Coming out of the dark

My last blog caused quite a stir among friends and family members.  While I always post in hopes people will read, I never intended to cause anyone to be concerned or to seek out extra attention or to create drama.  But I am glad that I did cause the concern because it allowed me to truly reflect on the way I had been feeling and to realize that what I was experiencing was Postpartum Depression.  While the most severe cases of PPD involve women having suicidal thoughts and neglecting their babies, my case was much less severe than that.

Being aware of my feelings helped me to find freedom in admitting that I did have a problem.  It wasn't "normal" and it wasn't something that felt like it was going to go away.  It was looming over me on a daily basis, haunting me at just the slightest touch of happiness I would feel, and threatening to affect my ability to take care of my baby.  I would sit on the couch in the living room and have a conversation with my husband about everyday topics and just find myself in tears for absolutely no reason at all.  I would lie in bed at night and cry, asking Shane, "What is WRONG with me???"

I became obsessed with sleep.  I couldn't sleep, so all I did was think about it.  I would lie in bed and literally just pray over and over, "Please Lord, help me to sleep."  And I didn't!  So I grew more and more bitter and angry that I still wasn't sleeping, despite my prayers that I would.  I started feeling ill due to lack of sleep and had trouble functioning throughout the day.  I wasn't eating much ecause I rarely felt hungry.

It was then that I knew I needed help.  Luckily my 6-week post-delivery check-up was scheduled already so I was able to talk to the doctor about everything that had been going on.  She did not hesitate in putting me on medication.  I have been taking it for just at a week now, along with some natural herb tablets that are for emotional well-being.  And I feel like a new person.  Literally.

I can get through a whole day without crying or without even wanting to cry.  I can feed my baby and talk to him and sing to him without bursting into tears.  I can lay in bed and relax and not worry about the fact that I may have trouble falling asleep from time to time.  My mindset is literally altered now.  It's not perfect and it's not always optimistic, but I don't have the fears and worries I had a week ago.  I'm not constantly afraid anymore.

Speaking of optimism, I think one of the hardest things about going through all of this has probably been dealing with the many people in my life who are extreme optimists.  I know that sounds harsh--it isn't meant to sound harsh at all.  I know these people love me and want the best for me.  But sometimes I feel like an eternal optimist, in their pep talks and attempts to appease my emotions, are more condescending than anything else.  It's almost like they're saying it's silly for me to feel this way or that way.  I often feel judged for the way I feel and think.  Unfortunately because so many moms adjust to motherhood beautifully, I am thrown into the group that didn't adjust and, therefore, am probably viewed as weak to many.  I know I just have one kid and I know there are so many who have it WAY harder, but for me to say that things are hard isn't wrong.  And I have finally come to a place where I don't really care anymore about people who think it's wrong/weird/dramatic/over-sensitive for me to have felt the way I felt.

All that to say, I am extremely happy to say that I finally have found a way to cope with everything that has come to pass in these last 2 months.  I've always been overwhelmed with love for my baby, but now I can truly find happiness in that love and find a way to smile and laugh instead of cry.  I can accept the bad days and know that I will have them.  I can also find comfort in knowing that so many others are in my same boat.  I can thank God for all the support and help I have and continue to have.

I can find my way out of the dark.

Brutally Honest

I've been a total wreck today, for lack of better words.  And for those who know me well, you know my tendency to exaggerate, my flair for drama, and my extreme emotional sensitivity.  But for those who don't know me well, I'll just say that I'm rather tired of getting hassled for it or for being made to feel like it's wrong to be that way.  If I could make myself NOT be emotional and sensitive, I most definitely would.  But yet...I don't really feel bad for being the way that I am.  After all, I was this person when my husband met me, dated me for 5 1/2 years and eventually proposed to me.  I managed to hang onto him all this time.  He's not tired of me yet!

Okay so back to being a total wreck....I'm a total wreck.  And I just don't really know why.  Why should I be a wreck?  I post on facebook daily--sometimes multiple times a day--pictures of my precious son and how sweet and cute he is.  He IS so dang cute and sweet.  I just love him to pieces.  I miss him when I'm not holding him.  I miss him when I'm away from him.  When I watch other people hold him I miss him.  I hope he knows how much I love him and how much I love being his mommy.

But then there's this other side of me.  The train-wreck side of me that feels so completely totally messed up inside over this whole new chapter of life I have entered and been in for just over a month now.  I think most moms know and well remember the emotional roller coaster that new motherhood brings about, but it also seems many moms have forgotten.  I hear a lot of pep talks about how I just need to "hang in there" and "it gets better" and "I enjoyed this time so much with my baby.  You should soak up every single moment."  I respect all of those words of wisdom and believe them and acknowledge them....But I am not buying into them right now...which is why this blog is titled "Brutally Honest."  To be brutally honest, I'm not buying that it gets better.  I'm not soaking up every moment and I'm definitely not enjoying every moment.

I'm enjoying some moments.  I love when my son looks right at me and it's like he just knows I'm his mommy.  I love those moments in the morning when he's first waking up and he's doing his little baby stretches and making funny little faces and making sweet sounds.  I love when he falls asleep with his head on my shoulder.  I love when my husband comes home from work and I can watch him bond with our son in his own special way.  Shane is such a good daddy.

But I'm not enjoying all of it.  I want to watch a TV show...all the way through without worrying about if my baby is spitting up, or if he's asleep or not, or if he might have a dirty diaper, or if he makes a little squeak if that means he's hungry or about to cry.  I want to go to the pool with my girlfriends and lay out all day until I get sunburned.  I want to meet my husband at a bar after he gets off work and have several drinks, maybe order some food, then come home late and go to bed, without a care in the world.  I want to go out spontaneously and shop for summer clothes without having to spend an hour feeding a baby until he's content, packing up a diaper bag, hauling his car seat into a shopping cart, carefully pushing him around a store, on pins and needles about whether or not he will wake up crying and end my shopping spree.  I want to lay down in my bed and just go to sleep....and sleep and sleep and sleep without setting an alarm, without listening for a baby, without worrying about what time I will get woken up, without worrying about my poor husband and his perpetual lack of sleep.  I want all of those things so badly that it literally makes me cry.  And I feel like such a terrible person because of it.

So basically I'm having extremely selfish thoughts....Almost 100% of the time.  And I'm not going to try to hide them.  I don't think I'll ever stop having these selfish thoughts.  But what I want is for me to just be at peace.  I'd like to go a full hour without randomly starting to cry.  I was on a roll for a few days where I wasn't crying at all.  Typically if there is enough going on to distract me I don't cry.  It's on the quiet days where nothing is going on that it all hits me at once and it's like Niagara Falls.  I just can't seem to find the peace that I know God will give me if I will only just have faith and calm down.

I look at all the women in my life who have had a baby and/or are raising kids.  They are okay.  They're "normal".  They're living life.  They're making it.  This encourages me and assures me that I will make it too.  I just wish I would've known about all these feelings so I could've been prepared.  These feelings are so strong that they're almost more than I can handle.  And for the mommas who have a baby and experience absolutely nothing but pure joy and don't have a single thought of their "old life"....I envy them.  But I question their honesty.

Forever Changed

I haven't blogged in ages and frankly I haven't missed it bc typically when I blog I have a tendency to either ramble on about nothing or ramble about something that means a lot to me, but nothing to anyone else and therefore it feels pointless.

Today though I want to blog about my birth story.  It's been 8 days and I have not had a chance to really truly reflect on that day, but I have always been a writer at heart and have found a release in writing out my thoughts ever since I was young.  Typically if I have a lot to say I'm going to write it, rather than voice it out loud.  So here is my story.

It all began on Monday night, June 2nd around 5:45 pm.  I was sitting on the couch waiting for Shane to come back with Chinese takeout.  Suddenly I felt an odd "gush" of sorts like I had wet my pants.  Considering the baby had been on my bladder for the last 2 weeks or more I figured it was nothing more than that.  After a couple more similar incidents, I decided to call my doctor.  They said if contractions picked up that it could've been the beginning of my water breaking and I could come in to get checked out.  Long story short, contractions did start and we were on our way to the hospital by 8 pm.

3 1/2 hours later, we were on our way back home.  The amniotic swab test they did to determine if my water had indeed broken came back negative and after walking around the hospital for an entire hour, the contractions had fizzled out.  I was feeling discouraged and irritated at the waste of time (and money).

By 4 am I was having more  "gushes" and more contractions.  Shane went ahead and left for work, telling me to call him immediately if something changes.  I had already called in to work bc I wasn't about to go to school "wetting myself" all day long.

At 5 am I was sitting on a beach towel on the bed typing lesson plans to send in for the substitute teacher when SHOOOOOOOOM (that's supposed to be the sound of gushing water, btw).  There was absolutely no mistaking what was happening.  I called Shane, called the hospital, got the "come on in" order, took a shower, dried my hair, did my makeup, and we were headed back to Baylor by 6:30 am.

By 7:30 I was in a room on a monitor and had passed the amniotic swab test, but was not dilated at all.

By 8:30 we were officially in a Labor and Delivery room and the family had been alerted.

After that, the times became a blur and the length of time things lasted also gets fuzzy.  The contractions were getting increasingly painful, but since I wasn't dilated they wouldn't give me an epidural, but they did give me some drug (I wish I could remember the name of it) to "relax me".  The next 2-3 hours were probably the most painful of my entire life.  The contraction intensity tripled and all of the pain was 100% in my back.  Looking back I honestly can't physically remember the pain, but I can remember it mentally.  I KNOW it was there and I KNOW it was awful.  I remember gripping the side of the bed, crying out, trying to make myself cry to get some sort of release out of it.  I remember the way Shane and his mom were pushing on my back, trying to ease some of the pain.  Some of my famous quotes during labor pains were: "He's gonna be so cuuuuuute!" (which I do remember saying) and "Just gimme the epidural, dammit!" (which I don't remember saying).

2-3 excruciating hours later, they checked me again and I was at a whopping 1.  Finally the doc OK'd me to have the epidural.  That was the easiest part of the whole painful part of that day, despite my initial fears.  I was so eager to not feel anything that I didn't even care about what that anesthesiologist was doing to me.  I hardly noticed the needle going into my back.  It didn't take long before I was numb from the waist down and the relaxation drug was kicked in full force.  I spent the rest of the afternoon drifting in and out of sleep.  I hardly remember when my family showed up.  I just know I was a complete total zombie.

By late-afternoon I had only dilated to a 2.  The doc seemed mildly pleased with the "progress", but it was still odd that things were going so slowly considering how strong the contractions were.

By 7ish (again...times are all a blur), things still were not moving along at the rate we had hoped.  At some point they began to give me Pitocin.  I don't even remember discussing it, but Shane remembers me saying it was okay.   The Pitocin did not help me dilate.  At 7:30 I was still just at a 4, running a temperature, and the contractions had actually seemed to have let up.  It was a very odd thing.

The next hour passed very quickly.  Looking back it seemed like 5 minutes.  One minute I was running a temperature and being given Tylenol.  I remember how happy I was to get to take 2 whole sips of water to swallow the pills.  The next minute, 4 nurses came into the room, told our family that everybody needed to get out, and they were slapping an oxygen mask on me and flipping my bed upside down.  :0  I remember being still too drugged up to have much emotion inside of me.  My thoughts were ranging from, "What is happening?  Is my baby okay?  Am I going to make it through this?  God help me!"  Thank goodness I couldn't see the monitors to know what was truly happening.  The baby's heart rate was in the 60s and 70s and contractions were happening one right on top of the other.  He was also sunny side up, which is why they flipped me apparently.  The doc came in and checked me again, finding still no progress past the 4.  She looked at me and asked me if I was done and I nodded "yes".

By 8:30 I was being wheeled out of my room and into the OR.  I remember how bright the lights were and how sterile the room was.  There were tons of doctors and nurses in there, most of whom were doing other things not related to my surgery.  I remember the kind anesthesiologist talking me through the entire surgery and telling me what I was going to feel.  They administered an additional drug to further numb me, aka, send me into a convulsive round of uncontrollable shaking and shuddering.  Shane said I looked like a scene from the exorcist, lying stretched on the operating table, shuddering and convulsing.  The blue drape went up in front of me and I felt the tugging and pulling I had been told about.  "Lord Jesus, please help me....Lord Jesus please help me...." was what I was repeating frantically to myself from inside my oxygen mask.  What seemed like only seconds later, I heard a small squeaky cry.  I knew it was him.  He was out.  He was alive.  My son was here!  "There he is," I remember Shane saying.  The anesthesiologist asked me if I wanted to see, which of course I did, so I lifted my head up as best I could to peek over the drape and they lifted the baby up just high enough to give me a tiny peek.  And I saw him.  I saw his tiny scrunched face and his little arms up in the air, wailing and breathing his first breaths in this world.  "I did it!" I thought...or did I say it out loud?  I can't remember.  I was still shaking uncontrollably.  Minutes later they cleaned him up, weighed him, and swaddled him.  Here is our first photo together.  I was hardly able to keep my mouth closed bc I was shaking so bad.  I couldn't really truly smile like I wanted to.  I could hardly open my eyes either.

Once we were in recovery, I was parched and still horribly shaky.  We got to watch the nurse give Ellis his first sponge bath.  Then Kaley, my awesome nurse, helped me nurse him for the first time.  After another couple of hours, we were back in our room in L&D bc they didn't have any available postpartum rooms that night.  I was still pretty drugged up, beyond exhausted, and very thirsty still.  The ice chips just weren't cutting it anymore.  I was finally able to sip water once we were settled in our room.  The family got to come in at least and take their turns holding our angel.  I remember talking to everybody, but don't really remember what was said.  I remember pictures being taken and lots of smiles and love and laughter.  

So Ellis Ray arrived at 8:45 pm on June 3, 2014 in the most unexpected way...except not to me.  All throughout my pregnancy I never once pictured the actual birth.  I never imagined labor, never imagined myself "pushing" him out.  I just knew it would happen...that he would be born and that I couldn't wait for it to happen.  What I didn't realize was that my lack of thoughts on labor were God's way of mentally preparing me for his birth and the way it all came to be.  I didn't mention it earlier, but for those still wondering about the c-section, it was the only option.  As the contractions intensified and increased, the cord was being pulled tighter and tighter around my sweet baby.  When they pulled him out of me, it was wrapped around him several times.  No amount of natural medicines or lack of drugs would've helped that.  God saw that cord and knew he had to get out of there fast.  

I look at the road ahead and right now all I see is tomorrow.  It'll probably be much the same as today.  Lots of nursing, lots of diapers, lots of rocking, burping, and lots of baby talk.  The thought of a string of repetitive events, being alone all day long with a baby, without adult conversation, without being able to really go anywhere for more than 2 hours at a time since I have to nurse him.....It's enough to overwhelm me and send me straight into a huge breakdown.  (And I've had many of them....trust me).  I know it sounds horribly selfish.  That selfish part of me thinks about my friends without babies (particularly teacher friends) who have a whole summer ahead of them to sleep in, stay up late, do whatever they want every day, get their nails done, go to the pool, go to happy hours, etc.  I think that will never be me again.  It makes me sad.  It makes me feel like I will never get to be "normal" again.

Then I look at his little face and I see a different world.  I fall in love every time I look at him.  The way I feel when I hold him and he's so content on my shoulder makes me realize how much he needs me.  I realize that Shane and I brought this life into this world and that God brought him here to us--literally--he would not be here were it not for God's divine protection.  I was told all throughout my pregnancy about how worth it it would be and how much I would love him....And it was all true, but to a level I never fathomed.  I never could have imagined such a love and such a precious gift being given to me and to my husband.  My heart is full.  

So there is my story.  It is just beginning, I know.  And I know it will go by all too fast.  I know that I will feel "normal" again, but normal will still be different than before.  It'll be a new normal.  Here is it 8 days later and my son is in his bouncy seat, making sweet baby noises and sleeping peacefully.  It still seems surreal.  

I'm a mom.

I have a baby.

I have a son.

My life is forever changed.