One Year - - - One Day

 

On November 22, 2010, we celebrated James' 1st year into this world.  He learned how to clap hands, walk, play peekaboo (places hands over ears instead of eyes but we're working on it), blow kiss, wave bye bye and hello.

He smells of baby powder and baby slobber, milk and dreft detergent.  He likes to play Humpty Dumpty with mom-mom.  He loves to eat macaroni for dinner and waffles for breakfast.  He wants to dance to easy listening elevator music before bedtime and adores dancing cheek to cheek and watching it all unfold in the mirror.

On November 23, 2009, one day after laboring Jimmy into the world only to have him pulled from me via C-section, I crashed.

I crashed with the intensity of a meteor falling to earth.  I celebrate James' 1st birthday and the 1 year survival anniversary of this PPA/PPD maze I have now attached to my life.

"He's one year already?  Boy, that year went by fast!!!"  is the common phrase repeated to me by well-wishers.  BUT IN ALL HONESTY IT WAS THE LONGEST YEAR OF MY LIFE.

Jimmy is my ticket to a new life that I am creating every day.  He teaches me how to be a better person through understanding and patience.

I remember how this time last year I spent 90% of the day walking around in a daze...bleak grayness and dismal shadows following me as I tried to nurse a week old newborn.  Lack of Sleep + Outrageous Anxiety + Hypersensitivity to C-Section = MISERY.

I cried so much in the beginning I became dehydrated and would have spells of nausea and dizziness.  The anxiety was as intense as it could be, often resulting in frantic calls to my counselor and wondering if hospitalization was an option.  It was not.  We have crappy medical insurance. 

I sat looking out the window while the baby slept....tapping my legs in restlesness...wondering if the devil had taken possession of me.  The horrid thoughts that raced through my head and the secondary thoughts that pummeled over them, wondering why these thoughts would originate in the first place, left me exhausted and hollow.

Why did I have a baby I could not care for?  I could not attach myself to? It was too risky....To love something and someone THAT MUCH meant placing my heart outside of myself and always wondering if I'm doing the right thing. 

And did I love him?  I mean really? Just because I gave birth to him, who says I have to love him?  I will have to fake the motions of motherhood so people don't lock me away somewhere.  I'll just smile and nod when people tell me how beautiful he is, how lucky I am and how blessed I should feel to have a child. 

However, I knew the truth.   Babies, Children, People.... are a big hassle.  I felt like an 8 year old girl given a real life baby doll to handle.  Where were my instructions?  Why isn't someone with me 24 hours a day directing me on what to do, how to feel...

I needed a kick in the pants and this little boy baby certainly gave it to me. 
When I look back now to what those first few weeks, months...who am I kidding, I still have "it" (PPA & PPD) did to my psyche, I am amazed that I survived it.  I suppose someone out there will say by the "grace of God" did I manage to not get myself hospitalized.

Perhaps it was the Grace of God.  Perhaps it was cheap Health Insurance.  Perhaps it was a combination of both but what I do know now????  It has humbled me to a new beginning.

When my son smiles, his face lights up and illuminates the air with effervescence.  It is unbelievable how 12 months can make me appreciate that little face, those little pouty lips and that little twinkle in his eye he gets when he sees someone he loves. 

I thank God for him while I try to work on me.  What a difference a year makes.  What a difference a day makes too.

Almost one year later....

He's someone I didn't plan on ever meeting or being a mother to.  Yet he's here in my life as a new "normal" for the past 12 months.

I was scared of him at first.  He was small, intimidating and very loud.  I'm used to silence.  I'm used to order within my chaos yet here was this little person calling all the shots.

 I gave up very easily in the very beginning.  I wanted no part of mothering.  My body was in pain and my emotions were in overdrive. 

He was not planned. He was a surprise indeed. 

It took me 9 months to calm myself over the notion that I would have a permanent change in my life.

And then it happened.

He came into this world so calmly while an internal storm brewed inside of me...his one and only mother.


I was not suited to be a mom.  This new life deserved someone who could take care of him, love him, not resent him for being young and helpless.  

He deserved someone with a pure heart in the mothering world, not someone who questioned her own sanity to bring a person into her life....a life that was flawed in so many ways.

But he greeted me nonetheless with a faint coo and a smile.  I did not melt.  I did not sigh in wonder.  I did not do any of the cookie cutter Hallmark movie  motions of being a new mother.

Instead I clutched my fists in prayer and pounded my pillows in angst.  What am I going to do?  What am I going to do with a baby?  Why is mothering so easy for some and so foreign to me?  I have the ability to nurture and love....what was my fear?

Where did my freedom go?
Where did my common sense go?
Where did my lightheartedness go?
Where did I go?


The details will come soon enough as to the journey of motherhood that I had to take.  A tumultuous journey at that.  


Yet here I am 12 months later...my heart soars when I see this child.  A light to my irrational darkness, he leads me to beautiful discoveries.  He is like my flashlight into this gray life I sometimes create.

The day that I never thought would come has come.  Today.  Today is the day I realize how much I love my son...nothing special even happened.  It was just a realization that my world is brighter because he is in it.


Ask me 12 months ago if I thought I would say any of this and I would have looked at you as if you had a pipe growing out of your head.  No way would I ever feel better about being a mom....or so I thought.


My prayers have been answered.  My son.  My loving son is teaching me how to take baby steps as a human being.  All he has to do is be my son.


More to come....

6 months Post-Partum - The Good, The Bad, The Survival

Today marks my baby boy's 6 months into this life.

It was 6 months ago that I walked into the hospital in horrible, excited pain.  Glorious pain that I knew would provide a result of a new being that, even at that last moment, wasn't sure I could handle or want.  What a raw statement to type and read over yet it was true. 

That baby deserved better than a crying mess of a mom that I would become.  He deserved a happy Michelle Duggar-esque woman who would embrace motherhood instead of getting physiologically sick from it.

The 9 months that led up to that hospital trip was bumpy to say the least.  I had gone through a nervous breakdown without hospitalization and survived...even managed to thrive through a somewhat miserable, physical pregnancy.

I remember them telling me at the OB/GYN that my nerves and anxiety were all normal and that it was my perception of them that made them SEEM abnormal.  Well....that was all fine and dandy but it didn't take away the fact that I threw up every morning (morning sickness? no!  nerves? yes!), trembled and shook and walked on eggshells waiting for the next panic attack to hit.

What made matters worse, was that the psych I trusted for prior treatment of my nerves and anxiety, played the Save the License game with me....let me explain this one:

ME:  "Doc, I just found out I'm pregnant"
DOC: "You're on 60 mg of Cymbalta for anxiety, OCD, right?"
ME:  "Yes and my anxiety is through the roof right now...."
DOC:  "You need to get off that Cymbalta quick!"
ME:  "Wha?...."
DOC: "Take 1/2 a dose for the next three days and then stop."
ME:  "But that seems rather abrupt in weaning...."
DOC: "Yes, but that Cymbalta can really damage your baby"
ME: "Ummm, ok...."
DOC: "You have to get off of it....You don't know what the effects are to the baby"....

I hung up the phone feeling trepidation and intimidated by what lay ahead.  What followed was 10 weeks of hell - Disassociation & DeRealization Disorder as a result of being taken off of a powerful med so quickly.  I will discuss that pretty picture later.

I sit and type this with the sound of waves crashing against the rocks of the beach and seagulls cawing over the tide.  I wish I could say I was at the seashore but I'm in the next room listening to a white noise machine that is placed on "ocean" setting next to the crib.

He is my Prince Charming - but the storybook fairytale of motherhood is a myth, at least at this stage.  I wanted so much to enjoy being a mom to a little blob of sweet baby-powdered flesh, and at times, I relish and cherish it....but most of the time, it's a struggle to keep my repetitive thoughts of "AM I DOING THIS RIGHT?" at bay....

Happy 1/2 year, baby boy.  I promise your momma will do everything in her power to get well for you and be healthy and happy.  You are my inspiration to grow and thrive.

MOTHERHOOD IS NOT FOR SISSIES!!!!!

.....So here I was pregnant at 38, still struggling with major anxiety and depression issues that plagued me my whole life and I find out that I better get my shit together in the next 6 months.

I did just that.

I went to a new Ob/Gyn practice that wasn't as large as my last one because I feared being just another patient. I mean I wanted SPECIAL TREATMENT because I was a SPECIAL PATIENT. I have ANXIETY!!!! LOOK AT MEEEEE!!!! I HAVE DEPRESSION!!!! IT"S SOOOOO OBVIOUS!!! That's what my thoughts were screaming inside.

I found a counselor who I begged to not treat me like another crazy patient but someone who is at her wits end and trying very hard to grasp the big change about to happen.

By the way, you will notice that I will use the phrase "wits end" a lot in this blog. That's how I felt for a vast majority of the time. Clueless, Bewildered and Fret with Fear.

I am about to take you on a journey of what my life was like pre, during and post pregnancy.
Throughout this blog, you will either understand what I was like because chances are you may be or have gone through similar things or you will just shake your head in bewilderment and say "She's lost...pray for that baby".

Either way, I hope you can gather something from this blog. I'm writing down the bones of what I go and have gone through so that others may not seem so alone.

To be a mom, I learned, is to step outside of yourself for a while and watch life unfurl upon which you created. It is not for the weak of heart, it requires strength and stamina.

To the women out there that make it seem like it's a breeze, hats off to you. You are not who I am. I am the one who will tell you it's hard work and you may not even like it.... and even that's ok. Feelings are neither right nor wrong, they just are.

Hang on, the journey is about to begin and I will be the first to say it: "THERE IS NOT STRENGTH, WHERE THERE IS NO STRUGGLE".

In the BEGINNING......

Worry. Nerves. Anxiety. Depression. All those mucky yucky stigmatized phrases that followed me wherever I went like a large monkey on my back. I had them. I shall rephrase: I HAVE THEM.

So when the smallest amount of change comes into my life, woweee kabowee....I'm all raw and messy.

Pregnancy is not a small change. It's not even a big change. It's the epitome and direct definition of "Change."

I still remember how my realization of pregnancy happened. I did the whole wee wee on a stick thing and saw a faint line and thought "NAH".

I mean this was a faint line....you really needed a microscope to see it. The next morning, there it was again...that faint barely there line. "NAH"

Later that day, I bought a different kind of stick. The kind that is state of the art fancy schmancy with it's digital readout. In other words, it was for the
Hooked on Phonics folks that have trouble deciphering faint lines.

This test had a direct term "POSITIVE" or "NEGATIVE" so there wouldn't be any confusion. Those cheeky monkeys over at the Pregnancy Test factory.....they knew there would be women like me who didn't trust her own eyes.

"POSITIVE" with a little "+" sign next to it. What the hell is that supposed to be? "+" what?

So here is how I read the 2 pregnancy sticks:

"OH MY GOD. YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IS ABOUT TO TURN UPSIDE DOWN AND YOU ARE GOING TO BE SCREWED BECAUSE YOU CAN BARELY TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF LET ALONE A BABY AND OH MY GOD, HOW ARE WE GOING TO AFFORD THIS KID AND OH MY GOD WHY DID I LET HIM KISS ME THAT SATURDAY AFTERNOON WHILE I WAS HOUSECLEANING THE BEDROOM AND OH MY GOD, A BABY....A LITTLE ITTY BITTY BABY WHO IS GOING TO DEPEND ON ME (mild anxiety flutter happens here) AND WHAT WAS I THINKING AND MAYBE I SHOULD BUY ANOTHER KIND OF TEST AND WELL....OH MY GOD."

Yah, God was called upon a lot that day. He was saying "You knew this would happen and you kept saying it was up to me so here I say you are now BABY-FIED. Get ready to get big, busy and bewildered. OH, and I'll be listening for you."

I went ahead and told my husband the next morning while he was still asleep. I went into the bathroom to heave (this was NOT pregnancy related, nope...just nerves). That night, after my husband cried tears of joy all day, I FAINTED. I remember calling his name to come help me.

I was clammy and couldn't 'settle down' with my nerves. The next thing I remember was my husband tapping my cheeks lightly with a cold cloth and cooling me down.

Oh yes, the hormonal emotional mess I was about to become was only exacerbated by the fact that I had suffered from anxiety issues all my life.

"How is this going to affect our relationship? How am I going to afford this child? I will never be able to leave my home ever again. What if.........to be continued"

At age 38 and 44, we are going to be first time parents.

Yes, us.

The shock is still lingering. Join me as I try to survive Pregnancy and thrive to Motherhood.