn’t do it.

To encourage anyone who reads this, if you feel this way, it is much more common than you think and most women have at least the baby blues which are intense enough.  You aren’t crazy!  You can get help and get better!  You can be and are a good mom.  Just get help when you need it.  I saved myself by doing so.  Like I said, I went down really fast and got really bad but I recovered really fast due to many factors, the Lord above, and medication.  My baby is 5 weeks old this Sunday and not only can I do it, I am doing it and I never thought I could.  Not only that, I enjoy doing it and I miss my baby when she’s gone for even an hour.  I truly love and enjoy being a mom and you can and will too when the fog lifts by whatever means it takes for it to lift.  Accept help when it’s offered from ANYONE unless they are unstable or drive a big scary van full of candy for children.  =0)  Hope this helped someone out there =0)

Hi, My Name is Rebecca. I Like Long Walks on the Beach and I Have Postpartum Depression. May 9, 2010

 

It’s nothing like I expected it to be.  How could this:

  not be a dream come true.  Maybe she is.  But, not everyone can see that through the whirlwind shocking transition of becoming a mother for the first time.  For me, it started with frustration and crying.  A lot.  A whole lot.  Then feelings of “I can’t do this!” All of that is pretty standard.  I don’t care who you are or what kind of super mom you are.  You will have crying spells.  Then somewhere in a fog of time that I still can’t distinguish or separate, it started to become worse.  I started to cry over things that were very irrational like not being able to hold my cats as much. I know if you are a regular reader that you might not find that surprising  but the thing is, I felt really sad about it.  I started crying over things that did matter:  my marriage never being the same again, my time not being my own, days flying by and one melting into the next until I didn’t know the month, the day, the time… Sometimes sadness would well up inside of me and I would audibly sob for no real reason at all.  I wanted help but felt like I couldn’t reach out.  I wanted to return all of your sweet calls but I felt anxious to do that.  I’ve cried till my eyes are swollen almost shut.  I’ve been so sleep deprived that I’ve staggered.  I’ve had thoughts that would alarm you.  I’ve worried my family sick and broke my husband’s heart as he’s been watching me struggle through this distress.

Sadness and being overwhelmed turned into a consuming anxiety.  Not anxiety like I’m worried about something.  It’s more like a feeling of a panic attack.  I would be so sick I’d dry heave when I put food in my mouth.  I have actually vomited.  Constant diarrhea.  Is that too much for you to hear?  You know me and my no boundaries. 

I wake-up and having shaky and hard breathing trying to get ahold of myself.  I’d have crazy, compulsive thoughts.  Moments of emotional deadness and just being a shell of a person.  Two weeks in, I finally called my doc.  I’m a person who doesn’t turn to drugs as a first option so the fact that I did so this quickly lets you know that I was a desperate woman.  And you know what, I needed the drugs. The drugs are fine and I shouldn’t and you shouldn’t feel ashamed to take them if you end up in my shoes.

Taking the drugs now a week leads us up to real-time.  I still continued to not eat, sleep, and have emotional breakdowns.  My nurse called to check on me and wanted me to come see the doctor face to face.

I did.  And she told me I had postpartum. Even after all I just told you, I was surprised to hear her say those words.  I had always pictured postpartum as a woman who drowns all her children in the tub telling everyone that God said to do it.  That is postpartum but I guess it’s a spectrum like most things.  Not at all that I’m taking what I’m going through lightly.  I have literally thought in my “rational” mind that I was going to die from this.  I have hoped to be hospitalized so that I could rest and recover and someone could take care of my baby for me.  If it continued at it’s peak, I would’ve ended up hospitalized for exhaustion.  These past 3 weeks have been some of the hardest of my life. I never felt so defeated by something.

I’ve sat on a couch crying out loud with my dad holding me crying and whispering encouragement in my ear.  I’ve had my sister pray over me on the couch, crying and putting her hand on my cheek saying she wishes she could take this from me.  She had postpartum 3 times.  My mom has rescued me more than one night and kept her all night for Lance and I so that I could recover from some sleep deprivation to give me some light for the next day.  Lance has held our baby in one arm and me in the other in the kitchen while I sobbed on his shoulder.  This has been and continues to be a whole body, whole emotion, whole mental, and whole family and friend experience. 

My doctor told me to quit breastfeeding which was devastating to me, albeit, necessary.  She said that breastfeeding is too physically demanding on me right now since I’m not eating or sleeping and that I can’t get help from others or my mind together without stopping the 2-3 hour demand on myself.  Also, she says that your hormones have to stay at crazy levels to sustain breastfeeding which sustains the imbalances I’m having.  AND she put me on something for anxiety that I can’t take while nursing.  Whoever you are reading this who understands all the feelings I’ve been explaining, I have heard from doctors and tons of women who’ve been through this that stopping will make a major difference.  I stopped not quite 48 hours ago so I’m not quite to relief yet.  I will say letting your milk dry out cold turkey is crazy painful but nothing pain killers and big ole’ cabbage leaves in your bra can’t ease. I don’t know why the cabbage works but I know a rabbit would love to get ahold of these knockers. Even through my craziness, I haven’t totally lost my humor and I told my doctor, “I never thought I could finally have boobs so big and be so sad.”  Bye, bye big boobies.  Hopefully I’ll get a little sanity in place of a stellar rack.

Going through this I’ve learned one thing for sure, PEOPLE HAVE TO START TALKING ABOUT THIS.  I posted something about this on facebook and I got over 20 messages from all sorts of people I’ve always known but never known they went through this.  Why don’t people talk about this?!  Even if it’s not postpartum, this transition kicks everyone’s butts all over the place.  Bringing home your first baby is the hardest thing you will ever do and I’ve heard that POST baby from a million women.  You will survive.  I’m still trying to survive but, oddly, I find comfort in going out in public and looking at a crowd of people and thinking, “For every person I see here in this store, someone brought them home as a newborn.”  We are in a world where people have done it literally billions of times.  Some of them did it with flying colors and some of them did it with flying snot, Xanax, Zoloft, and an amazing family.  I find myself in the second category.  I look forward to the day where my heart doesn’t race and I feel like I can do this.  I can’t wait to look at my baby with all the encouragement and excitement that I hoped I would when she was in my belly.  Until then I’ll savor the moments I can and be honest and reach out to people all the times I can’t. Little by little I’m having hopeful moments, hours, and occasionally a day or two.  My highs and lows are beginning to level out. 

So to whoever reads this out there in cyberland, if this is you,  it’s okay.  Someone encouraged me through a breakdown last night that this isn’t the new Rebecca.  This is Rebecca with a messy mind and hormones.  She told me that, “God will redeem this into something beautiful.”  I believe that’s true even when I don’t feel it.  Until then I have a perfect, beautiful child who I still love through this magical disaster.  Just waiting on the beautiful redemption.