This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I was going to write a different post. I just deleted about 300 words on my C-section. About our trip to the hospital, about the hell that is Pitocin, about my doubts and fears and worries. It was a way for me to justify my C-section to all of you.

Which is bullshit.

My C-section came from a decision made by my doctor, Adam, and myself. It was the right decision for me. When we have another child it will be by C-section. Not because my doctor won't support a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC), but because I don't want one.

That's right. I want to have another C-section. There are so, SO many things that I cannot control about pregnancy and motherhood. This is a decision that I get to make and I have made it. I am not a victim and I am not ill-informed.

I am supported and listened to, and I have chosen a C-section. I also want to have a doula present. I do not want to watch the procedure, but I do want skin-to-skin contact with my baby in the operating room while I am being closed up, and family time before I am moved to recovery.

I understand there are doctors who use C-sections to avoid long labors, and there are doctors who use them when they are not medically necessary, and there are doctors who use them without the consent of the mother or without offering other options. The depths of my anger at these doctors can only be surpassed by the anger of the women they have committed malpractice on. I understand the numbers of C-sections performed in this country are extremely worrying and the number of doctors who flatly refuse to consider VBAC is absolutely ridiculous. There are so many things that need to change and I will do my best to help change them.

But can we all stop talking about how horrible C-section is? Because it isn't. The C-section, in and of itself, is not a horrible thing. It is a surgery designed to bring life into the world. It is a tool, and like any tool it can be misused. It can be horribly misused.

Your C-section experience may have been awful. I know women, women I love, who had doctors I would like to gut punch for the way their C-sections happened. That does not invalidate my experience or my choice. It does not make C-section horrible.

Your C-section recovery may have been awful. That does not make C-section awful. Your C-section may have been unnecessary. That does not make C-section unnecessary.

I am not going to explain to you why I had my first C-section or why I would choose to have another. I will not explain to you why I would co-sleep or not, or in what form. I will not explain to you why I will breastfeed or bottle feed or pump or any mixture of all three. These are choices that I have and will make. They have medical consequences for myself, my baby, and my family. I will consider them and then I get to choose. That is how it should work.

Most days I am unsure of what I have learned or am learning by being on this mothering journey. Today there is one thing that I know for certain — I will not judge you. I will not judge your life, your choices, your pain, your joy. I will and have and do stand for the rights of all mothers to make informed choices about what is best for their bodies and their babies.

I would ask that you all do the same. Not every C-section is coerced, wrong, unnecessary, or preceded by a terrifying medical saga. Some were simply the right choice for the mother and child. Some were good. Some were joyous.

My prayer is that every child can come into this world in the best way for that family. That every mother can make decisions with and for her family without being judged. That we can all stand by and for each other as we demand better pre- and postnatal care for every woman in America.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.

THIS POST IS ABOUT ME BEING TRIGGERED INTO A SEVERE ANXIETY ATTACK.

Please don't read any further if it could trigger you as well.

Since I've been in recovery, there have been a few blog posts that I have avoided reading — even from writers and friends that I love. Sometimes I just knew that there were things I couldn't have in my head right then.

Most of them didn't come with trigger warnings. I've always been of two minds about them — if you think that something could hurt someone then of course you should warn them, but how can you ever know? I don't think that my experience has cleared my thinking at all. There was no way anyone could have foreseen what happened to us last night.

We had a plan for the weekend. My mom has the Little Monster and we were going to have a "just us"weekend. No hanging out with friends or parties, just the two of us doing two of us stuff — movies and board games and sitting by the fire and going to dinner and maybe even sexy time if my legs ever recovered from my first session of Personal Trainer From Hell.

We went to dinner at a restaurant on the harbor with a view of the city and the aircraft carrier. We had seafood and steak and key lime pie. Life was goooooooood. We got to the movie theater and rolled our eyes at all the 50 Shades of Nonsense and settled in for a fun ride. We went to see "Kingsman." And it was fun. Violent, really violent in a wacky way — but we were prepared for that. And then there was the baby. (SPOILER ALERT!) At the end there is a mother and her toddler. The mother has locked the toddler in a bathroom and thrown away the key. She has done this under orders from someone who is trying to keep them both safe. What she doesn't know, and the audience does, is that she — and everyone in London — is about to be turned into something more beast than human whose only desire is to do violence and kill. As the main characters fight to stop the evil plot to destroy the world this way we get cuts of people fighting like dogs in the streets and landmarks and pubs of London and cuts of this mother battering the door to that bathroom while her baby daughter cries inside. First with her fists — and then away to street scenes, action hero day saving, etc. — then things are better for a moment. Did our hero win? The fog clears and the mother looks at the bathroom door in horror before the violence descends again and suddenly she has a butcher knife and is attacking the door with that. Of course our hero saves the day and one of the last scenes in the film is of that mother holding her daughter and repeating over and over, "Mommy would never hurt you."

I ran. Typing it out now, I want to run again. I can still see every frame of the last ten minutes of that movie in my mind. I pushed through the people leaving our theatre and the crowds of Christian wannabes lining up outside and I pushed through the lobby and the doors and out into the cold, damp air. I got away from the people as far as I could while still being able to see the door and I willed myself to not throw up.

There was enough adrenaline in my system at that moment that I could have run the 10(ish) miles to my mother's house from that movie theatre, and I thought about it. I stood there in the cold and tried to remember to breathe. I waited for Dork Dad to make his way out and find me and I told myself over and over that our Little Monster was fine, that he was asleep with his grandmother, that I did NOT need to see him, that he was safe. Under no circumstances was I going to make Dork Dad drive us out there and wake up my baby. My body shook with the wanting to run to him right then and the willpower it took to stay in that one place. I felt like a cartoon character who had been hit by a cannonball — there was a huge yawning pit where my heart should have been and I NEEDED my baby in my arms. Which was ridiculous. He was fine. Everyone was safe. You are not crazy, you will not act crazy. You will stop standing here crying in public. You will NOT ask to be taken out there.

Dork Dad found me in a minute or two that felt like hours. He walked up to me and wrapped me in his arms and I almost fainted from relief. The first thing I said was "I need my baby." I don't know if I ever stopped saying it. One part of my head was screaming it over and over. I was terrified and I needed my baby. I needed to hold him, to touch him, to KNOW in my bones that he was there and safe and alive.

The other part of me was pissed. Because this was it. I had failed utterly and completely. I was now the crazy woman being helped to the car with tears and snot running down her face. No one marries that woman. No one stays with that woman. At some point one of my contacts came out. I remember the 20-minute drive as a haze of twinkling lights seen through tears — white from the cars and sometimes red or green from the stoplights. My mother wasn't going to understand. I was in no shape to handle her. So Dork Dad was going to have to do that too. I had ruined our night. I couldn't uncross my arms. If I let go I might literally fall to pieces in the car instead of just in my head. I was, at that very moment, killing whatever future we could have together because who could want to build a life with someone like me? And I couldn't stop. I kept opening my mouth to apologize, to tell him to turn back, and I couldn't.

Of course she was asleep when we got there. I don't really remember how we got in. I remember him calling her cell phone what felt like ten times and I thought I was screaming. "He's right there, why can't I have my baby?!" but looking back now I was probably whispering or whimpering. If I had actually been screaming things would have gone much differently.

Then the door was open. The door was open and suddenly my legs didn't hurt any more and nothing was wrong and I was up all of the stairs and there he was. He was just sitting up and rubbing his eyes and I reached down and he reached up and we were safe. We were OK. And he just folded himself into the hole in me and filled it. I sat down and cradled him in my lap and he sighed and closed his eyes, because Mama was there. And he was warm and sleepy, soft and perfect. I don't know how long we sat and rocked like that. At some point he looked at me and stroked my cheeks and I was okay.

I apologized for waking him up and told him that Mama just needed a hug and a kiss. He looked at me with wise, 20-month-old eyes and rubbed his cheek to mine, which was even better. I put him back in the pack and play in my mom's room and told him it was time to settle down now. He grabbed his puppy and his blankie and curled up and I sang him our goodnight song. I curled up on the floor and watched through the mesh as he shifted and settled.

I don't know how I made it down the stairs. The adrenaline and my second contact were gone, the pain in my legs was excruciating (really the worst workout, ever!) and my head was pounding. I remember apologizing to Dork Dad and my mom. I remember him holding me again. He got me to the car. Digging around in my purse for something to clean my face with, I came up with one of the Little Monster's sweatshirts. It helped to have something of him to hold as we were driving away from him. Dork Dad said we could come get him in the morning if I wanted — but I couldn't want anything through the pain and the fatigue that settled fast and thick, pressing me into a ball in the seat of the car. He got me home and inside. He got me undressed and tucked into bed, still with that hoodie in my hands. I tossed and turned all night last night. The pain in my legs and head not letting me really get comfortable, my dreams disjointed and unsettling, not letting me get any real rest.

My strongest impressions of last night are the fear that gripped me, the utter relief of holding my child, and the absolute faith that Dork Dad would take care of me. THAT MAN. That man went through all that and held my hand while I slept, and when I woke up this morning barely able to look him in the eyes, he said that he loves me and that he doesn't want anyone else. He is a fucking miracle.

In the sunlight I know that we are all safe. That it will be OK. Now it's just the guilt and shame that I have to wade through.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

A friend of mine wrote a Facebook post some weeks back that has stuck with me. She said that she keeps having to start over. Or is it getting to start over? And which way should she think of it?

I don't know. I do know that I'm grateful each morning that I get to start over. That I get another chance to be a mother, a girlfriend, a daughter, a sister, a business owner, a friend, an advocate. I get to try once again to pick myself up off the mat, dust myself off and charge into battle.

BUT.

Holy shit is it disheartening to have to start over. And over, and over, and over. Especially when you KNOW that you will just have to start over again. This is one of the frustrations of mental illness and one of the hardest things to explain to others. My friends out there with chronic diseases know what I mean. You can make a general outline of how you'd like the day to go, you can set up a to-do list, but so much of your life is completely out of your hands.

There are things I can do to manage my illness — eat well, exercise, talk therapy, meditation, scheduling, community, and medication are all tools in my arsenal. At the moment I am using all of them to some degree except for medication. Still — there are things that can pop up and take over your day.

Let me give you an example:

I can't deal with clutter. It raises my anxiety levels, which make me feel powerless, which leads to anger and rage and eventually depression. It's a fun little cycle that I run in full or in miniature at least once a week. I run it because our house is tiny, we have a toddler, I have limited energy, and clutter does not bother Adam in the least. He honestly doesn't notice it.

If it would be possible to have nothing at all on any flat surface in our house I think I would lay down and die of joy. If everything could just have a place to live and then go live there, well, I don't even know how I would react to that kind of happiness. Right now there just isn't a home for everything. So every day I fight the clutter war — how much can I deal with looking at vs. how much energy and time do I have to expend on picking up?

This morning, I woke up feeling closed in. There is too much stuff everywhere (which is true) and I can't make room for myself here (which is not, but feels like it is). The things in the house become judgments. They become symbols. The couch in the office means that having room for his parents three times a year is more important to Adam than my having a place to work. The absolute jumble in the kitchen means that I don't have the wherewithal to take care of my family or myself. The crap scattered across the living room means that we are trashy people who don't love our son enough to give him a clean home.

Are these things true? Of course not. Tomorrow, they will sound even more ridiculous to me than they sound right now as I type this. Hopefully the day after that, this feeling will have faded even more. Today, though, they feel absolutely true and they hurt. The idea behind the thought may not be real, the thought may be false, but the pain is real and true and deep.

What triggered all of this? The recycling bin is full. That's it. That's all it takes. The miracle in all this is that I was able to pinpoint one thing that was my trigger today. I can't begin to explain what it's like to actually know what's making me crazy for once!

Thankfully today it made me angry. It made me motivated. So today I'll clean and throw away and reorganize and plan and obsess and get frustrated and probably throw something and, yes, my entire afternoon will now be about this. If I'm lucky, I'll get half of what was planned for today actually completed. And that's okay. This is how my days work sometimes — things go off the rails. I said 'thankfully' above because it could have gone another way — blame and shame and guilt and then fatigue and tears and me on the couch or in bed and not being able to get up.

It isn't every day. It isn't every week. It's less and less and I'm getting better and better at managing my triggers and creating the type of life that has wiggle room for when the bad days do occur. I'm getting better and better at recognizing the lying thoughts and letting them move through my mind without dwelling on them. I'm getting better and better at asking for help and setting myself up for success. I'm getting better and better. Every morning I get to start over. Some mornings you just have to start over.

P.S. Turns out, it's not just me — check out this article on clutter and depression and anxiety.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I'm scared.

Every time it happens, I get scared.

A few days ago I started feeling sick. And then I got scared. When my body gets sick my vulnerable brain becomes even more vulnerable.

All of the things I have to fight on a daily basis, all of those negative voices telling me I can't, that I won't, that I don't deserve and can't keep love and sanity — they get louder when I feel physically weak.

The first sniffle scares me, and by the time I'm coughing and stuffy, I am also quietly terrified. This can lead to some... er... interesting behavior.

Yesterday I woke up at around 3:30 a.m. with a 101º fever. I was shaking and sweating, but it was the aching that woke me. I felt like someone had taken each one of my joints and beaten them with a baseball bat. The pain throbbed and radiated, doubled back, and began again. And so I refused. I got up and got some water and cold meds. The pain wouldn't let me sleep so I dozed and Netflixed (if it isn't a word, it should be).

Once Buddy and Adam were awake I took a shower, fed the baby, and made my grocery list. We went to two stores and I had two crockpots going by nap time. I made tea from ginger root and lemons. I cleaned the living room. I used Clorox wipes and Lysol spray on pretty much every surface in my home. I drank water and more water. I felt worse and worse.

By the time our sitter arrived at 1 p.m., I was barely making it. I dragged myself to the urgent care closest to my house, dropped into a chair, and whimpered. I had lost. I was defeated. Once again, I couldn't take care of myself.

Turns out I have a sinus infection and strep throat. The doctor "didn't like the look of" my ears either, but they weren't infected, just inflamed.

I took my medicine and got into bed to rest. But I couldn't stay there.

When the running loop in your head, the background narrative of your days, is about your weakness and all you lack, actually being weak is unacceptable. I can't just let Adam bring me dinner, or a blanket. I see his frustration when I pop up off the couch for the millionth time to do something he would be happy to do for me.

But I can't because I'm already a burden. Because he only stays with me for the baby. Because at any moment he could leave and I wouldn't be able to take care of us. Because if I'm not good enough he'll never want to marry me. Because he could take my son. Because no one has ever trusted me. Because they were all right and I haven't made anything out of myself. Because I waste my time and my talent. Because I could be so much more but I'm just a mother. Because I'm not even a good mother. Because, because, because...

And yes — I know that none of that is true. Of course I know that. But so what? Knowing that is no defense against them. My head is a complicated and scary place. Being able to do things, being able to prove my head wrong is sometimes the only thing I can do to shut it down. When that option is taken away...

So I push too hard and I try to do too much. Then I end up feeling even more weak and pathetic. I end up crying because I have to ask him to heat me up a cup of cider because I've been trying for five minutes to summon the energy to stand up and I just can't.

I woke up feeling stronger today. Ironically I'm also taking it easier on myself. Taking a shower at some point and getting the laundry from the washer to the dryer are my goals for the day. When our sitter arrives I'm going to climb into bed. Here's hoping I can stay there.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I went to the gym yesterday. On purpose. I really wish you all could hear the MASSIVE sigh I sighed after writing those two sentences.

So I met with a 12-year-old named Nate who took me through an assessment and promised to kick my ass and have me feeling stronger, with better balance, and more stamina — in a month. He just graduated from college and landed his dream job as a trainer where he can design torture plans, so he's all shiny and optimistic while he hands me scary stat after scary stat.

Look, I know that a big, BIG component of my feeling better mentally is feeling better physically. When I feel strong, I feel strong. When I feel healthy, I feel healthy. I also know the depression and anxiety I've been battling have physical components and side effects.

Like this — my resting heart rate is high. Like he took it three times high. He asked me to take it myself in the mornings before I get out of bed so that we can get a "true baseline" because it's that high. After walking on the treadmill for a while and talking about things and then resting for a minute it actually came down BELOW where I had started. Probably because I was distracted and unable to worry. So my brain is actually killing me. The worry, the anxiety, the stress is actually stressing out my heart. Well, that's good to know and will totally calm me down. Add in the high blood pressure and the high body fat percentage and folks we have one unhealthy Mama!

Turns out, Ben and Jerry don't love my body as much as my body loves them. Maybe I should actually USE the subscription to the guided meditation site instead of putting it off every day. Maybe I should USE the gym membership instead of planning and then feeling guilty because I didn't go.

Sitting at my computer, worrying about all of the numbers and their meanings, will not help me. I want to get better, I want to stay better, I want another child, I want to live for all of the years and to do all of the things.

So I'm going to let Nate kick my ass and I'm breaking up with Ben and Jerry. I'm signing off now so I can try the meditation while Buddy naps. I'm going to take care of myself so  I can keep fighting. Because this sucks. So it must be fixed.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

For many women, it starts before they even know they're pregnant. I had baby names picked out when I was five. I practiced changing diapers, feeding, rocking, and putting my "baby" to bed. I was ready for sleepless nights and poop everywhere. I got so many things from other moms at my baby shower. It was a wonderful day filled with advice and gadgets, tiny clothes, and whispered truths.

But no one told me about postpartum depression or anxiety or OCD or psychosis.

We need to do better

I was not ready for what happened after my baby was born. Dork Dad wasn't ready for it. We could have been and we should have been.

Maternal mental health issues are the number one complication of pregnancy. They are also one of the very few mental illnesses that can be predicted and prepared for, so why are we not warning mothers? Why are we not warning fathers? Why are we not equipping parents to be with this information?

We have classes that expectant parents can take covering breastfeeding, birth plans, and what to expect in the first days and weeks with your newborn. The vast majority of the classes in my area (Charleston, SC) mention only postpartum depression and only in passing. It comes off as a thing that probably won't happen to you, but if it does here's this phone number.

With 1 in 7 women suffering from a maternal mental health complication after birth, the odds actually are that it will happen to someone in each of those classes. Depression, anxiety, OCD, and psychosis are all things that do happen to about 1.3 million new mothers each year. They happen to first-time moms and to veteran moms. They happen to moms of all ages, races, and economic status. They happen to healthy moms and moms struggling to bring their babies into this world.

We need to prepare families with the facts. We know that the faster mothers are seen by medical professionals and the more help is offered to a family, the better the outcome. We know women are generally terrified by the changes to their minds and it is often their partners or a close family member who notices the changes first. We need to make sure they are ready.

So here are my recommendations for expectant parents:

1. Please know this is a medical complication of pregnancy. It is not a judgement on anything that you did or did not do. You can take actions now that will help you if you do become ill.

2. Here are some risk factors for maternal mental illnesses. If you meet any of these criteria, please make sure to discuss this with your ob/gyn.

3. Here are some of the symptoms of maternal mental illnesses. Please know that some of these may show up during pregnancy, and there are medications and therapies that are safe for pregnant and nursing mothers!

4. Talk to your obstetrician, your midwife — whoever will be attending your birth — about your risk factors. Ask them about how they follow up with you after birth and about their screening process. Ask them about the steps you would need to take to get a referral for a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist. Ask them about support groups in your area. Google "postpartum depression help zip code" with your zip code, or contact me through the comments section and I will help you.

5. When you do meet with pediatricians to choose one for your baby, talk to them about whether they screen parents at each visit in the first year as well. Ask them about support groups they know of for parents dealing with these issues.

6. Call or go online and find out what steps you would need to take to have any mental health treatment covered by your health insurance. Can you call a doctor directly or would you need a referral?

7. Talk to your partner or whoever will be with you the most after your baby is born. Go over this list with them. Make sure they understand your risk factors, if you have any, and that they know what the symptoms could be and who to call to get you help.

8. Write it down! Put the phone numbers for any support groups, therapists, and local groups somewhere that you can find it easily. If there are any rules from your health insurance or any recommendations from your doctor write those down as well.

Preparing yourself is preparing for baby, too

There are so many things you'll be doing to get ready for baby. You have a nursery to set up, or a car seat to install, or a co-sleeper to arrange or, or, or! Please don't forget that what your baby will need the most is a healthy mother. While you're preparing everything for baby, please take a few moments to prepare things for yourself as well.

We all need to ask for what we need both during and after pregnancy. We cannot end the stigma surrounding these diseases by pretending they can't happen to us or by denying families the facts. We can create a safety net around baby and parent that will hold them and lift them up. We can promote healing. We can do this. You are not alone.

Please share this post with every expectant parent you know, with every ob/gyn and pediatrician you know, with every person you know who regularly comes into contact with, with new or expecting parents!

What are some things you wish you had known about maternal mental illness before your baby was born? What else would you add to this list?

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

1.3 million women every single year.

The number one complication of childbirth.

One of the leading causes of death for women in the first year postpartum.

The silence coming from the medical profession on maternal mental illnesses (MMIs) rattles me.

I realize doctors get almost no training on this issue. Ob/yns see it as a mental health problem. Psychologists and psychiatrists see it as a complication of childbirth. Pediatricians see it as a problem for the mother. No one wants to own this.

The newspapers and TV shows paint us as killers or crazy women throwing babies out of windows or driving cars into the ocean.

No one wants to own this.

Mothers smile through doctor appointments and say nothing about the sleeplessness, anxiety, fear, shame, and certainty they are the only ones suffering.

No one wants to own this.

This disease is ancient. Hippocrates called it milk fever. Freud said we were neurotic. In the 50s they gave us electroshock therapy... or Valium. This is not new. Modern mothers are not weak, we are not failing, we are not crazy, and we are not lying.

We are dying. Our children are dying. And no one wants to own this.

In fact, more women will suffer from postpartum depression and related illnesses in a year than the combined number of new cases for men and women of tuberculosis, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, lupus, and epilepsy. 

The stigma and silence surrounding these diseases are killing women and children and ripping families apart.

Here is what we know. 

We know with treatment and support women can heal dramatically and families can be strengthened. We know children of women with MMIs can suffer social, cognitive, and learning delays if their mothers are not given this support. We are finding out now that the lack of bonding can negatively impact brain development. Not supporting mothers actually hurts children.

We know there is NO STANDARD OF CARE for screening of mothers, for referrals, or for treatment from either the American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) or the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). We know that new mothers are seen before leaving the hospital and in about six weeks postpartum. We know that infants are seen multiple times in the first months of life. We know that MMI onset can occur any time in the first year postpartum. We know that mothers and children are seen multiple times when they are most vulnerable and we know women are falling through the cracks. We know women are dying. We know children are dying.

No one wants to own this.

We know that these diseases manifest differently in each mother. We know women need individualized care. We know families need to be educated on what to look for and doctors need to be educated on where to refer women in their communities.  We need health insurance to cover all women, we need support groups, we need a standard of care and a community ready to support families. We need to banish the stigma.

‍WE NEED TO OWN THIS.

So how can you help?

• You can contact your ob/gyn and your Pediatrician and ask them to use these screening tools every time they see a mother who is pregnant or in the first year postpartum.
• You can use this link to find care providers in your area.
• You can share your story of survival.
• You can take this survey if you have suffered, women of color can take this survey as well.
• You can send an email to the ACOG asking them to create a standard of care for mothers.
• You can send an email to the AAP asking them to commit their members to screen mothers at each infant visit.
• You can watch and share this documentary.
• You can talk to any expectant mother you know about the symptoms of MMI and encourage them to have a treatment plan in place.
• You can ask a new mother how she is. You can keep asking.
• You can support The Family Act.
• You can follow and share and reach out using these hashtags: #warriormoms #standwithmoms #ppd #momsmatter #iamtheface.
• You can take ownership. You can stand with me as we say that We Own This and we will fight for an end to the stigma and the silence that is killing mothers and children across the country.

In the coming days and weeks I will be focusing on each of these action steps in more depth. I want you all to know there are multiple things that each of us can do to help ourselves and each other. 

If you need someone to talk to, I'm right here. You can also reach out to the Postpartum Stress International's warm line at 1-800-273-8255. We are here for you and WE'VE GOT THIS.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I am, constantly, starting over. New Year's Day and all the resolutions that tend to come with it never really faze me simply because I am resolving, struggling, losing, falling, and resolving all the time. There is always a new idea. There is always a way to feel better, to stay on top of the housework, to stay motivated, to lose weight. There is always something.

I need some nothing.

I've been feeling overwhelmed for months now and not really been able to put my finger on exactly why. I thought it was because I'm off the Zoloft. I thought it was because I'm only meeting with my therapist twice a month. I thought it was because I'm still sick.

Guess what?

My life is overwhelming.

I am not sick, or broken, or wrong. I am chipped and damaged. I am vulnerable and fragile. I have fears and anxieties. I forgot for a while I was like that before the postpartum depression/anxiety maelstrom. I forgot for a while that EVERYONE is like that to some degree.

Things are getting more and more clear lately. I'm finally starting to listen to myself and tune out a lot of the outside world. What I'm hearing is that I need less. I need less mess. I need fewer demands on my time and mental energy. I need less noise. I need less weight on my body and less guilt on my soul. I have a gut feeling that will lead me to more.

I want to spend less time on my job so I can spend more time advocating for families dealing with maternal mental illnesses.
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I want to spend less time dealing with extended family drama so that I can spend more time having fun with my nuclear family.

I want to clear out the things we do not need so we are surrounded only by things we really love and things that make us happy.

I want to turn off the TV, the computer, the tablet and spend more time rolling around on the floor with my son.

I want to lose weight so I can get pregnant and have a healthy, happy pregnancy and birth.

I want to stop worrying about everything I'm not good at and focus on what makes me strong.

Please don't let this fool you into thinking I have any idea at all of how to get there. All I know right now is I want to be a person who works toward these things every day.

What do you want? Do you know how you want to get it? How do we get from here to there?

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

Babies. I wants one.

Yes, I know I already have one, I mean I want another one. Adam seems amenable to the idea in a general way. Is that because he knows it will mean more sex for him? Probably. He also just doesn't get as totally terrified about things as I do. People who are mentally stable tend to be, well, mentally stable. Go figure.

Here's my thinking: So far we have not totally screwed up this kid. We seem to be able to do this. I hated being an only child. Adam loved having a little brother. We both want Buddy to have a sibling. Yes, it's expensive and I could totally lose my mind again. But... we're not done. That's just it. I know we aren't done yet. I've known for a while now.

So, now what?

Well, this is where it gets complicated. This is also where I start overthinking, over planning, and completely freaking out.

My OB/GYN wants me to lose 10-15 pounds before we start actively trying. I had some serious blood pressure issues last time that we want to try to avoid as naturally as possible. She also wanted me to know that I would probably need a C-section again* and that I may not be able to carry the full 40, but that will all be a wait-and-see kind of thing.

My therapist wants me to prepare myself and my family as much as possible for the worst-case scenario — stronger postpartum depression and anxiety. I didn't show any signs of psychosis or intrusive thoughts last time, but we need a plan for that possibility.

I've been making lists in my head. I make them in my head because if I make them on paper then they'll become plans. If they become plans then we'll end up with a baby. We can't have a baby! We barely survived the first one and there's no way that we are not totally screwing this kid up every day.

Master List of Lists

•        Lose weight and get healthy for conception
•        Gain healthy weight during pregnancy
•        Things needed for new baby
•        Save for things for new baby
•        Birth Plan
•        AFTER Birth Plan (longest list)
•        Reasons I want to try and breastfeed
•        Reasons I should not try and breastfeed
•        Learn to be selfish for baby and for me 
•        Things to blog about
•        Doula — what we want/need from one
•        Ways to prepare Snot Monster for a sibling
•        Ways to automate my business

These are the headings for all of the lists I have running. Plus the Thanksgiving lists and the Christmas lists and the lists I keep for my business, the house, and the myriad lists I use to keep the Snot Monster alive. The lists help me to organize my thoughts and to have some sense of control. 

The last two months have been tough. I've been sick, a LOT. Migraine, food poisoning, stomach flu, and a virus that tried to rip out my throat have knocked me down hard and put a lot of pressure on us as a family. Each time I thought about how much harder all of this would be if we had a toddler and a baby. So much harder. Infinitely harder. 

BUT

In my heart's eye there is a glider that sits next to our bed. In the glider is a me and a baby. Sometimes she is a girl and sometimes he is a boy. We are curled up in the chair and the baby is brand-new. With my heart's eye I can see Adam come into the room and settle a blanket around us. Just that — the feel of the chair, the smell of brand-new baby, and the warmth from the blanket. We aren't done. 

* A post about my C-section will be coming later. It was necessary and I actually want another one. Please don't leave comments about how I can avoid one. It triggers a lot of guilt for me.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

Can we all just be honest? Really honest — with ourselves and with the people around us. I'm looking for some OUT LOUD honesty about some deep, dark shit right now.

In case you hadn't heard a man was pulled over for a supposed seat belt violation in Columbia, SC a few weeks ago. He pulled into a gas station and exited the vehicle. The cop pulled in behind him and asked to see his license and registration. The man turned and leaned into his car to get those things and the officer started yelling and shot the man in the hip.

Guess which one of them was Black.

You didn't have to, did you? You were already picturing the driver as Black. You weren't wrong.

Guess which one of them ended up bleeding and handcuffed AND APOLOGIZING on the ground. Yes. While asking the cop why he was shot, he was also apologizing, over and over. Why? Because he was probably scared of being shot again.

If you're sick of hearing about this — if you're tired of people bringing this up or you feel like we're harping on something, please take a moment and think about how fucking tired we are of being terrified.

Honestly — I almost didn't write this. Who am I? I'm not a "real'"blogger — whatever that is. I don't have a large following or a lot of experience. I'm not a reporter or a sociologist. Shit, I had a baby with a white guy, so on the scale of who should be scared for their son I'm not even... WAIT! STOP!

That is the shit that institutional racism does. It helps to keep people silent. It leads to thoughts like I should be less terrified than a mother with a darker-skinned son. Which means I'm somehow accepting the premise that in AMERICA in 2014 a mother should have to worry about her son being shot or killed over a SEATBELT VIOLATION.

So what can we do?

Well, maybe we could start by telling the truth. The dark and ugly truths. All of them. We are taught in this country that Black Men are dangerous. We are taught by our government, by our families, by the media — it is in the damn ether. We're all taught this, Black, white, Asian, Latino, Native American — it doesn't matter who you are, the message is the same.

So maybe instead of saying "urban" we could just say Black.
Instead of saying a neighborhood is "sketchy" just say that poor Black people live there.
Replace 'thug' with scary Black guy.

BE HONEST.

Stop and think about what we are thinking and what we are saying. Think about the casual racism, bigotry, and prejudice that exists in our everyday lives. Call yourself out. It will hurt. It will, at the very least, be uncomfortable. I don't really care. I don't really care that it makes you a little uncomfortable to admit that you don't trust people who don't look like you (or who do). That you are surprised when the young Black man you encounter speaks well. That you think "articulate" and "pretty for a Black girl" are actual compliments.

We don't have to come up with a plan, we don't have to elect better leaders or enact legislation. We don't have to screen cops for racist attitudes or educate them about the fact that most Black men are not dangerous. We don't have to march or give speeches.

If every single one of us — if just you — will honestly look at yourself, call yourself out on your own shit, name it and bring it into the light, then I promise you things will change. It has to be personal and it has to start right now.  I don't care who you are or where you come from, I can promise you that there is some racist/bigoted/prejudiced crap floating around in your head.

You can stop it. You can start to notice when you have these thoughts and you can question where they come from. You can ask yourself if it's bullshit. You can take a deep breath and shake that shit off. You can do this over and over.

And then? Then you'll start to see the racist messages in the movies, music, commercials and TV shows. You'll start to recognize the coded language and the fear mongering from the politicians.

And then? You may even start to call out others on their crap. You may start to demand honesty from family and friends, from leaders and would be leaders.

And then? You may start to vote differently. You may start to demand change. You may become a real ally to the families of the hundreds of Black men and boys who are shot and killed each year in this country by police and security guards. You may even raise a cop or security guard who doesn't kill an unarmed Black kid.

This isn't an easy solution. This doesn't shift blame to anyone else. You are not absolved. YOU HAVE WORK TO DO.

So do I. We all do.

And it will be hard and it will hurt. Everywhere we will get messages that we are being too tough on ourselves or on others. That we are crossing the line into political correctness, that we are soft on crime or that we do not support our police. There are tentacles of racism and bigotry everywhere and they will tell you that this isn't that big of a problem. Or that it isn't your problem. It can't possibly be your problem.

It is.

Look down.

You have blood on your hands.

We all do.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I've written and rewritten this post in my head a million times over the last few days. I've tried to let it go and to stay away from the subject, but I can't.

I should have learned by now to not read the comments online. Read the article if it looks interesting, but for all that is holy DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS! I don't ever learn.

I was on a site I consider a safe space. The blog past was a serious question from a white, middle income, pretty well-known writer — who should she be reading more in regards to privilege and the especially the events in #Ferguson? I thought it was a good reaction — she couldn't understand what could make a group of people seemingly take leave of their sense, and she wanted to understand. She had picked race and privilege as her starting point, which I thought was reasonable. That was the last reasonable statement I read.

The judgments flew thick and fast. I started shaking and had to shut down the page.

You cannot tell a group of people that they are animals, and treat them worse than you treat animals, and enslave them and dehumanize them and rape them and lie to them about themselves and steal their languages and religion and replace it with your own and give them tiny amounts of dignity and pay lip service to their inalienable rights and lock them in prisons and not let them vote and drug them and use them as medical guinea pigs without their knowledge and make millions from their labor, their DNA, their ideas and leave them in a ghetto and then tell them that they are lazy and have never contributed and systematically kill their male children and then expect them to act like what? Like it's OK? None of those previous examples was hyperbole, by the way. THAT IS MY FAMILY TREE. That is my history. That is your history. Systematic conquest, rape and pillage, slavery, and legal dehumanization.

My son is 14 months old. He runs flat out until he falls down and then he gets angry at the ground. He loves swings. He hates rice. His laugh is the best sound in the universe.

At some point I will have to start teaching him about how not to get killed by the police. I will have to teach him that he cannot walk this world as a man all of the time. He cannot hold his head high all of the time. He cannot wear his pride easily and comfortably all of the time.

It is not safe to walk in your apartment complex.
It is not safe to walk in your neighborhood.
It is not safe to drive anywhere. Ever.
It is not safe to talk to the police.
It is not safe to not talk to the police.
It is not safe to stand up for yourself.
It is not safe to back away with your hands up begging for your life.

It is not safe to be a Black male in this country. And I did that. I made him that. I made him something that could kill him. I am his mother and I did that.

THIS is the psychosis that years of oppression has wrought. The fact that I should have that thought, that I should carry that guilt and fear — that is the end result of what started thousands of years ago and has never stopped.

If you cannot understand the impulse to smash everything you see and to burn it all down to the ground, then I am happy for you. Good. You won the lottery and got to be born something other than Black in America.

I look into his big brown eyes and I see a brand-new soul who is so excited about this world. One day I will have to look into those eyes and explain this world does not value his soul.

Every 28 hours in America a Black man under the age of 25 is killed. If you don't want to deal with the issues that cause this now, that's fine. We never do. That's OK. We'll get another chance soon.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I just want to take a bath.

I just want to sleep.

to not be in charge.

to awake refreshed.

to look forward to something.

to get excited.

to feel comfortable.

to be comforted.

to not be so damn angry.

to make progress.

to feel as if I've made progress.

to finish something. ANYTHING.

to cuddle.

to not be scared.

to not have to hold on so tight.

to not watch others let go.

to not have to say goodbye.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

First you have to decide that this is going to happen. You are going to grow things. You have to understand that this will be a time suck, that money will be wasted, that things will die and be thrown away. That has to be OK with you. Now you can proceed.

The dirt that you already have in your garden or yard, the free dirt, is crap. Well — it's probably crap. Dig down a little — is it dark? Does it have disgusting things creeping and/or crawling through it? Is it fragrant? If it is, then you're good. You only have to buy mulch and some plants or seeds. If not, then this is about to get interesting.

Did I mention I hate bugs? I hate worms, too. I hate all of the icky, creepy, crawly things that make a garden healthy. So yeah, of course I decided to garden as organically as possible. Because I'm NUTS.

I was lucky in that the woman who lived here before us had already built raised beds in our side yard. I bought a shovel and a wheelbarrow and started to dig. I can't remember how long it took to get all of the used up, crappy dirt out of the bed. I do remember that somewhere in the middle I decided to only work on one bed this year because I may be nuts, but I have not gone totally round the bend yet.

So I got all the crap dirt out. Then I bought bags of good dirt and bags of compost and bags of mulch. In the meantime I had been saving eggshells and coffee grounds and veggie scraps in a gallon Ziploc bag. I'd been ordering heirloom seeds online and had started them in organic seed starters. My kitchen table and living room looked like a greenhouse, there was dirt everywhere.

I put the good dirt in, mixed the kitchen nastiness in with it, added some organic boosters, and gave the whole thing a good soaking once every other day for two weeks. Weeds started popping up and I was RUTHLESS about yanking them out. After all the time and money I had spent on the damn garden these crappy plants were not going to steal my super expensive nutrients.

Then came the check — I dug down into the dirt. There were worms, there were bugs, there was a whole other extremely disgusting world going on down there. I gagged and then did a happy dance. We were ready to plant!!!

Of course during all this time at least half of the plants I had started from seed had died from overwatering or underwatering or some stupid crap that I did. So I filled in with some trips to Lowe's. You know those jokes about how walking through the front door of Target somehow costs $300? That is me and Lowe's. Still — I went, because I am weak.

I planted. I totally forgot to label what I had put where, so I have no idea what I planted, but there are plants in the ground. My tomatoes immediately started to turn brown and die. I googled, I went to the store and asked for help, I tried a couple of things — they're dead. I leave them in the garden to remind me that sometimes shit just happens.

My lettuce is starting to look like lettuce. The cilantro is recognizable. There are pods on my bean plants and the cucumbers have flowers on them. The onions and shallots are spearing through the ground and the mystery plants are looking good. I can see the garden from my kitchen window. I look out there a lot.

It is hard, it is expensive, it has taken work — a lot of work by me, but also work by Adam. To keep it healthy, I have to be vigilant. I have to make sure it has everything it needs, and I have to be ruthless about cutting out the things that can hurt it. I have to make peace with the creepy and the crawly because they are a part of it. I can't ever stop working on it, loving it, and caring for it — or it will suffer. It is strong and nourishing, but it is also delicate and needs to be balanced.

When I can't handle my depression or my anxiety directly, I can go out to my garden because I have recreated my mind out there. It is mysterious and alive, frightening and overwhelming, demanding and giving, fertile and fruitful and beautiful with dead things all around it, and weeds threatening it constantly.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

When you google “mental health triggers,” you get a range of definitions. Most of them have to do with what can set a person off when they are feeling healthy, or are in what I like to call remission. If you're a big blog reader like I am, you'll see a lot of blogs will have a Trigger Warning at the top. I try to do this when I'm going to be talking graphically about my struggles or about anything else I think might hurt someone who is having a rough day.

Part of the work I'm doing to try and not be quite so nuts is to define my triggers. What are the things, or what are the combination of things, that can send me spiraling down the rabbit hole? It is a depressingly long list — and there are times I can't work on it for that very reason. Having a mental illness and working to get better is like trying to find your way out of a maze using a map created out of a crossword puzzle that is written in a language you don't speak. This shit is HARD.

Just lately there was a really beautiful post written about postpartum depression and anxiety by a blogger I follow and adore. There are times when sharing my story and reading the stories of others feels like a balm on my burned soul. Then there are the other times.

There are times when talking about it, thinking about it, or reading about it can break me into a million pieces and leave me sobbing on the bathroom floor. The tiles are cool and the new rugs I bought are surprisingly absorbent and comfortable. It's a good place to come apart while your baby naps.

The pain that other mothers feel becomes my pain, the bewilderment and fear of their partners becomes my fear, the guilt, the shame, the gut-deep knowledge that you are a failure all become mine while the strength, the hope, the FIGHT all skip merrily away, laughing at me over their shoulders. THAT is what a trigger feels like to me.

I need to emphasize that this is only my experience. Every person is different and is triggered by different things and in different ways. We are all so beautifully and exquisitely and terrifyingly and horribly complicated beings.

Right now I'm treating my mind like a rare and fragile bit of china. I'm trying to see the light through it and appreciate the craftsmanship while being OH SO VERY CAREFUL of just how delicate it is and how easily it can be broken.

I was going to try and list my triggers here but I can't right now, so I'll just sign off with love and hugs to all of you. Fight on please, because Mama loves you!

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

My head shrinker is a mean, mean woman. She's trying to get me to actually do work to heal myself. I know, right?! Grrrrr...

I'm doing it, though. I voluntarily raised my Zoloft dosage because the last couple weeks have been really hard. I've been honest with Adam about the crappiness in my head.

I actually INITIATED a conversation about things that have been bothering me.

Last night I read something on the Facebook timeline of someone who is really close to me. It bothered me. Normally I'd just let it fester, or I'd come here and rant about it anonymously. Instead I reached out to her via private message. You know what? She reached out right back! We had a really civil conversation and although I don't think either of us changed the other's mind, I feel so much better now. She really listened to me and she didn't get offended or push me away. I understand where she's coming from much better now. The best part? It isn't stuck in my head anymore.

When I say that it isn't stuck in my head anymore, you have to understand something — there are things stuck in my head from before first grade. STILL. Being able to talk to her and then being able to let this go is a revelation.

Adam and I continued our conversation today too. I was able to go about five minutes before actually talking face to face about serious things became too much for me. My stomach was clenched and my throat closed up. I made some joke about stopping and so we did.

None of this makes me feel immediately better, but Super Mean Head Shrinker assures me that it will in the long run. She thinks her fancy Ph.D. and years of experience mean she can help fix my crazy. We'll see...

Next steps are asking for help, serious conversations that last more than five minutes, and phone calls with friends that don't involve breaking out into a cold sweat. It's a glamorous life, kiddos.

Hugs and health!
Graeme

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I'm sick. I'm tired. I'm exhausted from being sick. I'm pissed off about being tired. So many good things are happening and I can't hold on to them or really feel them because I'm consumed with this fucking disease that is trying to rob me of all the colors and make me live in the gloaming.

The one thing I can feel fully is anger, so there's that. For a couple months now I've noticed a trend that has bewildered me, hurt me, and seriously pissed me off. Can everyone just stop judging other people's feelings? I do not need you to put my life into perspective for me or to assume anything.

The fact that other people may be struggling with more than I am in no way mitigates the negative feelings I am dealing with or expressing. BECAUSE LIFE IS NOT A COMPETITION. The fact that other women struggle to have children does not mean that I can't complain about my son screaming in pain from teething. The fact that other women don't have supportive families or the chance to go on vacation does not mean I can't complain about having a migraine while he's screaming in pain on our vacation.

No mother should have to start a rant with some version of, "Don't get me wrong, I love my baby.” I know that you love your baby. WE ARE ALLOWED TO FEEL CRAPPY. This shit is hard. Taken seriously, raising a baby into a contributing member of society is damn near impossible — but we do it every single day. We are allowed to complain.

I have never understood the logic of someone else's suffering making me keep my mouth shut. Should other people's joy then make me shut up about the good times? Who gets to decide this?

This monster I battle every day has taught me some things. One of them is this: You have to respect pain in all its forms. I don't judge other people's pain — well, I try my best not to. I try to understand it if I can, and to at the very least respect the fact that I can never know what it feels like to be them.

I don't know much. Every day I seem to know more and less.

Here are some things I do know:

If you are starting your statement with, "I don't want to sound like... but...", then you really just need to stop. If you don't want to sound like something, then don't. The end.

If you would like to bring more positivity into someone's life, try using supportive sentences and language and not passive-aggressive judgement.

We are not all on a sliding scale of pain and happiness. Everyone is fighting their own battle and they are all valid.

I can love my son with all of my heart and be grateful for him with every cell in my body while at the same time my soul cries out in pain at the wounds inflicted on it by the bloody battle being waged in my mind.

As a very wise woman says: You have to feel all the feelings.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

Here are some tidbits from my life lately: "I love this picture of Graeme. But Graeme does not suffer from postpartum depression on a daily basis. If she did, she would not be the amazing mother that she is. Graeme is one of the best and most nurturing mothers I know!! Happy Birthday, Grammy!"

One of my sisters left that comment on a post my mom put up on Facebook where she mentioned I suffer from postpartum depression (PPD).

"I didn't know you had PPD. I've heard of the condition but don't know the details. What is your experience with it?"

That is part of a text I got from a friend of mine after she read the Facebook post.

I have to admit the first statement was a slap in the face. I felt it, and I felt so many other women could have read it and felt the same way. One in 7 women will deal with some form of postpartum depression, anxiety, and/or psychosis. 1 IN 7. If you know more than seven mothers, chances are you know a woman who is dealing with this disease.

As much as the first statement hurt, the second was a balm for my soul. Would you believe that no one in my family has ever asked me that question? Well, they haven't. Not my mother, not my father, not my sisters. Adam doesn't have to — he gets it all dumped on him regularly.

Actually, it isn't an easy question to answer.

What has been my experience? It changes every day.

There has been a soul-crushing numbness. A 10-foot-thick concrete wall that inched down between me and the rest of the world. I couldn't hear them; I could reach them and after beating my head against the wall for a time, I stopped trying because it hurt.

Some days you wake up to the feeling that a million tiny weights were attached to your body overnight. You cannot shake them — you have NO strength.

Some days everything is too much — you are an exposed nerve and the slightest breath of air is excruciating.

Some days there are multiple panic attacks, agoraphobia, and the certainty that you are the worst mother in the history of the universe.

Some days you think you're fine and everything has been going well, until you realize that you have been crying for the past four hours.

These are the examples that come to mind right now. There are other things, I'm sure. My brain doesn't work as quickly as it used to and one of my symptoms is light memory loss.

In short? It is hell. At what was supposed to be the happiest time of my life, I was plunged directly into Hell and I have been clawing my way out ever since. I have recently come to the realization that I may never fully escape. I may live my life on the rim of the pit. Guess what else I've realized? I AM STRONG ENOUGH TO DO THAT.

What helps me: the love and joy with which my baby boy greets each day. The love of Adam. Loving them back. Zoloft. Every single day. Therapy. Every single week. Exercise — 3-6 times a week. Writing to you all. Knowing that you are reading. An amazing group of friends, both in real life and online, that make me laugh and give me unwavering support.

My experience is, I'm sure, both extremely familiar to and radically different from the experiences of every other mother who deals with this disease. The things that help me may not help someone else. This is an intensely personal and baffling war to wage.

When I started this blog I needed somewhere I could “sound my barbaric yawp” in the world. Screaming in my head wasn't very productive. Then I wanted to reach out to other families affected by PPD/anxiety/psychosis. I never wanted to be the face of this disease. I never wanted to be the spokesperson or to have my identity consumed by it.

And yet... there is so much ignorance and misinformation out there surrounding mental illness and motherhood. I cannot stay silent. It isn't who I am. I am the best mother for my child. He is thriving and happy. There is nothing about my disease that makes me a bad mother. Making statements that imply otherwise does a serious disservice to every person with a mental illness on this planet.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I'm 35 today.

I can say, for pretty much the first time ever, that I am proud of the woman I am. I am proud of the mother I am. I am proud of the daughter, sister, and friend I am. I am proud of the girlfriend I am. I am proud of the business owner I am. I am proud of the mental health warrior I am.

In general, I'm not that good at gratitude. I can always see the problems, the cracks, the things that are missing. I usually feel I am bad or wrong in some way, and I cover those hurts with anger. It's hard to get gratitude through all of that.

For a long time my depression wasn't apparent because my life was, in fact, shitty. Depression seemed like the appropriate reaction to my circumstances. I was caught in a cycle that I am just now beginning to understand through therapy.

A couple years ago I began to change. I started working toward becoming the woman I am now. I didn't have this goal in mind — I really had no concrete idea where I was heading, but I did know I wanted to be better.

I started to take chances on myself. I went back to school, I got a new job, I set up an online dating profile.

That all led to Adam and the love of my life, Buddy.

Here's what has crystallized for me in the last couple of days — I was already depressed. I was clinically depressed for YEARS. It wasn't until I had the baby that I recognized something was wrong with me. Now I can name my demons. Now I can fight my demons.

I am a 35-year-old mother of one. I have an amazing man in my life who loves me and supports me and my dreams. I am a small business owner. I am an advocate for women and families dealing with depression and anxiety. I am a blogger, friend, sister, and daughter. I AM SO MANY THINGS!

I am grateful for all the parts of me and all of the things I am. Life, kiddos, is good.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed.

I have been blessed to have an amazing friend and mom write a post for us. The Queen from DeBie Hive has written about her experience with postpartum depression:

I kept telling myself that I was fine, that it would go away, that I could ignore it and it would all magically get better somehow.

I knew that I was lying to myself, but I did it anyway.

I knew that there was something very wrong with me, but I pretended like everything was fine.

I even knew what was wrong with me, and still I did nothing.

I did nothing until one night, sitting in bed, I read a passage in a book about a family taking their children to the zoo. My brain, doing what it always did back then, took this harmless paragraph in a fictional novel and contorted it, twisted it, mangled it, and presented itself back to me in the form of a vision. 

I took my infant daughter to the zoo and nonchalantly threw her over the railing to the alligators. 

I didn't actually do that, of course. This vision, like all the rest of them, resided in my head alone. I never acted on any of them. I hardly even left the house. Being home was hard enough since the house we lived in at the time had an open staircase to the basement. Each time I walked past it holding my child, I'd clutch her tightly to my chest and try to shake off the visions in my mind of throwing her down the stairs.

That night, I couldn't take it anymore. I slammed the book shut and screamed. I cried and cried and cried. My husband, totally unaware that anything was wrong, was terrified. I let it out, I let it all out. I told him everything that was happening and had been happening in my head. I told him that I knew something was wrong. I told him I knew what it was. I told him that I was too ashamed to admit any of it, and so I kept it hidden, locked inside like a swirling vortex that was dragging me down deeper and deeper and deeper. 

I had postpartum depression, and by the time the events of that night unfolded, my daughter was over a year old. This had been happening almost her entire life, beginning within a few weeks of her birth.  

I knew better. I am a doula. I have training specific to this condition. I have been taught to recognize the symptoms. I tell my clients all the time that there is no shame in having PPD, and that they need to seek help and treatment. I knew doulas and midwives, many of whom had dealt with this personally, and I reached out to no one. 

I knew better. 

It still happened.

The following day, I called one of those midwife friends I should have called long before. She asked if I was safe, if the children were safe. I told her yes. She asked if I was suicidal. I told her no. She told me I needed to get help and I needed to do it immediately. I told her I knew. 

After getting off the phone with her, I contacted a psychiatrist specializing in PPD. By that afternoon, I was sitting in her office unloading all that burdened my brain and my soul. She told me that my self-analysis was right on. I had postpartum depression that was flirting awfully dangerously with psychosis. The particular type that I had manifested with intrusive thoughts, ones that I had no ability to control. It is associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

She told me that I may need to be medicated to reset the connections in my brain. I told her I knew.

I did know. I knew all of it, and I still had hidden it.

As it turned out, in my case, the visions stopped almost immediately once I confided in my husband, my midwife friend, and this psychiatrist. The act of suppressing the truth had only made my situation worse. For a while, the visions presented themselves only as hazy memories, not the vivid images they were before. With a bit more time, they disappeared entirely. 

It took me six months to admit what had happened to anyone else. I told my closest friends and my doula partner at that time. It took me several years to admit it to my family. It took me even longer to ever write about it publicly. 

I write about it today because we, the women who have been to this dark place, absolutely need to talk about it. We need to drag these monsters out of the closet and expose them to the light. We need to reassure our sister mothers that what they are going through isn't something that they must endure alone and in secret. We must encourage other women to get the help they need for their families, for their children, for themselves.

There are several different types of PPD and the condition can vary in the degree of severity ranging from the baby blues to full-blown psychosis. If you have any of these symptoms and/or they have lasted longer than a couple of weeks after birth, please talk to your doctor or midwife immediately. Do not wait.

- mood swings

- irritability

- insomnia or sleeping too much

- suicidal thoughts

- feeling sad or hopeless

- not bonding with the baby

- elevated anxiety levels

- hallucinations or delusions

Do not wait. It is important to understand that this condition is very common, far more common than we know because so many women hide it. There is help out there, things can and will get better, but you have to take the first step. 

I don't have a single memory of my daughter's first year of life. I'm sure that my brain has actively suppressed everything that happened in that time frame. I don't remember the way she smelled or how soft her skin was or what her laugh sounded like. PPD took all that away from me. All I have now are photographs and a memory that I've tried to piece together. 

I am pregnant right now, and live in a world where I need to be more vigilant than ever. I can't keep my guard up. I ask friends and family to check in on me periodically. Please invade my personal space and make sure that I am not lying. I am also looking into acupuncture and other techniques that may help alleviate stress before and after delivery in an attempt to prevent the PPD from returning. I am hoping to hire someone to encapsulate my placenta, as the capsules are said to help with PPD symptoms in addition to bleeding, milk production and much more. 

PPD is a scary and strange thing to deal with. Not being in control of your own mind is terrifying. I hope to never go back to that place again, but if I do, I won't let myself stay there this time. I will get help.

If you need it, please get help.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I'm quitting Weight Watchers (WW).

This isn't a huge deal since I was never really all that into it in the first place. I have friends that loved it and lost weight on it and still use it as a maintenance tool, and that is wonderful. I'm not knocking it (so please don't try to change my mind in the comments!).

I decided to quit Weight Watchers after my father called me fat on the phone today.

Let me explain…

I got pregnant. I ate like a sitcom version of a pregnant woman. I gained weight like a real-life woman who ate like a sitcom version of a pregnant woman. I had the baby. I started losing weight. I was sucked into a vortex of depression and an anxiety-laden hell the likes of which I do not wish on my worst enemy, and I have been battling my way out ever since.

A month ago I weighed MORE than I did the day before Buddy was born. You read that right — MORE. That was the thing that people could see. They couldn't see the millions of tiny weights dragging me down every second of every day. They couldn't see the bands of hot fire that squeeze my heart and lungs on a regular basis. They cannot understand the depression or the anxiety, so they focus on the weight.

They make assumptions — that I'm eating too much, or eating the wrong things, or being lazy, or not really sticking with Weight Watchers. They don't ask if there is anything else going on. Please God, don't let anyone have to talk about feelings!

I want to live. I want to be healthy. I want to live a healthy life. I actively want those things. This is a revelation for me because there were months and months when I could not say any of that truthfully. I was living because the only way to love my son and Adam was to be alive. That was it. To dull the pain — and sometimes to reinforce the pain — I ate. Moving hurt, so I didn't do it. My entire existence was centered around escaping the pain as much as possible.

I don't know if it was the drugs, or writing here, or people pissing me off, or missing the relationship that Adam and I used to have, or watching Buddy grow into this remarkable baby, but something was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm in therapy now. I took action to try and get better. Dr. Warren tells me that life isn't supposed to be this hard and it doesn't have to hurt this much. The only way to get better is through the pain. Every morning I take my Zoloft. I take my vitamins. I get out of bed and I take care of my child. I work to grow my business and I plan for my future. I do my mental health “homework” — reading something Dr. Warren has suggested or paying attention to stray thoughts and feelings — whatever she asks me to do. Five times a week I either go to the gym or to a Barre Evolution class.

I'm not trying to lose weight — I'm trying to save my life.

I'm not trying to lose weight so that I don't embarrass my dad or to make anyone else more comfortable. I'm trying to be more healthy because I have been promised by people who should know what they are talking about that it is possible for me to feel happiness again. They say I have a chance at more than a fleeting second of not feeling horrible. They say I can get back to real, genuine laughter and a smile that is not 90% mask. They say I can be the woman I want my son to have as his first love, and Adam to have as his last. They say that to become that woman I need the endorphins, stamina, and general health that working out and eating well will bring me.

Instead of WW, this is my new “diet.”I won't be on a diet. EVER. AGAIN. I'm going to try and stay away from any food that has ingredients I cannot pronounce. (Special exceptions will be made once a quarter for Velveeta shells and cheese… because I said so.) I'm going to eat all the veggies I want and I'm going to try and have multiple colors on each plate. I'm going to stick to the hand rule for meat and starches: a serving size is meat the size of your fist and for starches a handful. I'm not counting calories and I'm not tracking points. I'm going to treat my body like something I'm grateful for and maybe someday soon I will actually BE grateful for it.

My father says I have to lose the weight. My question — which he never answered — is, “Or what?” What is this thing that will happen if I don't? Will I lose my job? My child? Adam? Do you think that love is something that can be lost or gained because of numbers on a scale? What do you think will happen if I never lose any weight?

WHY DO YOU CARE SO MUCH ABOUT MY WEIGHT AND SO LITTLE ABOUT MY MENTAL HEALTH?!?

I am the least educated person in my immediate family and I am the only person in my immediate family who has done any research at all on depression and anxiety. Of course, I had to — for me this is life and death. Still, it makes a nearly unbearable day even worse when the ones who love you and who should be fighting for your life alongside you are making ridiculous assumptions and focusing on trivialities. I know they love me. 

I just wish they knew me.

It hurts every day. Living is painful. Not romantically painful or melodramatically painful, but annoyingly painful. It is pain like nails on a chalkboard. Living hurts me and it frustrates me and it wears me down every day. Adam says we will get through this. He has never lied to me, and so I have faith. Dr. Warren says I can do this and she will help me. She has a Ph.D. after her name, kind eyes, and steel in her voice — so I will do as she says. My best friend says she misses me. She has always been right there when I needed her and so I will reach out. The glimmer in my baby's eyes and the beam of his smile are my lights at the end of the tunnel, and so I will crawl toward them day after day.

I will get better.

I will get stronger.

I will be healthy.

I will have a life, and one day I will wake up EXCITED to be alive. I could give less than two shits about how much I weigh when that day comes.

Kelly DeBie is Queen of DeBie Hive, an amazing blogger and a wonderful friend of this blog. I cannot thank her enough for her bravery and her honesty.

To most people who know me, I probably seem like your average suburban minivan driving mom of four. I have a busy schedule and get my kids where they need to be on time almost all the time. I rarely leave the house without doing my makeup and make a point to create the illusion that I'm all together and stable and normal, whatever normal is. 

And I am, most of the time.

I am balanced and normal unless a trigger hits me the wrong way and sends me back down to the bottom of my hole, tears at my soul and rips a hole in my heart. Triggers can send me reeling and launch full blown panic attacks. I've spent far more time hyperventilating in store bathrooms than anyone should ever have to. 

For years, I deliberately avoided normal activities out of fear. Fear that something or someone would set me off unexpectedly and that I would end up spiraling out of control.

I needed to do whatever I could to stay in control, though I could feel that control slipping from my fingers. 

I ended up isolating myself from the rest of the world, almost all the time. I did the absolute minimum to keep up appearances, to seem functional, because I didn't want anyone to know. I didn't want people to know that I couldn't go to the grocery store, that there are parts of town I can't bear to drive past without my heart racing and the sweat beading up. 

I didn't want to talk to anyone. 

I didn't because I am supposed to be stronger than this. I am supposed to be smarter than this. I am supposed to know better.

I tried the best I could to live with it until it started infiltrating every piece of who I was. Even if I stayed isolated, even if I suppressed any social interactions, the triggers found their way into my subconscious. I started having recurring nightmares. The nightmares made me fear sleep. There was no relief from my tormented mind, night or day. I developed intractable insomnia. 

I've never been to war. 

I've never been the victim of a violent crime.

I've never survived a horrific accident. 

I haven't lived through any of the experiences that people would normally associate with PTSD, but I developed it anyway. 

My trauma was emotional, caused by years of tragedies and loss that seemed to hit me from all angles in my life. There was quite literally a time when I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, because it always did. There was always something else, someone else, something bigger, something worse. And it kept coming.

I couldn't process it all. I survived the awful time, but my brain couldn't process it all. I was stuck, reliving those moments, living in irrational fear, living in the past that was being forced upon me with even the smallest reminders. 

I was a tortured soul, and I needed help.

For a long time, I told myself that I was fine. That I would get over it. That things would get better. 

People around me who knew what happened started to grow impatient with me. Urged me to just get over it, not understanding that it wasn't physically possible. I would have given anything to have been able to sleep, to go about my daily life, to exist without living in fear. 

I tried the best I could to live with it until it started infiltrating every piece of who I was. Even if I stayed isolated, even if I suppressed any social interactions, the triggers found their way into my subconscious. I started having recurring nightmares. The nightmares made me fear sleep. There was no relief from my tormented mind, night or day. I developed intractable insomnia. 

I've never been to war. 

I've never been the victim of a violent crime.

I've never survived a horrific accident. 

I haven't lived through any of the experiences that people would normally associate with PTSD, but I developed it anyway. 

My trauma was emotional, caused by years of tragedies and loss that seemed to hit me from all angles in my life. There was quite literally a time when I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, because it always did. There was always something else, someone else, something bigger, something worse. And it kept coming.

I couldn't process it all. I survived the awful time, but my brain couldn't process it all. I was stuck, reliving those moments, living in irrational fear, living in the past that was being forced upon me with even the smallest reminders. 

I was a tortured soul, and I needed help.

For a long time, I told myself that I was fine. That I would get over it. That things would get better. 

People around me who knew what happened started to grow impatient with me. Urged me to just get over it, not understanding that it wasn't physically possible. I would have given anything to have been able to sleep, to go about my daily life, to exist without living in fear. 

Things didn't get better. They only got worse. Nothing I did helped.

I spoke with a friend and was candid with her. She told me about a special therapy she was doing, suggested that it might work for me. 

I had to confront what I already knew — I had developed PTSD. 

PTSD doesn't just happen to soldiers. It can happen to anyone overwhelmed with trauma, regardless of where that trauma comes from. 

I sought help for the condition I finally recognized I had. Targeted EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprogramming) therapy helped me work through the past, one piece at a time. To fully process it all, I had to be willing to go back to that time emotionally, to confront it all again, to relive it. I had to trust the process. 

I had to. 

It worked. 

It worked when nothing else would. 

What used to be a trigger that would knock me for a loop for days or weeks at a time before is now an uncomfortable, but transient reminder. I have my moment now, then I can go on with my life as I should be able to. 

I've learned to feel the feelings when they come, that I can't stuff them away. I can't because eventually that vault fills up and explodes and hurts me even more. 

I had to make a choice to take care of myself. If I feel myself being drug back down into that hole, I have to be proactive about it going forward. PTSD never really goes away, but it can be managed. 

First, though, you have to admit you have it.

My name is Kelly, and I have PTSD.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I have had it. I AM DONE. This is not irrational depression and anxiety anger — this is honest-to-goodness RIGHTEOUS ANGER that has filled me to the brim, and is now spilling out of my very pores while I write this.

It started when I was born. My mom cast herself as the shy one and baby me as the outgoing one, and so I was. I fulfilled my role. As I got older and less and less interested in smoothing her way into a crowd, we butted heads. We can skip through the regular teenage mother/daughter stuff to my parents’ divorce when I was in my 20s.

We both fell apart. Except I wasn't allowed to fall apart because, "I just can't help you right now.” And you know what? That's valid. She couldn't. The fact that she said it as I was sobbing on the floor in her living room was a little harsh, but that was her truth, so OK. I called a friend and got a ride home.

I should have learned my damn lesson.

When my mom doesn't want to take the time to figure something out, she uses the excuse that she's not technical or she can't do it. This is bullshit. She is an extremely smart and capable woman who can handle technology on the job perfectly well, but turns into an idiot whenever I'm around to help.

For example: She won't go to the gym unless I walk her through all of the machines. Do I know what they all do? Of course not. I read the instructions. Could she do that just as well? Of course she could. Do I get anything out of this at all? Nope. Why do I do it? Because she'll whine about it if I don't. But wait, you say, aren't there people who WORK at the gym who do that because it's their JOB? Yes.

She doesn't ever ask how I am. Not ever. She did say to me — when I was in the middle of a panic attack — "I'm just trying to understand.” I wanted to scream at her, “LIAR!” I still want to scream at her.

This morning I got an email from her asking me to help a family friend, S. S has a niece with postpartum depression (PPD) who just went on Zoloft, and she was looking for some information and support for her. S wanted to know if I would be willing to talk to her and share some of my experiences. Of course I am! I told her to please give S all of my contact info and the blog address and all of it. I hate that yet another mother has to go through this darkness.

And yet. All of the information I just gave to her again today, I had given to her when I was first diagnosed, and again when I first started this blog. She's never read any of it. She read one blog post because it started a little bit of a family fight and she even said at the time that she "keeps forgetting to read this.”

I am fighting for my life. Every day. I may make jokes and sometimes I talk about other things in this space, but let's just be clear right now: This is a fight to stay alive and to be healthy. The fact that my own mother does not care enough to do a damn Google search makes me livid and anguished in equal measure. The fact that she then claims to want to understand makes me angry to an extent that no one has created words to express.

Of course I will help the new mother. I am grateful for the chance to help her, and I am grateful she has someone in her life who is reaching out. But my mother should not have needed to ask. My mother should have been able to say, “Here are the things I have read to help my daughter with her illness.” This is what I have found out about HOW TO SAVE THE LIVES of women with PPD and anxiety.

I would give up everything she has ever bought me, and every moment of babysitting she has done, if she would just take it upon herself to read one damn thing about this disease in my mind that wants me dead. Or if she even knew what the fight was about…

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

He's sleeping!

I used to say, and truly believe, that all I wanted was a happy, rested baby. I'm human though, of course, so as soon as that need has been met, Maslow kicks me in the ass.

This is supposed to be where I tell the truth, so here it is: The better he gets — the worse I feel.  I don't feel bad because he feels better — don't everyone go all nutty on me. It's simply that as the layers of worry and fear fall away, other feelings start to poke their way into my brain. There's no more running. My brain is working again — and that isn't necessarily a good thing.

I've dealt with depression and anxiety before. Almost 15 years ago now — wow. I was medicated. I had a therapist. I found a support group. I pulled myself out of the hole slowly and painfully and I have been diligent about staying away from quicksand ever since. When my heart and mind needed quiet, I closed myself away from the world and gave it to them. When I needed people and noise, I found that too. Over the last 15 years I have worked to learn more about myself and have tried to become friends with me.

Let me tell you, that shit ain't easy.

First of all, I'm needy. I'm bitchy and opinionated. I'm sensitive and easily embarrassed. I love HARD and I can be demanding and whiny. I'm also pretty shitty at communicating. You cannot get me on the phone. Unless you are my father, the odds of actually getting me to pick up when you call or to call you back are so small as to be statistically insignificant. I just don't do it. Unlike my mother, who will spend an hour on the phone telling you how much she hates talking on the phone, I truly hate the experience of talking to someone I cannot see. It seems totally unreal and way too invasive all at the same time.

My best friend called me the other day. She left me a message. I didn't check it for days because I knew that once I did, I would have to deal with it. With her. With her worrying about me and with her loving me and with her being at least a little pissed at my lack of communication and with her not being wrong about any of it. As long as I didn't listen to it, it wasn't real. Everything was OK.

There are no more excuses now. I'm not up all night. Buddy is teething, which can be a horrible experience for both of us, but he's also sleeping like a champ, getting into everything, and generally loving life.

This should be the time when I begin to stretch like a bud and break through the soil and reach for the sun. This should be the time when I unfurl and reclaim my place in the warmth and the light. Instead, all I want to do is curl into a ball and sleep in the dark.

Some of it is my fault. I've let the house get disorganized and dirty and that always affects my mood deeply. I don't have a regular schedule. I'm not eating great. I'm not exercising regularly. I'm not taking time away from life either. I am never, ever alone. Nope, that's not true — there were about 40 minutes of time this week when I was driving and did not have Buddy with me.

See? Whiny.

I take my meds. Every day. I take care of my baby boy and I make sure my family is fed. I am always, always in charge on the outside and less and less in control on the inside.

I'm making a list of things to do this week. Finding a therapist is on it. In the meantime…

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

All I really wanted for Christmas was to know my son is going to be OK. For months his sleep has gotten worse and worse. People keep telling me they never slept when they were babies and they're fine, or about some book or other I should read, or that I'm worrying too much. I saw my happy baby getting more and more exhausted and frustrated and his happy stretches getting shorter and shorter. Still — it was hard to get anyone other than Adam to take me seriously when I KNEW something was wrong. Most people meant well, but what they were saying was basically nothing was wrong even as I was shouting at the top of my lungs that something was wrong. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again — THANK GOD FOR ADAM. That man may not be perfect (he's totally not) but he is perfect for us! We contacted The Baby Sleep Site when we were basically at the end of our rope. My first email to them was written through tears. Even as I held them out as my last hope I was terrified they wouldn't be able to do anything and I would fail my son yet again. 

We filled out a 15-page form about pretty much everything about our son. There weren't any details we left out. We got back a 30-page plan that was filled with kindness, understanding, and practical advice. We got a schedule and the thinking behind it. We got step-by-step and day-by-day plans with contingencies, and all of it was customized to our parenting style and our son. Our questions were answered quickly and with the same level of care and understanding. It was amazing to me to have someone accept there was a major problem and give me tools on how to solve it. They also understood that we were completely sleep deprived and so they broke it down into small, doable chunks. 

The first day was horrible. His nap amounts plummeted, his fussiness was through the roof, and his overnight sleep sucked. The second day the naps were no better, but I was feeling like I was getting the hang of the recommendations — we just needed to turn the corner. On night two, I did the bedtime routine alone since Adam had to work late and he just wasn't having it. After a day of having my nerves scraped raw, I was at the end of my rope. I put him down in his crib, kissed his forehead, and walked out. 

He was “playing” in his crib, yelling at his toes (I have no idea what they keep doing to piss him off, but they never seem to learn!), and rolling around for about 30 minutes. I washed dishes and repeated the plan over and over in my head. Playing is good, playing means he's comfortable in his sleeping space, everything will be OK, Adam will be home soon, etc. 

Adam walked in to find a girlfriend on the edge, a baby on the edge, no dinner anywhere in sight, laundry strewn all over the living room, a jump ahead of a day in the sleep plan (we weren't supposed to be putting him down until night three) and he didn't flinch — even after an extra long day at work and going to two stores for Christmas tree supplies.

That man. 

By the time the crying started I was a little more calm. Still, my nerves couldn't handle folding clothes while Adam did the soothing, so I pretty much kicked him out of the nursery and took over. I left the baby in the crib and just patted his back or his belly or let him hold my hand all the while doing the super loud SSSSSHHHHH sound that I think is a nationally recognized part of the language of parenting. It took about 45 minutes. He settled down on his tummy with his fingers in his mouth and I stopped shhhhhing and patting and he squirmed a little and sighed and slept. 

HE SLEPT. They had said it could take a couple hours the first night and I was prepared for the long haul, so when I walked out of the nursery I had to get Adam to confirm for me that he was asleep. We sat there, staring at the monitor, and I broke down. All of the fear and worry came rushing out in hot, painful tears. Adam just held me. 

You see, even though we had paid about $150 to these people, and even though I was following the plan as closely as I could, and even though I had memorized the dang thing — I still didn't really believe. Now there was proof. If this could happen, then maybe everything else they said they could do would happen too. The goals I gave them were to have three night wakings and to shorten the length of the night wakings and to have his daytime naps last at least a half an hour. The goals they gave back to me were to have two night wakings and eventually wean to one or none, and to have daytime naps last an hour (for the first two) and 30-45 minutes for the last one. 

I thought that was a pipe dream. It just may be. But I finally have what I always wanted for Christmas — faith that I can do this. 

We aren't finished. We aren't even close. There are major nap issues and gas issues and he only slept about 45 minutes that first time he settled down on his own. We have more work to do. But we have a plan. And more than that, I have faith again.

Today is day three. He napped for about 20 minutes but I didn't give up. I went in and rocked him back down and then he SLEPT FOR 70 MINUTES!!! But you know what's better than that? 

My baby has his smile back. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

"I'll tire him out in the bath.”

That was my mom's response to an email I sent. I just cannot get it out of my head and every time I “hear” it I get more hurt, more angry, more frustrated.

Tire him out? The kid is fucking exhausted EVERY SINGLE DAMN DAY! I tell her he isn't sleeping. I tell her how worried I am about his mental development. She says he's obviously bright and that if there was an issue, "of course we would know about it.” Oh really? How? Are you a neurologist and I just never knew?

So when he ends up with an alphabet disorder (ADD, ADHD, OCD, you know) and you try and tell me it has absolutely nothing to do with what every doctor on the planet says is a crucial time for his neural pathways — then do I get to punch you in the face?

Because it is that bad. I have actual violent feelings toward the woman who raised me because of this issue. She has spent nights here, supposedly to help us try and get some sleep. She has witnessed first hand his struggles to fall asleep and to stay asleep, and still she just doesn't give a damn.

I feel like their entire relationship is about her. He looks adorable in her arms when we visit at work. His pictures on her desk cheer her up. She spends most of her time with him talking TO him — even when he's babbling, she just talks right over him. Telling him to tell her how he loves her, usually.

"I let him play a little bit after his bath that one night and he slept great for me.” First of all, no — he did not sleep great. He got one three-hour chunk and one 2.5-hour chunk and then a two. So while that is OK, it is nowhere near the 10-12 hours per night he should be getting. Second, thanks for rubbing in the fact that you completely disregarded our routine. That's awesome.

^When you had no idea how to deal with my postpartum depression and compared it to you having a bad day, and told me to just get some sleep, I tried to let it go. When you call him “my baby” and continuously ignore me every time he's anywhere near, I chalk it up to being a new grandmother. But this is where I draw the line.

Do you remember when we got back from that hellish car trip and you spent the night so we could get some sleep? You tried to rock him to sleep but he was pitching all kinds of fits. Instead of getting either one of us (we were awake and sitting in the living room), you just kept doing what you were doing while he screamed. I finally couldn't take the screaming any more and came and got him. Your explanation? You wanted to be the one who helped him. I should have called you out on that right there. A lot of this is my fault.

IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU.

IT IS ABOUT WHAT HE NEEDS.

Is it more important for you to be the one he falls asleep with or for him to fall asleep? For him to wear the elf outfit on Christmas day or for him to be comfy and cozy? For you to seem like you know what you're talking about or for you to admit that there is something wrong and it is scary and you can't help? You could help, by the way, if you would just LISTEN and ACCEPT there is an issue. If you would maybe do some research and try to become knowledgeable. Or if you would just stop being so damn passive-aggressive about our choices and our fears.

It is almost Christmas so I can't have this fight with you right now. Ever since Buddy was born, you don't listen to a word I say, so I can't have this fight with you. I still feel responsible for how your holidays go since the divorce, so I can't have this fight with you.

So I say it all here. Since I know you'll never read this blog, because heaven forbid you know what is actually going on. I say it all here because it's eating me up and I need to get it out.

He's awake. This last nap was 16 minutes. Guess I need to go tire him out.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

Motherhood, for me, has been an exercise in learning what happens when I pass my limits. Postpartum came as I passed the limits of hormone swings. Exhaustion as I passed the limits of sleeplessness. I don't know what to call this love that passes the limits of all description.

And now, there is worry. Worry that turns to fear and ice in my gut. Worry that brings tears and frustration and despair and anger.

He doesn't sleep.

At his age Buddy should be sleeping between 12 and 16 hours in every 24-hour period — depending on who you believe. He gets 8-10. Every single day he is losing sleep that he will never get back. For infants, sleeping is when new neural pathways are formed. It's when connections are made and excess energy is dispersed. It is vital.

It is also mysterious. No one can tell us why he isn't sleeping. Or rather, everyone thinks they can, and none of the answers have helped. There isn't anything — besides drugs and crying it out — that we haven't tried. He has trouble falling asleep, he doesn't stay asleep, and during the day he is increasingly wired and easily frustrated. He's unable to sit quietly while I read a story or snuggle anymore.

We contacted a sleep consultant and filled out all the forms and are waiting for them to formulate a plan for us. I called his pediatrician. She said that the sleep consultant wasn't a bad idea and that we can “explore options” at his six-month appointment (next week).

My mother has said that maybe we should “just ride it out” and there may be nothing we can do. She points out that his paternal grandmother is a bad sleeper, and that I have suffered from insomnia myself. During each of my battles with insomnia, I was desperate for rest and for answers — she never really seemed worried, more just annoyed I wasn't sleeping like she told me to. She didn't call doctors and do research, she told me to figure it out. I felt alone with my problems a lot as a child and a teenager. I know that is where some of this drive for answers is coming from. I will not do that to my son. So when she says things like that it feels like a physical assault and I want to scream, "Just because you don't know what to do doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything!"

I'm going to have to stop telling people, though. They ask how he is. They ask how he's sleeping, because people ask that about babies. I'm going to start lying just so that I don't have to listen to one more piece of foolish/offensive/dangerous advice. People have suggested that we keep him up all day — as if he isn't already exhausted.

That we should take him outside more because fresh air will tire him out.

That we should give him Benadryl.

Or Motrin.

Or alcohol.

That we should just put him in the crib and he'll sleep when he's tired.

The things my family and even strangers have said can make me angry to the point of violence. If he wasn't eating would they say that? If he wasn't pooping would they say, "Oh well, he will when he wants to!"? No. They would say he was ill. They would worry with me or at least give me the courtesy of not saying that my worry is pointless.

My baby is sick and just because it isn't physically obvious and doesn't have a name does not mean it isn't serious. Adam and I are doing all we can, every day, to try and get him the rest he needs so desperately but cannot take.

I pray this isn't because of something I did. I pray this isn't a symptom of a larger problem. I pray the insomnia isn't doing permanent damage.

I pray he will not pass the limit of what he can handle before we figure out how to help him.

I pray.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

Thank God for Adam. 

I'm not just saying that. I am sending up prayers of thanks constantly this morning.

We were in the car all day yesterday. There were so many errands to run and all of them seemed to involve a 20-30 minute drive. So the baby would get these mini naps and then I'd have to haul him out and into the drugstore, my doctor's office, his grandpa's house, the consignment store, home, BACK to the consignment store, and back home. We were both exhausted by the end of the day. Was that part of it? 

I realized in all of the hauling and carrying just how heavy 20 lbs of baby actually is, and exactly how out of shape I am. I know that can't help.

A friend of our family lost her mother and the wake was last night. I was too exhausted to go. So there was guilt.

My best friend sent our Christmas presents yesterday and I realized I won't be able to get presents until it's way too late to send them — unless I ask Adam for money. So there's wounded pride.

I was off of my meds for a week. It wasn't by choice, but a combination of travel, bad luck, and poor planning. That was DEFINITELY a factor.

Oh yeah, and we're closing in on a year of me not sleeping well, which all the doctors will tell you is super healthy. So there's that too.

When Adam brought the monitor into bed around 3 a.m., I was tired in a way I cannot describe to anyone who has not lived with depression. It isn't a physical tiredness, but a state of soul weariness that seeps into your bones. 

The baby was awake. I gathered the bottle and the gas meds and went into the nursery. I picked him up and tried to revel in the warm-baby-middle-of-the-night smell. I breathed to center myself and tried to focus on how gorgeous this tiny person is. 

He didn't want to be swaddled. He's fast, but I'm faster, and I knew if I didn't swaddle him he'd whack himself in the face in his sleep and wake up screaming. So I swaddled. I gave him the meds. I rubbed his tummy. I fed and rocked and put him down snoring.

He flipped over.

Swaddled.

He was still asleep though, so I turned his head sideways so he could breathe and I unsnapped the swaddle from around his arms and tried to pull them out without waking him — and he started rubbing his eyes.

I lost it. I just stood there, next to the crib screaming at the top of my lungs in my head, "WHY would you do that?! You're asleep. Go the HELL back to sleep! You rub your eyes when you're tired. This isn't tired, this is ASLEEP! HOW  DO YOU NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME???" It took a while for me to realize I wasn't screaming, but whispering so hard I was making myself hoarse. I was also crying, leaning over the crib staring at him, but not really seeing him. 

My son, however, saw me. His eyes were wide and confused and scared. He's nearly six months old now, and I can no longer tell myself he doesn't know what's going on. He may not remember this, though the good Lord knows I always will, but he does KNOW. I don't think I will ever forgive myself for that.

I went into the bedroom sobbing and tried to explain to Adam what was happening, but I couldn't get much more out other than "I can't" over and over. He got right up, told me it was OK, and started trying to comfort me until I waved him away toward the baby. 

An hour later, Adam was back. He held me while I sobbed it out and fell asleep on his chest. The next thing I remember is a noise coming from the monitor. It's a video monitor, so I could see the baby was moving. I grabbed the monitor and headed for the nursery, thinking to get him before the full-on screaming woke Adam up. Somewhere in the living room I froze. Every noise he made was like nails on a chalkboard to me. The fine hairs were standing up on the back of my neck. There was NO WAY that I should be going into that room. 

He was annoyed and fussy, but not in any pain or danger, so I sat in the living room with the monitor turned all the way down, trying to get a hold of myself and stop thinking I hated the sound of my son's voice.  

Adam came out to find me tear-streaked and only slightly coherent yet again. He made sure I was OK and then he went and rocked the baby and fed him a little more and got him settled. He was awake — there was nothing we could do. He told me to go lay down. He called me dear, which always gets me.

I took a double dose of my Zoloft* and cried myself to sleep. After a pretty sleepless night himself, Adam spent the wee hours of the morning looking after me and the baby.

In the morning he asked if there was anything he could do for me. I said I needed Kellythebestbabysitterever for the full day instead of a half. His response? Whatever you need. Then I had to admit it, "I'm worried about being alone with him.” His response? To put his arms around me and tell me he loves me.

Kelly is here now. He's a little out of sorts and extra fussy, but she has the sitter magic and can cajole and tease and tickle until he smiles and giggles again. I can hear them through the door to the office and the guilt sticks like molasses in my throat. She can only stay until two, so Adam is coming home to watch over us.

I'm getting work done. I can fake it over the phone — although it is exhausting. I keep reminding myself to breathe and recenter. I lost half of this blog to a computer glitch, but I just drank some coffee and started again because this man, kiddos... THIS MAN.

I have a great family and truly amazing friends. I have a wonderful doctor and we have a plan to make sure I don't run out of meds again. I have a babysitter that I like and trust and who adores my child. I have medication to help me and I have all of you to listen and talk to. But I could not make it without that man.

There are no words to describe how much I love him, or all the ways in which I need him. No words for how I want him or how I respect him. No words for how he brightens my life or the kind of father he is. I've got nothin'.

*Yes, I know I get no immediate benefit from taking the double dose of my Zoloft since it has to build up in my system all over again. I took it anyway.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

It's been almost two weeks. Adam comes into the bedroom at around 2 a.m. and says something like, "I'm sorry, but I have to go to sleep." I get up and go deal with the screaming demon seed we used to call our sweet baby.

I sit in the rocking chair that we both hate but we don't replace because the Bentwood rocker we want is too expensive and I rock. My back hurts and I rock. My arm cramps and I rock. I change a diaper thinking maybe he pooped? And I rock. I think about Adam asleep in the bed and I rock. I get REALLY PISSED OFF and I rock. A couple of times I will try to lay him down because he seems to have been asleep for a while and he will wake up screaming again. Sometimes I pick him up, and sometimes I have to just go hide in the bathroom for a bit. Then… I rock. I cry and I rock.

We have been to the pediatrician. He's on a new formula and Prevacid and probiotics. It's all supposed to start helping within two weeks. HA!

We have read all the books. ALL THE BOOKS. We should be keeping him up during the day, but we should be making sure he gets good naps during the day. We should be following his lead, but we should be sticking to a schedule. We should have a nighttime routine that starts at a predictable time, but it should be 90 minutes or three hours after his last nap. There should not be anything in the crib, but it should be a cozy nest for him to sleep in. He shouldn't be sleeping swaddled anymore, but he should stay swaddled until he weans himself.

I AM SO DONE. None of these people know what they're talking about and none of them have been able to help us. I'm tired of hearing about other babies who sleep for five or six hours or even longer each night. I'm tired of reading book after book that will tell me how to get my baby to sleep. You know how my baby sleeps? When one of us is rocking him. That's it. That's all. He will nap during the day. He will nap like a champ. Every two or three hours he goes down for an hour. As soon as it's nighttime, he's just done. He doesn't have his days and nights mixed up — he'll go down for about an hour or two after his bath. Then… all bets are off.

I go to bed at 8 p.m. so I can get up at 2 a.m. Adam goes to bed at 2 a.m. so he can get up at 7 a.m. Our lives revolve around trying to get any tiny bit of sleep that we can. Our brains are barely functioning and everything is hard and confusing.

Still…

I can feel the difference between this and the depression. I hurt, but the pain doesn't radiate from my core the way it used to. The anger and hurt aren't deep in my bones the way they were. The fear and the wish that it could all just be over have faded. I want to live. I'm sure of that now. Even through all this, I want to live.  Even if it's only to pay him back by waking him up super early EVERY DAY during his teenage years… that's a start, right?

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

My father and sister are worried about me.

Before you all go getting super scared — I'm fine. I'm actually doing better now than I have at any time since Buddy was born (YAY!).

And yet… they're worried.

What worries them is this. My writing to you all. Well… not so much my writing to you, but the level of honesty in my writing and the way in which I publish. See, most of you just know me as Mama G*, but if you already knew me in “real” life and we were friends on Facebook, you would be able to connect me to this blog. I don't try to hide it. (*I used to write under an alias)

And that, my kiddos, is what is scary to them.

My sister is a divorce lawyer. She would say she's a family lawyer, and she does do adoption work and general custody and stuff, but, let's be honest — this is America in 2013 — she's a divorce lawyer.  She's really good. I'm not just saying that because she's my sister. It's true, she's freaking brilliant at it.

She's scared for me. 

You see, I've been honest here. I admit I am ill. That I have bad days. That I have yelled at a tiny, helpless baby and I have felt like a worthless mom. In less than 10 minutes she could take what I have written, even the sentence above, and use it to remove my son from my care. And so she worries.

I feel the love that comes from my sister worrying about me, the love and fear that my father now shares. I appreciate the concern and it warms me.

And yet — it is so wrong.

How can I explain? How can I explain the sense of injustice that comes from knowing that if I share my truth, my struggle, my pain — if I share the darkness, my words could be used for evil. Not my actions — not any factual thing I have ever done to my son, not any actual thing that has ever happened — but my WORDS, my THOUGHTS, my FEELINGS, my ILLNESS could be used as a weapon against me and against my son. They could be used as a crowbar to rip us apart. 

Of course, this is supposing a few things:

• That Adam and I have some kind of major split that results in a custody dispute.
• That he would be the type of jackass who would resort to such a low tactic to win.
• That I would not be able to fight this.

I won't write here about how and why I believe the first two will never happen. That's another post for another day. Instead, let me tell you why I won't stop.

I won't stop because writing to you all, knowing someone is listening, has helped me heal.

I won't stop because my last post got twice as many private emails sent to me as it did public comments on Facebook. SO MANY WOMEN are scared to speak out.

I won't stop because I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. That may be a naive statement, but I can't think of too many jaded people who ever changed anything that was wrong with this world.

I won't stop because this is my truth. This is my battle. NONE OF THIS MAKES ME A BAD MOTHER.

I won't stop because I haven't talked to a single woman who has battled with depression, postpartum depression (PPD), or anxiety who was not scared at some point that "they" would take her children away. That breaks my heart.

I won't stop because according to some of the latest research, a full 14% of new mothers tested had experienced some form of depression and 19% of those thought of harming themselves.

I won't stop because women are dying every single day. Children are growing up without mothers and it is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.

I won't stop because of the pregnant woman who emailed me and said she was terrified to try and breastfeed because her PPD had been so horrible the last time. She's getting a counselor prenatal and is working with a lactation consultant already so that she has support in place for whatever happens. This is what happens when we talk to each other.

I won't stop because of all the women who were too ashamed, or scared, or depressed to get in touch — but who read me anyway and KNOW THEY ARE NOT ALONE.

I could write totally anonymously. I could never give any hint or link to my “real” life and I could keep all of this away from my family and friends so no one ever knows what is happening with me except for my counselor. 

That might be the safest thing if it ever came down to a custody battle. 

That is not what I choose. 

I choose to believe that no matter what happens in our lives, Dork Dad and I will always put the happiness of the Prince of Poop first.

I choose to share with you all my truth. ALL OF MY TRUTH.

I choose to have faith my recovery will continue and I may possibly be helping people.

I choose to continue reaching out.

I choose to advocate for all the other mothers out there who are suffering in silence.

I choose to model strength, perseverance, and HOPE for my son.

If the worst should come to pass and we should end up in court, let this be Exhibit A. Let this stand as a warning — I will fight for my son. I will GET LOUD. I will take to the airwaves, to the internet, to the newspapers. They think it's a bad idea for me to be so public? Let's see someone try and take my boy away from me and THEY. WILL. SEE. PUBLIC. I'll be trending on Twitter and crawling on CNN, there will be a war in the comments on HuffPost and Facebook just might implode from the #JustTryIt.

Through the depression and the anxiety, the fear and the shame and the guilt, the mind-numbing fatigue and the constant physical ache of the last 20 weeks I have mothered a beautiful, healthy, happy boy. I have done so fueled by a love that I am still exploring.

I have not found its depth.

I have not found its reach. 

I have not found the load that it cannot bear. 

And yet… my father and my sister are worried about me. That, too, is love.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I used to think I had a low tolerance for pain, that I was easily broken.

This was mostly because other people told me I did. And because I have a healthy fear of things that hurt. I knew being a mother would hurt, but I had no idea how much.

I thought that labor would be the worst of it. You see all the movies and TV shows. EVERY SINGLE woman you meet when you're pregnant has a labor horror story to tell you. I was terrified. The fact that I had a C-section and didn't have to go through labor was a double-edged sword (no pun intended… but accepted). I didn't have to get ripped apart from the inside by Buddy, but I also didn't get the chance to prove to myself I could do it; that I could handle it.

When I came home from the hospital everyone was amazed at how much I was doing. My mom kept saying over and over how she'd expected me to be bedridden for a while. Yes, I was deeply offended. No, I didn't say anything (of course). I was in crazy amounts of pain, more than I had ever felt in my life. BUT there was this tiny person counting on me so what choice did I have?

Adam proposed a theory about my reaction to pain. He said that when I had no choice in the matter I was a warrior, but when it was possible to curl up in a ball, that's what I did. For a while I accepted that. 

I don't anymore.

Couldn't it be possible that the pain was always just as bad as I said it was? The cramps, the migraine attacks, the sprained ankles, the battered knees, the hips, the back, and all of the other myriad ways my body and I had let each other down. Could it be possible that every single time it hurt just as bad as I said it did? When I had the option to take care of myself, I took it. When I didn't, everyone thought I was so strong. 

That wasn't strength. 

I wasn't strong for not asking for help getting out of the chair with the baby. I was being an idiot and they were all idiots for not stopping me, for not paying attention, for not getting whatever the hell it was I thought I needed to get up for anyway. We were all idiots.

BUT I WAS NEVER A WIMP.  

Since giving birth, I have bruised the top of my foot so badly there was a shadow on the X-ray and stubbed my little toe on the other foot so many times that it swelled to twice its regular size. There has not been a day that my back didn't have both aching and shooting pains. My hip throbs and my knee locks up daily. My breasts hurt when they are full, when I start to pump, and when they are filling.

With the exception of the feet — you wouldn't know about any of that pain. I don't say anything about it. I mean, I get pissed because I can't wear the shoes I want, but that is pretty much the extent of my whining. I'm supposed to keep my foot wrapped and elevated and ice it as much as possible. Oh, and stay off of it. I'm supposed to do stretches and take hot showers or baths for my back and hip. This is all laughable.

I haven't pumped since yesterday morning. It's been almost 36 hours and my breasts are full to the point of excruciating. The cabbage leaves don't help. I'm taking ibuprofen and I did get to take a long, hot shower today, which was novel and lovely. Other than that I'm breathing through it and trying not to scream each time Buddy whacks me with a little four-month-old fist.

I have been moving very carefully. I try not to let anything touch me. I grit my teeth and breathe through the pain. I am not weaning myself off of pumping, I'm quitting. (The reasons why are for another post.) I will walk through this pain and out the other side. The physical pain I can take.

The emotional pain, the mental anguish — that is what breaks me. There is no breathing through the anxiety. It steals my breath. I cannot fight through the depression, it steals my strength. The anger and frustration, the fatigue and loneliness, the guilt and the despair — in the face of those, I am weak. In the face of postpartum depression and anxiety, I have a low tolerance for pain and I am easily broken.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

My birth plan screwed me.

Yeah — I said it. 

Nothing, NOTHING has gone according to plan. We didn't plan on getting pregnant (good job, Depo!), we didn't plan on preeclampsia, we didn't plan on a C-section, incision pain, the inability to lift anything other than my baby, debilitating breastfeeding pain, or postpartum depression/anxiety.

Yet, here I am. *deep breath* So...

I'm supposed to be trying to find my triggers. A big one for me is not having a plan and/or when my plans blow up. I can handle small changes. I plan for them — no really — my plans are in hour or half-hour blocks and come with baby mood contingencies. Control issues, anyone?

So obviously I need to work on letting go. Solutions that seem obvious to other people are complicated and gut-wrenching for me.

We are starting Buddy on one formula bottle a day while I ease back to pumping once every eight hours. If he takes this formula well, we'll slowly ease him off of the breast milk and onto the formula. I have almost a month's worth frozen, so once it looks like it's working I'll taper off pumping. We're doing this because I am a horrible mother who couldn't breastfeed and then was too lazy and selfish to keep up a pumping schedule I need to be able to sleep more at night and work more during the day. Lack of mental activity and physical pain are also triggers for me. Constantly full and aching breasts and pumping for an hour every three hours wasn't working for me.

Everyone could see it but me.

No one could understand why it rips me apart to do this. On a fundamental level, I cannot feed my child. My body was made to do this and I can't handle it. You can rationalize it all you want. You can say that it is different for everyone and that of course I am taking care of him and blah, blah, blah — but it is a failure. It just is. I'm making my peace with that. I'm grieving not being able to start our relationship the way I envisioned.

I am letting go of the plan.

Most of the time I was pregnant I spent half-dreaming of what motherhood would be like. I was trying to conjure up the fatigue and the softness of tiny fingers; the mountain of diapers and the joy of the very first real smile. I was trying to imagine the unimaginable.

Since about a week before he was born until now, I haven't really stopped to sort through all of my emotions and to let go of some of the toxicity surrounding them.

I am not weak or a horrible mother for getting preeclampsia. My body was not rejecting my baby or trying to hurt him in any way. I am not weak or bad or shameful for being secretly glad that I didn't have to go through a vaginal labor. This does not mean that I couldn't have done it. I am not selfish or lazy or terrible for not being able to stand the pain of breastfeeding. It doesn't mean that I don't love him the way other mothers love their babies. It is OK for me to stop pumping. I am allowed to take care of myself. I am required to take care of myself. I need to get as much sleep as possible. I need to be able to work. 

I need to let it all go.

While I realize that all of those are true statements, and that as a rational woman I should embrace the truth of them as a part of my healing process, the real truth is that I don't believe one word of it.

Not. One. Word.

However — I am giving him one formula bottle a day and I am cutting back on the pumping. I am trying to get more sleep and structure my days more so that I stress less. We're hiring a sitter to come in two mornings a week so that I can get work done and have a break (SHOWERS! YAY!).

My new mantra? Fake it till you make it.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

‍“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” — Ernest Hemingway*

It isn't a lack of sleep. I don't need to spend more time with friends. None of this is fixed because I act normal for a while.

It's time to stop hiding. 

If I'm going to have the guts to be honest with myself and with you, then I might as well try and have the guts to be honest with my friends and family as well. Because...

Because Katy has been sober for 12 years today. If she can do that, then I can do this.

Because Gayle said she was humbled to be my friend — and I want to be worthy of that sentiment.

Because my good friend Lindsey survived an abusive relationship and I was a witness to a year of it and never knew what I was seeing. Also because she is now in an amazing relationship and family.

Because Adam just wants to understand what's happening with me — and I need to stop trying to protect him from my crazy. He can't help if he doesn't know.

Because a woman in Washington, D.C. broke and is now dead and her young daughter has no idea why Mommy is gone.

Because I break a little every day. Every day something happens — or nothing happens — and a wound opens up in me. Sometimes I can close it with a deep breath or the smell of my baby's neck. Sometimes I use chocolate. Or take a walk. Or write to you all. Or read amazing blogs by beautiful people. Sometimes I have to just cry until my throat is raw and my stomach is heaving and I just give up and sleep. On those days I hold on with every shred of strength that I have until someone else is here to take care of Buddy and I can cobble myself back together.

I am blessed. I have friends and family who love me and have my back. I have a man who tells me and shows me that he loves me multiple times a day. He can hold me while I cry the ugliest cry and never make me feel ugly or alone. I haven't let him in enough.

That's a basic problem I have and this postpartum depression has amplified it. I tend to pull away when I'm stressed. I shut down all but the most basic functions and socially hibernate. Depression and anxiety don't help that any. I don't have the energy to explain to the people in my life that nothing happened but still everything is wrong — so I fake it. I try to interact on the phone or via text and email as much as possible because it's easier to fake it that way. When I do have to see people, I think of it like one of my old improv classes. Everything is easier when it isn't actually your life.

Lindsey told her story powerfully and beautifully on Facebook. She opened her life up to her family and friends in hopes she could put a human face on abuse and that we would all be more understanding in the future. She said that it was time to take a page from our LGBTQIA+ friends and “come out.”  She's right. It's time.

I have postpartum depression and anxiety. I am sick. This does not make me a bad mother. This does not mean I don't love my son. I am not weak. I am not just tired. I am ill. If you are not familiar with this diagnosis, please take the time to read the following resources:

• American College of Ob-Gyn Frequently Asked Questions
• Postpartum Support International

If you know someone who is sick, please educate yourself. If you know someone who is pregnant or has just given birth, please educate yourself. Please don't assume. Lives are at stake.

*Dammit! I don't even like Hemingway — but you have to admit, that man knew about depression.

‍

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

"Look how he reaches out to you."  — at the pediatrician's office
"He hears your voice and just stares!" — my mom at my house
"Oh he only has eyes for you!" — sales clerk at Barnes and Noble

I don't see it.

Sometimes when I come into his room in the morning and I'm unwrapping the swaddling blankets, he'll give me a gorgeous, gummy smile. I feel like that is more his general love of waking up in the morning than an actual excitement to see me specifically. Yeah, I know — what do I want, right? Do I need him to say, "Hi Mommy, I love you!"? Actually... yes, that would help.

It was nice and cool this morning, so we went and sat on the porch after Adam left for work. There is still too much to be said between us and I needed a break from the house. Some shade and a breeze to help clear my head.

He was a warm, soft, wriggly presence on my lap, staring at the designs on the pillows and the pattern of tile on the floor, generally occupying himself with taking in every detail of the day in true baby fashion. I rested my chin on that soft baby head and my life with him replayed in Cinemascope.

The ultrasound picture where we saw his face in (almost) 3D. A recognizable nose and mouth. The one where we saw those HUGE feet. Paddleboards. The one where we learned he was a boy and not the girl I was completely sure I was carrying. The one where he was almost seven lbs. The one where he was losing weight because my body was a terrible mother long before my mind broke.

From before he was born — when I couldn't handle it. My kidneys couldn't process the extra fluid and so it built up in my body and began squeezing him. My cervix wouldn't dilate even after 12 hours of labor so he had to be cut out of me.

The night I woke up to find that he had rolled out of my arms and was sliding upside down on the blanket, about to hit the floor head first.

The night I gave up breastfeeding because it hurt too much.

The night I was walking and jiggling, trying to get him to sleep and realized I was jiggling waaaay too hard and had to put him down while he cried.

The night I just sat and cried with him and prayed for the Zoloft to kick in or for him to just GO TO SLEEP.

The times I have handed him to his father and backed away.

The times I couldn't even look at his beautiful baby face.

Yesterday morning when I left for two hours and then came back and ignored him and his father for the rest of the day.

Why? Why would he watch me? Why would he love me? He must know I shower him with kisses and cuddles to ease my guilt and for my own comfort. Those wise eyes don't meet mine when I hold him up in front of me. The books and boards all say that your baby will be staring into your eyes at this point. Is he doing that and I just can't see it through the haze of my self-pity and guilt?

Or is he actually not looking me in the eye because of what he sees there?

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

Sometimes everything is horrible.

Sometimes you are holding your 14-week-old son who you love more than your own life and all you can see are unending nights of no sleep stretching out in front of you like the dashes on the highway and you hate his father for being able to sleep as long as he wants and you hate your life and you hate everything that isn't this tiny baby who WILL NOT SLEEP and nothing makes any sense and you just cry. You jiggle and you put the pacifier in his mouth, and he spits it out and starts to fuss, and you put it back in and he spits it out, and all of a sudden it is light in the room and you glance at the clock and two hours have gone by. He probably slept at some point, but you missed it because you were just sitting in a well of pain and fatigue that simply cannot be understood. Adam comes out of the bedroom and says good morning and tries to stroke your hair but you shrink away — ignoring the hurt and confusion on his face. He offers to take the baby and you are mute because if you open your mouth you will scream at him. You will fling the most hurtful words you can find and you will drag him down into your hell with you. Or maybe you say, "If you want to" and just sit there while he takes the baby out of your arms. You look at the baby-shaped hole in your life now and then you are moving. Still in your pajamas, you put on sneakers and your raincoat and tell him you have to go for a while. Halfway down the driveway you turn around and go back for your cell phone because you don't actually get to run away — love has imprisoned you and that is the worst part. Really.

No way to make the pain play fair, 

it doesn't disappear just because you say it isn't there, 

so when they ask why'd you go, 

you can say life in Eden changed.

I generally sleep from 10 p.m.-1 a.m. and then from 2-4 a.m. Sometimes I get to sleep again from 5-7 a.m., but that is rare. So I'm operating on about five hours of sleep, half-caff coffee, and Zoloft. I don't want to hear about how your kid sleeps from 6 p.m. until 7 a.m. I don't care about the book you read or the 15 million kids you've raised. I am dealing with a fatigue so intense and long-lasting that it can only release itself in irrational anger and continuous tears. If I try to sleep when he naps during the day, I feel worse and nothing gets done and that makes me feel crazy. So I just keep going. We try the later bedtime, we try the early bedtime. It makes no difference. We have a routine. We have aromatherapy. We have swaddle blankets. It doesn't matter.

Adam asked me yesterday, as I was cleaning or vacuuming or sweeping something, "Is there anything I can do to help?" I wanted to punch him in the face. I have never actually wanted to punch someone so much in my entire life. It was a physical craving — that is the only word I can use for it. I just said no and asked him to please stop asking me that.

WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME THAT??? I'm vacuuming the floor and you ask. What, am I supposed to stop and hand you the vacuum and go sit and eat bon bons? (P.S. What the hell are bon bons? I've never known.) Could you not see the floor needed to be vacuumed BEFORE I started to do it? Could you not just come home and do it? Or sweep the floor, or clean the bathroom, or the kitchen, or do laundry or dust, or sweep the front walk, or wash the windows or plan dinner for the week, or research developmental milestones and the best way to help the baby reach them, or any other of the millions of things I do or worry about doing every day. I don't ask you what I should be doing, I just do it. It isn't that complicated. I tell you I'm dividing up days and trying to do a couple chores a day to keep the house from complete chaos and you tell me you could never follow a routine that strict. OK, fine. Then just do some random shit please. Anything. Or at the very least please do not ask me what you can do. I am not your mother — you are a grown ass man who knows what a dirty floor looks like and where the fucking Swiffer is.

He tells me that he'll stay up late so I can sleep. What that means is he'll stay up until the 1 a.m. feeding and then maybe sleep or maybe keep playing video games until the 2 or 4 a.m. feeding (6 a.m. at the latest) before falling asleep until noon or one. I still have to get up for an hour at 1 a.m. and at 5 a.m. to pump so how exactly does this help? I have tried to explain this. If you want to help, get up at 5 a.m. and let me go to bed. Let me abdicate responsibility for 6 or 8 hours once a week.  Make my sleep a priority the way I make your sleep a priority.

I love Adam. I love him so much it hurts. He is the sweetest man in the universe and I know that if I could make him understand any of this he would try to help. It isn't his fault that I can't get the words out. That me needing any of this makes me feel horrible. I can't find any way to say these things that isn't incredibly bitchy, so I just keep my mouth shut and slog from day to day.

I make menus each week and clip coupons and plan so that we save as much as possible because I know he worries about money. I try to make sure that we get out for a little while at least once each week because I know he wants time with me away from the baby. I try to make sure he has time with his friends without either of us at least every other week so that he can keep as much of his old life as possible. I don't wake him up on the weekends because he works all week and stays up late and needs his rest. I try to split bath and bedtime with him each night because doing both hurts his back. I'm looking for a new rocking chair because he's too tall to fit comfortably into the one we have. I do our laundry every Thursday and the baby's laundry every Tuesday. I vacuum on Mondays and Fridays. Something gets cleaned every day. I work on the website and on the rental house to try and start bringing in money to help out. I study for my real estate license exam so that I can bring in more. I walk with the baby in his carrier every day for at least an hour to try and start losing the weight and to get him some fresh air. We do tummy time and listen to music, he loves when I sing “The ABC Song” and when I read any of the Pooh books. I do it all with sore breasts and an aching back, a knee that tells me when it's going to rain, a randomly leaky bladder, and a mind misted from lack of sleep and postpartum depression.

I don't want to stop doing any of those things. I want to take care of my family and my home. I want to find satisfaction and joy. Sometimes there are glimmers. Right now glimmers are not enough. I'm sitting on the screened-in porch typing this and crying. Then I'll get some paperwork done for one job and do the menu and shopping list for the week and study for a couple hours. Adam will take care of my sweet baby while I have a day off. It's already 1 p.m. and there is so much to get done before bathtime rolls around. There is never enough time. And today is one of those days when the crying doesn't stop.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I ALMOST GOT INTO A SLAP FIGHT WITH A BREASTFEEDING MOTHER THE OTHER DAY.

We get looks. I'm used to them. I'm obviously Black and my son, well, it isn't quite as obvious. It must have something to do with that whole white dad thing. Hmmm... so, we get looks when we're out. People pause before complimenting me on his rampant adorableness. After all — you don't want to compliment the nanny! Growing up in my rainbow of a family (another post for another day), I was prepared for all of this. I was completely unprepared for this woman.

Looking back on it now, it’s really not so surprising. On most of the parenting pages I follow on Facebook, feeding your child has got to be right up there in the pantheon of the most controversial subjects. I've wrestled with it myself as breastfeeding just wasn't working for me and Buddy. It took Adam, my pediatrician, and my OB/GYN to get me to see that pumping and bottle feeding was best for my son. Even though he is thriving now, chubby and happy and demanding, I still have mixed feelings about it. Shouldn't I have been able to soldier through the pain? Nevermind that he and I were both in tears each time he fed, or that he wasn't gaining weight — all I could think was BREAST IS BEST.

So when I saw this woman with her super stylish nursing cover out I thought that we would set up at the next table over. I knew that I needed to feed Buddy and I (patronizingly, I admit) thought that I could be a backup for her in case any of the other patrons gave her any crap for feeding in public. Yeah... that is not how it all went down.

I got out my bottle and settled Buddy on my lap in a way that still allowed me access to my decaf caramel macchiato and smiled at my neighbor. She sniffed at me and gave me "the look.” You know the look. It's the one certain people have been perfecting since fifth grade. I sighed and turned away a little, thinking this was a race thing. She sniffed again. And again. Finally I asked her if there was a problem.

That was her opening. She said she hated to see "people treating their precious babies that way.” I looked around to see who she was talking about and then asked, "What?" like an idiot. Then she launched into a lecture about breast milk and breastfeeding and threw out all kinds of statistics at me about how it was basically the only way my son would be able to grow up happy and healthy. Her tone was holier than thou and the look on her face was cruel. People were starting to stare. Thankfully Buddy is a gulper and finishes a bottle faster than mean women can tirade, so I was able to stand up, plop him on my shoulder, and gather my things as she kept talking. She ended with, "Don't you want your baby to be happy?" That might be the worst thing you can say to a mother — and it was what made me almost snap.

This woman did not know about my struggles. She didn't know about my depression or anxiety, the searing pain in my breasts, or the sobbing of my son. She didn't know anything about me. If I had met this woman just two weeks earlier I would have been a crying mess by the time she was finished. Instead I just looked at her and said, "I guess you weren't breastfed, huh?" and I walked away.

Buddy didn't belch until we were out of ear shot. I know, disappointing.

This post is written partially in response to this article.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I was a bad mother today. 

We didn't have the easiest night. I got about four or five hours of sleep but it was split into four chunks, so... yes, I am writing this from the Starbucks closest to my house. I ran away from home for an hour or two (or as long as I could go until the boobs threatened to burst!).

It started like any day: I turned on the light and gave a bright, singsong "Good Morning" to Buddy. I changed his diaper and we played some peek-a-boo on his changing table and said goodbye to Daddy. It was a great start to the day. I was even planning a post in my head about how it is impossible to be sad around my baby in the morning. He gets so excited about each and every day. There's a lesson in that for someone less medicated and/or more caffeinated than I am.

His early morning nap is usually only about 30 minutes and then he's up for an hour or two. This morning after his nap and second breakfast he fell back asleep on my shoulder as I was burping him. There's nothing better than a baby falling asleep on you. They go boneless and it's the sweetest weight in the entire world. So I just settled back into the love seat and turned on season four of “White Collar” on iTunes.

I had every intention of sleeping when he slept today. I was also going to finish the laundry and do the dishes. I was going to make sure he had tummy time and we were going to have storytime today too. Instead he slept through until he was hungry again, I fed him, and he fell back asleep. Somehow I ate an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's and fell asleep as well.

Of course when we woke up I had missed my pumping time by over an hour and he had a full diaper and I had a full bladder. He had slept too much and I had slept too little and was feeling guilty for not doing anything all day. I fed, I changed, I burped, I prayed that he would go back to sleep for just 20 minutes so that I could pump.

Yeah… no.

I ended up putting him in his crib and turning on the mobile. That entertained him for about three of the 20 minutes it takes me to pump. The rest of the time he was screaming. And I let him. I just sat there and pumped and stared at the door to his bedroom and wondered how we had gotten SO off schedule. Eventually he cried himself to sleep (which I had promised myself that my son would never have to do) and I gave up on the day.

To manage my postpartum depression, I need a schedule. I need sleep. I need to take my meds. I need to feel like I've accomplished something during the day — even if it is only making sure that my son has tummy time. Today I fell down on the job and I feel it. Guilt is a soap scum that is coating my day. All I can do is try to scrub it off by telling you all about it.

The amazing thing about being alive is you continually get another chance. The amazing thing about Buddy is he doesn't care that we didn't do anything but sleep all day. Or that I ate all that ice cream and watched TV instead of doing housework. He's even forgiven me already for leaving him to cry while I pumped. (When I will forgive myself for that, I cannot say.) Before I left, I nuzzled his neck and kissed his chubby cheek and he said, "Mommy, I love you so much, unconditionally, just the way you love me.” It only sounded like "Ooooo" to everyone else.

So tonight might be a little rough because he slept so much today, but we'll get back on track tomorrow with the help of Adam. I will try yet again to be the woman that he sees when he gazes up at me with those beautiful eyes. And I will try to love myself with the purity and sweetness that he does.

Today I was a bad mommy, but tomorrow is a new day.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

Good Day. An actual good day.

OK — a good day in postpartum depression land is not the same as a good day nationwide, but still, for me, this is big. Buddy shat on me today. Why and/or how that fixed something in me that was broken I cannot explain.

He was fussy all morning. Seriously fussy and not sleeping. Adam and I thought it was gas so we burped him... incessantly. We jiggled, we walked, we did tummy time, we did back patting, we stood on our heads and drank from water glasses while singing the National Anthem. In Latin.

Then we decided to check his temperature. (Do you see where I'm going with this?) We got him on the changing table and I put the vaseline on the thermometer. Adam and I both apologized as I inserted it and then…

BOOOOOOOM!

There was explosive poop EVERYWHERE and a fart so massive it had to have come from a full-grown man after a night of chili dogs and beer. The thermometer flew out. My hand was covered with disgusting yellow baby poop and Adam dissolved into childlike giggles and then, miraculously, so did I. I laughed. I laughed so hard that my incision started to hurt. I laughed so hard I started to cry. I begged him to hand me a wet wipe and then I burst out laughing again.

Everything is not fixed. I'm still held hostage in this house by anxiety. I still can't handle any stress without crying. I still feel like my life is spinning completely out of control.

But I held my baby today — and today I did it because I wanted to. Somehow he cleared out something that was blocking me with that explosion. It was ridiculous and it completely worked. All of a sudden I felt like a mom again.

Today was a good day.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

My mom hasn't been over since I was diagnosed with PPD. This week was super busy for her, so she missed her usual days with Buddy. I was looking forward to her getting here today so much. I should have known better. Without going into our entire backstory (mothers and daughters... you don't want to go there) I can say that pretty much every time I have an expectation of comfort, it blows up in my face.

You would think by now I would have learned. We just aren't good at that.

She came in upset. We used to work together and a mutual friend asked me via email how I was doing. I told her I had been diagnosed and that I was taking my meds and would be OK. Apparently she told people at work and some of them asked my mom if I was OK. When mom thought I was "Supermom," she was more than happy to brag to everyone in the office. Now that I'm struggling, she's a private person? Didn’t I realize our co-worker was such a gossip?

I had apologized before I realized what I was saying. How ridiculous of me it was to apologize for telling the truth about what I'm going through.

She asked what she can do to help. I told her I didn't know. Adam and I are trying to work out some schedule that will help both of us stay healthy and sane. He needs to keep up with his workouts and I need to start getting out of the house. We had talked about her maybe being able to help us with this, but I wasn't ready to ask for any of that yet.

She wasn't finished, though — apparently all I need to do is get out more. If I would just stop isolating myself, I'd be fine. I liked it when I went to lunch with my dad last week — why don't I do that more? It's not fair for Adam to have to do everything.

And the best one: Did I think she was never depressed? There are some days she doesn't want to get up and go out too. 

That's when I lost it. I yelled — I don't remember what I said exactly but it was something about her NOT being medically depressed and it NOT being the same thing.

I was hurt on so many levels. Obviously she had no understanding about what I'm going through. We'd been emailing and I gave her a link for a website with information for friends and family. Apparently THAT was a waste of my time.

Did she ever ask how I was feeling? How I was doing? What the hell was going on in my head? No. Does she have any idea how hard it is for me to even touch my baby? How devastated, guilty, and low that makes me feel — all day and every day.

If there was something I could do that would just fix it, wouldn't I do that? I'm taking the damn meds. I took a shower. Adam and I are working on getting him to sleep more and coming up with some kind of schedule so we're trading off night duties. I'm writing to all of you. And still, this will be a process. It will take however long it takes. I'm holding on to the idea that the Zoloft will start to work soon and that combined with getting more sleep, it all will start to help.

I should talk to her about this. I should try to explain. I need her help and will continue to need her help, and she needs to know what I'm facing. I understand all of that… but right now I just want her out of my house. I started writing this to keep from screaming and yelling and totally breaking down. Buddy is awake and he doesn't need to hear that. Adam just got home and has no idea what's going on. He needs a break so he can eat and settle in before taking over for a while. Buddy needs some actual cuddle time and interaction I can't give him right now. So instead of screaming and yelling like a five-year-old, I'm writing this blog post. I am writing and breathing.

Later I'll figure out how to talk to her.

Later I'll deal with my hurt feelings.

For now I'll just breathe.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

I took Zoloft for the first time a couple minutes ago because I don't want to feel like this anymore. I want to actually want to hold my baby. I remember being unable to put him down, now I don't even want to look at him. How can you be angry at a four-week-old? It isn't his fault that he can't stop crying. Or that he kicks my incision and flails at my sore nipples. Or that he doesn't like to sleep at night. Most of those are because of things I have done wrong — or just can't seem to get right.

I just can't seem to get anything right. I can't sleep, I can't take care of him the way he needs, I can't connect to Adam, I can't stop crying. I can pump — I'm great at being a milk cow. That's a new life skill for my resume. I can be unreasonably angry — and judging from the last couple sentences, I have self-pity on lock.

So I went to Dr. Bridget. She gave me a Zoloft prescription and information on a support group. She wants me to try and get as much sleep as I can (the goal being five uninterrupted hours… HA!) and to shower and leave the house for an hour each day. Honestly that feels like someone asking me to climb Mt. Everest each day.

This happened fast. I went from slightly overwhelmed to completely broken down in just a couple days. Of course I had been warned about postpartum depression, but like so much that has to do with motherhood, no one was able to accurately describe what I was in for. All it took was a couple of sleepless nights to have the thread of my sanity unraveled all over the nursery room floor.

The most lonely place in the world is the rocking chair next to Buddy’s crib at 4 a.m. when he just WILL. NOT. SLEEP. I can't get him to go down. I can't go get Adam. I can't do anything but sit there and cry with him.

This morning Adam woke up and found me sobbing next to the pack and play, begging him to please, please, please sleep. It wasn't even the low point of the night. The low point was when I was doing the arm jiggle, which he usually loves, and I realized that I was jiggling way too hard. I stopped immediately, put him on my lap, and just sat there. I just sat there until I knew I could continue rocking. I just sat there and felt like the lowest form of slime in the universe.

So Adam took over for the morning and I cried. I sobbed and wailed with a pillow over my face because I don't want to scare Buddy. I cried for so long that I got nauseous. I fell asleep crying and woke up about half an hour later starving and parched with a soaked pillow. I've eaten and gotten a couple two-hour chunks of sleep while Adam worked from home this morning and took care of Buddy.

He just left to go to work for the afternoon. Buddy is asleep and I am sitting here, having taken my Zoloft, typing and crying again. I'll pull my Bessie routine in about half an hour and I'll just keep praying that Andrew stays asleep until Adam gets home. Because right now I am scared of my baby. I love him. I love him so much. But I recognize that today he has the power to break me into a million tiny pieces.

‍

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

‍

We've been home for a little over two weeks. The first week Adam’s parents were here and I thought I could totally rock this mom thing. Grammy and Pop Pop were not overbearing, but they were there when I needed someone to hold him because my incision was killing me, or I had to pee, or shower, or I just wanted to eat with both hands. It was nice to have company as I slept in my chair each night. My incision hurt waaaaaay too much when I laid out flat, so I've been sleeping in the oversize chair in our living room. Grammy slept on the couch next to me and Andrew was usually in his pack-and-play infant sleeper — or in my arms.

Once they left, my mom was here for a night. That's a story for another time.

Then there were three. Adam was home with us for another week. He worked from home in the afternoons and I got spoiled. I could shower. I could eat. I could pee. I could think about "I.”

Now we've been home alone for three days and it is quite possible that I am losing my mind. Although I don't think I have postpartum depression, I can now completely understand how it could manifest. I feel myself walking a slippery line between being OK and having a total breakdown.

Mostly it's because I have no idea what to do. I've read the books and the blogs and I've listened to all the older moms around me. None of them tell you how to make it through each day, though. Add the insecurity to massive amounts of sleep deprivation for a person who needed 10 hours BEFORE she got pregnant and you have some... well... issues.

After a sleepless night last night and a diagnosis of thrush this morning from Dr. K I was on the edge. We went to Starbucks and I got a venti mocha chip Frappuccino. WITH CAFFEINE. It was that or gin. I think I made the right choice.

When we got home I left him in the carrier because I am a horrible mommy and I got so many things done! I clipped coupons and made a grocery list for Adam, pumped and prepared a bottle, stuffed the birth announcements into envelopes, started the dishwasher, sent some emails, checked Facebook, and ate lunch. I didn't wake him up to eat when I should have. I let him sleep and felt simultaneously guilty and relieved.

Adam’s Aunt L is a baby nurse. She had commented on my self-pitying morning Facebook post that maybe it was time for us to do some sleep training. That's when I did the best thing I could have done today. I messaged her and asked her exactly HOW we were supposed to do that.

Here's our conversation in case it can help anyone else:

Me: So how do we do the sleep training? Do we just try to keep him up all day? Keeping him awake has never worked in the past. When this kid wants to sleep he can SLEEP. Any ideas or advice you have would be life-saving. No kidding.

Aunt L: The goal is to shorten the amount of daytime sleep each day.... play a little before feeding if possible, or in the middle of a feeding... and to keep him up as long as possible after a feed before he naps. It is hard at that age because they do fall asleep so easily, but try dressing/ undressing, baths, stimulating noises, different music, drumming on surfaces, etc. Try to find ticklish spots, teething rings... one hot, one cold. Don't make him or you miserable keeping him up... just extend the normal awake time. And decrease nap time... especially mid-afternoon and later! Just waking him up by doing something stimulating, be creative... you'll learn with Andrew what works. By the second or third night, he should be sleeping a tiny bit longer, but almost definitely will go back to sleep faster

Aunt L: Does he spit up a lot? Just wondering, because reflux can make them choosy about the position they sleep in.

Me: THANK YOU!!! We'll start tomorrow and see what happens. That doesn't sound so bad. I thought that we'd need to keep him awake for hours and hours to get any relief! He doesn't spit up that much — a little bit after every second or third feeding. And he's only fussy about sleeping at night — he'd sleep all day long if I let him!

Aunt L: A lot of babies don't understand night and day, so get him lots of light, noise, and stimulation during the day (smells too!). Thrush isn't uncommon, hopefully that'll help some... keeping him up for extended periods is an option if the other doesn't help… but the biggest naps to keep shorter are mid to late afternoon through early evening... oh, and maybe sing the same song or play the same music when it's actually " bedtime" whenever you normally would go to bed, maybe a little earlier for him? Hope it helps, good luck, and hugs!

So after, we played a little bit before I fed him — it took about five minutes until he started to get fussy. After he ate and burped I put on some music and we "danced.” I moved his arms and legs in time to the music and picked him up so he could kick and I tickled his belly and we just… played. He wasn't fussy and I wasn't cranky and we were simply Andrew and Mama. It lasted for three songs before the yawning and crumple-face set in, but those three songs changed my entire day.

Sometimes you have to reach out and ask for help. Someone out there has an answer.

This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon. 

“Breastfeeding is best. For you and your baby. It's natural. You were made to do this. Your baby was made to do this. You naturally fit together and you are all your baby needs.”

Maybe to some people these are beautiful words about the bond between a mother and her child. But to a mother who for any reason cannot breastfeed, they are slaps in the face, punches to the gut, and stabs in the heart.

Buddy was 5 lbs, 12 oz when he was born. By the time we left the hospital he was down to 5 lbs, 5 oz. The doctor and nurses told me that was right in line with what babies normally lose, so I didn't worry too much.

OK, let's be honest… I worried. I worry about EVERYTHING. However, since they told me it was normal, it went on page two of my worry list. Because he was born with an infection and had to stay in the Level 2 nursery, I actually started pumping before I ever got to breastfeed. 

The lactation consultant (LC) at the hospital was named Jessica, the same woman who had taught my breastfeeding class. She was a sweetheart, knowledgeable, and confidence inspiring. She helped us get a good latch, so I knew what it should feel like and I'd be able to replicate it. Yeah... right...

It hurt, but I was on Percocet and ibuprofen and still everything hurt, so this particular pain didn't penetrate the fog enough to raise any red flags. Plus, everyone had said it was going to hurt in the beginning... so this was normal... right? We had a couple rough starts in the hospital, but a great group of nurses helped us out and I was pretty confident about going home.

The day after I went home, I was back. There is a support group for breastfeeding moms at the hospital where I gave birth. Buddy was the newest and youngest baby there when my mom and I walked in. Jessica helped me get settled and we worked for a while on getting him to latch on correctly. Other moms assured me that I'd be able to do this. Eventually Jess got me a nipple shield and it seemed to help. Still it seemed like he was constantly hungry and I never felt him actually draining my breasts.

I've never been great at handling pain, but I was a champ after the Buddy birth. I was up and walking, showering, moving, and doing whatever I felt needed to be done. I worked through the pain because I was so in love with my little man.

I weaned myself off of the Percocet when Adam’s parents left — that was about a week after we got home. Then I ran up against this wall. With every feeding the pain got worse. I called the LC at my pediatrician's office and talked to her about it. I called Jessica. He was latching correctly, we were in the right position, but it hurt. Hurt is not the word. The pain sliced through me like a knife that some evil warlock had set on fire. I saw Dr. Bridget; my breasts are perfectly healthy. In about a week I was reduced to silent tears each time I fed him. Adam caught me sobbing one time and told me it had to stop. I had to stop.

I went to that week's pediatrician's appointment fully prepared to be slapped down. I was ready to suffer through as the LC told me our latch was great. I had chosen this doctor specifically because she was so supportive of breastfeeding and now I had let my baby, myself, AND our doctor down.

And then we found out that Buddy had only gained one ounce in one week. Suddenly it didn't matter that I wanted to breastfeed. It didn't matter that I felt like a failure. What was important was that my son wasn't getting what he needed. Dr. K told me to go ahead and pump and bottle feed. We went home and I began my life as Bessie the milk cow. There is way less pain, although apparently still more pain than other women have. Most importantly Buddy is now gaining more than an ounce a day. Dr. K gave us a huge thumbs up at our last checkup and a lot of his fussiness has faded away. A full baby is a happy baby.

Now that I'm dealing with the postpartum depression and he has his nights and days screwed up, now that we are struggling to get through every night and my pumping schedule seems impossible to keep up some days, NOW he decides that the three oz he gets at each feeding is just not enough. He's still sucking at the end of each bottle and he's gone from three hours between feedings back down to two. So we're going to go to 3.5 oz for a day or two, and then four oz if that doesn't seem to be enough. Because a full baby is a happy baby.

How I will get more milk from Bessie, I do not know. At the moment I can't explain how I get from feeding to feeding. I'm just grateful he's healthy and I can care enough to make a plan to keep him that way.

Sometimes it doesn't seem real. There is a tiny, little man in a crib in the nursery and still sometimes I question — did this really happen? I have a feeling, every once in a while, that "they" are going to come and take him away. "They" will know I do not deserve this tiny miracle, that I am unworthy, that I will definitely completely fuck this kid up and "they" will come correct this situation. Less than three weeks ago Adam and I were at Dr. Bridget's office for my weekly checkup. I was reviewing my list of things we needed to get done before the baby came, and silently panicking because I felt so crappy and knew there was no way that everything would get finished in two weeks. There was no way we would be ready.

My blood pressure was elevated and there was protein in my urine. They put me on bed rest and sent me home to do a 24-hour urine test. I tried not to panic. I tried not to let Adam see how panicked I was. What if something was wrong with the baby? Had I been sleeping on my back too much? We both knew I hadn't been exercising. Shit! I was already a horrible mother and he wasn't even born. That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday I left the couch only to pee and to get food. I tried to ignore how messy the house was. I tried to ignore the list of things left undone. I tried to ignore the massive fatigue and the feeling of being swollen bursting all over my body.

Thursday morning there was blood work and more bad news. We were going straight to the hospital for “observation.” We shouldn't worry. Dr. Bridget just wanted to make sure that everything was OK. If everything had been even close to OK, we wouldn't have been heading to the hospital — but I tried to let that go.

Now all I could think about was when to let my family and Adam’s family know. I focused on that and on the paperwork, not on all the things that could be going wrong with my baby and my body. There was no fear because I refused to acknowledge it. For someone who has let fear rule her life in far too many instances to count, this was a revelation.

I don't remember much of the two days before I gave birth. I don't remember when the decision was made to try and induce instead of continuing to "observe.” I do remember that getting the vaginal suppository that was supposed to soften my cervix was absolute hell. It scraped and burned going in and continued to burn for the two hours I lay in bed crying, and I remember having to pee more urgently than I ever had in my life. Eventually the nurse removed it. She said she'd let me rest before putting in another and that was when the fear came rushing back over me. There was no way that I could do this. If I couldn't even handle the medicine that was supposed to start my labor — how was I supposed to handle actual labor? Then the first miracle — I was having contractions. I didn't feel them, but they were happening regularly and so I couldn't get the suppository. I thanked God.

My memory skips over to getting the epidural. Fear again, of the huge needle I had seen in birth class, of the fact that something was going into my spine, of the fact that this made it all real. I was having this baby. A slight prick and burn, then numbness. I didn't notice the numbness spread from just above my waist down to my toes until my nurse came in to insert the catheter. By this point there was pitocin, the epidural, the saline IV, and something else to keep my BP down — I can't remember what that was. It was early Friday morning and I was pretty out of it.

At some point my mom showed up. She brought Adam food and they stepped outside to eat. He had been looking more and more withdrawn and scared and I wanted him to get a break. I wasn't scared — that's the great thing about being out of your mind on a drug combo. Dr. Bridget came in and told me that in 12 hours I had dilated only 1.5 cm. My body was working too hard and nothing was happening. I could either have a C-section or try to tough it out for another hour or two. I decided to try and tough it out — but there was a part of me that heard C-section and just gave in. No labor pain, no labor scariness, no screaming, and no fear. Just a numbness continuation and then a baby. All I remember thinking clearly was, "I just want my baby.”

Trying to explain to mom and Adam when they got back that I'd probably have a C-section soon was hard through my fuzzy brain. Test results came back and then we weren't going to get to wait the full two hours. Another doctor was going to perform the surgery, my mom left to get Adam’s mom from the airport, and I stayed in fuzz-land. My main worry was that I would feel the doctors cutting into me. It was an irrational and MAJOR fear. I focused on it. Held tight to it and thought of nothing else.

In the OR I was pumped full of more drugs and transferred onto the operating table. Everything was surreal and felt like I was on a TV show. Adam’s face over the mask was calm, but his eyes looked scared. I asked him to stroke my hair like he always used to when I was upset — it gave us both something to do. The pulling feelings I had been warned about only added to the surreality of the moment and to my feeling of being disconnected.

And then there he was. I heard his cry and they brought this tiny, tiny, little man up to see me. In my mind I reached for him, but my arms didn't move. I told Adam to go with him. Someone had to give my baby hugs since I couldn't.

Back in the hospital room my mom and Adam’s mom came in. At some point I was told that Andrew wasn't breathing well and that he might have an infection. He was only 5 lbs, 12 oz — smaller than he had been a week ago. I asked how much I should worry and was told not to worry at all, so I didn't. I didn't have the energy or brain power to process what was happening. I pumped formula for Adam to feed our baby, I slept, and in some part of my brain I wondered why I couldn't be with him but I couldn't fully comprehend what was going on.

Finally on Saturday they brought him to me. This tiny, squirmy man was all mine. I laid him on my heart and looked down at him and introduced myself. The fog had cleared enough by then that I could feel the weight of that moment and I cried. "Hi sweetheart, I'm your Mama."