Feelings

I'm going to start off by saying I'm not sure if this is the appropriate outlet for my feelings, but as I use my blog as a journal for myself, I suppose it is. This may get a little long, but hopefully it'll help.

When I had my boys, the struggle for me came during my pregnancies. It was a 9 month battle to get them here physically and mentally. Once they were here, I was so relieved and seemed to go back to normal. I always wondered what people were talking about when they talked about having postpartum depression. Why weren't they so over the top happy about this new little baby that they just brought into the world?? With Little Jade, my pregnancy was a nightmare of sickness up until week 14 or so and then it went away just like everyone says it's supposed to. (I never believed that with my boys ... it never happened with them). I had aches and pains and normal pregnancy symptoms, but it felt a lot easier than my previous two. I went into have her and I wasn't nervous or scared, I was just happy to be there and be able to meet my sweet little lady. She was adorable, feisty and one of a kind and I loved her immediately. In the weeks that followed, I started to feel like I wasn't quite myself. I didn't know if I was just tired and stressed because suddenly I had three little people to care for instead of just two. Maybe I was stressed about being a new parent again and being homesick, I didn't know. I started to wonder if maybe I was getting the baby blues and hoped that it would just pass by quickly.

I felt okay and through stressful nights of Jade screaming non stop in my ears, I was able to just tune the screaming out and just rock her until she gave up and fell back to sleep. I never felt like I wasn't in control or like I might hurt her, but I did start to feel like a prisoner in my own home. I didn't have a car to go anywhere even if I dared to with three kids. (I still don't ... our second car STILL needs to be fixed.) I swear Jade had colic up until 7-8 weeks and I wasn't about to take her out screaming non stop all the time. The only time I had to recover and re-coop was nap time, and I made sure that my boys both took one so I could try and have some sanity.  Ethan got increasingly more difficult to handle and we fought almost daily for a month or two and I just couldn't take it anymore. I finally figured out his trigger and it made life SO much more pleasant for both of us! After I figured out how to chill him out a bit, life seemed to settle down and I felt like it would just move forward and get better from there. I thought I was fine and maybe I had just been stressed.

My stress levels have just seemed to increase lately, to the point where my milk suddenly dried up out of the blue the other day. I had plenty in the morning when Jade woke up and then I wasn't able to really feed her for two feedings in a row, which just added a huge amount of stress and anxiety onto my shoulders and I knew there was no way my milk was coming back without help at that point. I researched online quickly and found something I thought would work, and thankfully it did. Within 45 or so minutes I had gotten some essential oils, and by the time Jade woke up (about 20 minutes after I used the oils) I had enough milk to feed her. Thank goodness.

I realized the other night that I'm pretty certain I am just one of those unlucky people who have had to deal with postpartum depression, and that unfortunately this time around, I got it. I haven't talked to my doctor or anything about it yet. I really did hope it would just go away and get better. So far, it hasn't. I have felt pretty lonely and again just stuck in my own world and in my house. Mart has been stressed and working a lot and isn't much help when he gets home and tries to get himself to unwind. I realized that apparently I have been unconsciously pushing people I love away from me without ever meaning to or even knowing I was doing it. Hearing about it just made me feel even more awful. I have definitely not been the mom that my children deserve or the mom that I want to be, and that makes me feel even more guilty. 

Now that I think I understand better what's going on, I am going to try and find a new perspective. Maybe I need to find something positive to focus on each day, even if it's just something small. I know that this too shall pass, but I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

Here's to a new outlook on life and hopefully some much better days to come!