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.

Beetle Juice September 23, 2010

I woke up this morning to a text from my friend saying that Similac formula had been recalled. Rats. That’s the only brand Eden can use. This reminded me that this can’t happen with breast milk which made me start my day with a discontented grunting sound.

She explained to me how it was contaminated and I said, “Now, how do you get needles in baby formula, anyways?”

She said, “Not needles….BEETLES.”

Oh now that’s very different. I can handle beetle milk. But then I suppose it depends on the beetle. If it’s a roach, then that’s disgusting, but a few beautiful June Bugs never hurt anyone. Just imagine the gorgeous iridescent shades of her excrement. Radiant turquoise and emerald-green. Now that’s a recall!

Then I later heard that they found larvae in it too. That’s more like it. That’s more the disgusting, shocking news I was expecting to hear originally. Actually, I thought it was going to be much worse like a chemical or something that had gotten into the cans. Again, I can handle a beetle or two, although, it’s not desired.

We actually eat bugs in everything we eat anyways. The FDA has a limit to how many bug particles can be in our cereals, etc. How do I know this? I took a nutrition class in college and the professor had us do lame presentations with posters and everything and we were supposed to talk about some sort of nutritional study or research. I wasn’t about to pull out my 4th grade food pyramid project so I asked if I could do my own special idea which was a report about eating bugs and the benefit of doing that.

All the students would get up and be like, “The effects of eating less sugar is blah, blah, blah…..

“The olean in chips that prevent fat absorption does a yah-dah, yah-dah bing bang…..”

Then I got up and pulled out my grasshopper poster like Napoleon Dynamite and was like,

“Did you know that there are 5 grams of protein in the common grasshopper? Did you know a liger is my favorite animal bred for it’s skills and magic?” You know, something like that……

So the point of the tale is, a few ladybugs in my stew never hurt me so what will it do to my baby? It might actually be a nutritious line of baby powder. All of you snobby breastfeeders out there, probably just barfed and shook your instruments of jealousy in my face. You all high and mighty with milky, milks with a bouncy-bounce here and a drippy, drip there….

Well this just in…there’s been a recall on your breasts, losers!

Your milk has caterpillars in it.

You disgust me.

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.

Beautiful Redemption May 30, 2010

This blog is for Marissa, Jayna, Charlotte, & Suzanne for reminding me that this would be a beautifully redeemed experience in my life.  And to my family, friends, and husband that God had grace on me to have. 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

REDEEM (rĭ-dēḿ)

To fulfill

To set free; rescue or ransom.

To restore the honor, worth, or reputation of

__________________________________________________________________________________________

I laid there in the wee early morning hours after her 5 am-ish feeding with her fist by her face and her teensy body laying sideways beside me on the bed.  She loves to lay on her side and always has that little fist by her face.  That’s something she must’ve done constantly in the womb which I couldn’t have known just 6 weeks ago.

The birds start chirping in the background.  Blasted birds.  They are a reminder that the day is starting whether you’ve been awake at 5 with a bottle in your hand or not.  The sun was just starting to rise and it casted a colorful light on my baby’s profile as the light peered through our orange-colored curtains.  I just stared at her and listened her to breathe and squeak on that pacifier she adores while she sucked it intermittently.  I thought about who I was that particular morning in contrast to who I had been just a week or so earlier.  The difference in how I see her and the world is a stark contrast, comparatively.  I looked at her perfection of a flawless shaped nose, pure head of dark hair, intricate little fingers by her face and my heart softened.  I could look at her for hours.  I thought intensely about the past month and a half of my life and thought about what was said to me in my struggle:

“God will redeem this into something beautiful.”

I wondered if I should write this now.  This was such an intense experience that maybe it needed more time to marinate.  Barely anytime has passed and I’ve started to write this blog and stopped again just thinking I should really give this experience time to show itself redeemed in my life.  Then I realized that this will be continually redeemed and perpetually useful in my life.  I can already see the ways that God has used this to work out a purpose.

Me, being the perfectionist that I am, had less important things in life literally beat out of me. I couldn’t hold on to them anymore as the sudden mother of a newborn. If I tried to hold on to the perfectly put together house, I would’ve been consumed by postpartum all for the sake of freshly vacuumed carpet with the vacuum lines perfectly pressed in. The priority of a straightened even, dare I say, sanitized home…gone.   If I would’ve cared about the flab on my belly, I would’ve been overtaken for the sake of vanity. The need to look together….gone.   It’s funny how, even in moments of hysteria, God immediately changes your worldview and gives you some perspective in your life.  It doesn’t come in a subtle way.  More of a screaming baby and instant life change but clarity of what matters comes even in the fog of it all.  I feel more of a depth of myself now.  A wisdom.  A glimpse inside of a journey where the only things in life that matter weren’t what seemed to matter 14 hours of labor earlier.  Someone told me when I was struggling and feeling like a hamster on a wheel where time passed into time and my routine felt like that of an empty robot that…. “I was doing exactly what God intended for me to do each day: feed and love that baby of mine.”  All of the sudden what seemed like a hopeless tunnel of monotony and sorrow felt purposeful.  And even though in that moment I couldn’t fully see it,  I knew it was better than the restful days, cute homes, and toned body I had before.  It seems so obvious when you type it out but when you go through a total loss of who you were before in a hospital overnight, you don’t see how infantile and meaningless some of your everyday ways were before.  I still like a newly cleaned look on my floors.  I just like being in ragged pj’s all day and looking at a child who just smiled at me for the first time a lot better than the things that felt good to me before.  I can rest easy at night knowing that I took care of a beautiful little girl just the way I was supposed to.  Not only that but she knows me.  She senses me in the room.  She turns her head to hear my voice and she’s comforted when she cries when I whisper into her ear.  She’s mine and I get to take care of her with my unbrushed teeth and bags under my eyes.  I’m her only mother.  There will be other cute houses in my life someday.

Redemtion continues….

In a 6 year marriage and an 8 year relationship, a lot of damage can be done.  Somewhere in between “I do” and laying next to a tiny person that’s half of us both, somethings get lost along the way.  Namely, my vulnerability to Lance has been pretty well shot.  After time.  After hurts.  After daily life.  After failures.  After seasons of anger or pain.  2,012 days at a time parked me at a place with a man I loved, with a wall I despised but felt safe behind.  As I started to crumble in front of my family and Lance, I saw a man who I knew was there at an altar in Kentucky 6 years ago this August.  If I ever had doubts of the extraordinary man I married, they ended one anxious, sleepless, postpartum day at a time.  He took care of my every need.  When I would sit in an emotional void state with only hours of sleep in days and raging hunger and anxiety in my belly, he would sit up with me.  He would take our baby girl when I was crying and frustrated at 2 am and bounce her and sing her songs he had written about her being the best girl.  One night I got up to feed her and as I was pulling Eden out of her pack and play he woke up and said, “Do you want me to get behind you?”  He crawled over to my side of the bed and I sat in between his legs and laid on his chest while he held me and I nursed our baby in my arms.  In that moment, it was everything I needed. He was everything I needed. I needed him to hold me up both in his arms and emotionally and he was.  Without being asked.

Every night I would collaspse onto the bed desperate for sleep and he would come curl up behind me and spoon me for a minute.  I was like a child that needed their mother in the middle of the night to comfort them when they were sick and I craved that few minutes every night.  When you get married, you are passing the responsibility of care that your parents once assumed for you on to your spouse and he was fulfilling that role.  He would pray out loud while he held my hand each night and then we would tackle and battle through it all…together.  I haven’t been that totally dependent on another person since I was a newborn myself.  As I fell down hard and he rose to the occasion, I felt years of hurt and un-vunerability be chipped away until I found myself the blushing bride he married, ready to give her heart fully and trusting again.  I felt renewed.  I was his.  Again.

If I had to give a praise to this experience or a word to it that sums it all up, it would be rescued.  It was such a deep dark experience for me that really no one saw it but my family and husband.  I kept myself hidden.  To most people they talked to me before it hit and then when I was normal again a month later.  To most of the world, it was like it never happened.  But it was real and because of the reality of it I HAD to be rescued because I was in total dependence.  I couldn’t do anything for myself or pull from anything inside of me because I was 100 percent shot by it all.  There was no other choice but for me to be recused because I couldn’t save myself.  With every meal, prayer, my sweet doctor, and the Lord who gave me his mercy and grace to have all of those things, little by little I was being pulled from the waters I was being swallowed by. What was once drowning became floating to the surface being pulled from my circumstance.

Thank you, Jesus.

All of this to me is redemption.  Saved from my mess to wake up to a pint-sized, fuzzy-headed baby girl and find a clearer headed version of myself with a better perspective on life.  Redeemed to find a more well-rounded woman who is learning daily to be less selfish.  Redeemed to find a new pair of eyes for the man who I knew wouldn’t be a mistake to choose for forever.  Redeemed to praise God for his daily mercies and his sovereignty in my life with each family member, friend, and spouse He gave to me for such a time as this. Redeemed to praise Him for being Him.

The most wonderful thing about it all is that it will continue to show itself purposeful in my life.  Every time I can take a crying new mother’s baby so she can rest and talk to her and encourage her about the light and redemption that is hard to see.  Every time I get an email from a mom who has read my journey and says thank you and asks me how she can cope with this time in her life.  And redeeming still when I go to the hospital to see Eden’s first child and answer the phone a few days later to an exhausted and depleted new mommy on the other end.  I can tell her, “I remember when I was so weak and defeated that I couldn’t even pick you up.  I couldn’t stop crying and crying.  I felt like I could never be a mother on my own and then almost as quickly as I went under, I found myself cuddled next to you in bed as the sunlight traced your face and I loved every inch of you and being your mom.  Then I realized I was doing it.  And being your mom was the best thing I’ve ever done.”

I hear my sweet baby crying softly for me in the next room fighting the nap we both probably need.  I feel overwhelmed while I write this but for once, in a good way.  I’m so happy that after all the pills, prayers, shame, joy, rising, and stumbling that on the other side of it all was motherhood.  I suppose it was motherhood all along. 

I find myself where I prayed I’d be: a young stay at home mother to a child that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to have.  I feel rescued. I feel hopeful.  I feel an abundance of love and the richness of the blessing of a child.  And as my eyes well up with tears, more than anything I feel myself and this miraculous disaster being redeemed. 

 And just as it was promised….

it’s beautiful.

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.