I've had a rough 9 months. The end of my pregnancy was filled with so much prenatal anxiety and depression and insomnia and physical pain. Then I had this beautiful baby. AND SHE WAS HARD!
Everything with her has been a struggle from breastfeeding to general fussiness to the car seat to suddenly losing any quality time with my husband. She. Never. Stopped. NEEDING. And you see people posting about how you should NEVER complain about pregnancy and a new baby and you think "who are you people that think it's not ok to feel????" My feelings are valid. Pushing them away like they don't exist is toxic. So I'm telling you the hard parts of me. The hard parts of Willow. I'm not dwelling and going on and on (toxic, too) but I'm being real with you. But **spoiler alert** it has a good ending.
At first, things were cool. The first 2 weeks maybe? And then, the heaviness hit. For many months I couldn't take a shower without losing it every time. The kind of tears that make your face sore later from crying without a sound. The kind of tears that are hotter than the water from the shower.
I quit talking to people, I quit going to things, I just survived. Which was ok. I won't go into it any deeper because it's too close. I don't want to relive it and feel it again right now.
Anyway, all that to say: it's better now. What I wish that had happened before I had Zoe and dealt with post partum depression for 18 months is that someone had told me about it. Someone had even said that what I would feel wouldn't be rational and it wouldn't be my fault. I wish they had said "you may feel extremely happy one moment and ready to give the baby away the next." Because I did and had no way to process it. With Asher, I knew and just knowing that was normal was enough to get me through. I knew that with Willow and it still hit, but it's gone a full 12 months before my PPD with Zoe was. Not that it always has anything to do with anything. Sometimes PPD is so outside of our control that nothing we do or know or think or take can make it not happen. I just want you to know that if you have are pregnant or have a baby and feel it, IT'S OK. You aren't a nut job because it just doesn't make sense. And here is your dose of hope:
I don't dread the nighttime, we can leave the house, Willow isn't screaming for apparently no reason, the spit up is just an inconvenience now not something that shuts down my whole day, I look at her and YEARN to interact with her, I don't dread her waking up. We are communicating and that just helps everything. My hormones are...better. Willow is easier and I am better. Willow and I just happened to both be better at the same time.
It's better.
Life is doable.
I can just run out if I need to grab something. Not that I want to, but if I did I could. Ha!
Sure she naps less and for shorter periods of time but that's the natural order of things.
She smiles and laughs at us. The breastfeeding thing is getting easier, or I at least know her a little better. Well parts are easier but there always seems to be an issue and I guess we'll always just have to fight for it. But it's cool, we're fighters around here.
I don't know why I'm even telling you all this except that all of the things I've told you in blogs until now have come true in my own life. Imagine that. Mainly:
*It won't always be like this.
*Just surviving is ok for awhile.
*It's ok to feel what you feel, just don't unpack your bags and live there forever.
*Sadness and struggle are ok. Sometimes (gasp!) God even ushers you into them.
Sharing your little and big testimonies is so crucial for the body of Christ and the future body of Christ to hear. For sisterhood. For brotherhood. Share your story with someone today. Use it to lift them up, make sure it's not in an "oh you just wait" kind of attitude. If it's hard it's ok to tell them that but infuse hope into it so that hope is what they sense in your story.
If you're in the middle of your struggle you can go ahead and share as the Spirit leads. Sometimes people need to see the hard parts of you while you're still in them. While you're crying and begging for it to be over, while acknowledging that it will be one day. It WILL be one day. And if you can't see that? Remember, this world is not the end.
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