I want to shift gears a bit and talk about something a bit more serious today: postpartum. Now, before we begin, I want to preface with a few things. First, I am not a medical expert. I am not qualified to make recommendations to you in any professional capacity. I speak only of my unique experiences. Next, if you are in a place where reading about postpartum struggles would be detrimental, upsetting, or negatively impactful in any way, I encourage you to skip this post. My goal in writing this is not to trigger anyone or cause anxiety or fear. My goal is to be honest. To add to the community of strong, devoted mothers who have faced unexpected challenges postpartum, with special influences of the current environment of COVID-19. So, please. If this will not benefit you, do not feel the need to keep reading. Only you know what you need.
If you would like help with Postpartum Depression (PPD) and do not know where to start, I recommend starting here, at Postpartum Support International's site.
I have hesitated writing this post for many reasons. I do not want to cause fear for anyone who has not experienced this or may be experiencing it differently. My primary fear, however, was feeling that I am admitting weakness. As mothers we are supposed to be the rocks, know everything, fix everything, right?
When I created this blog, I promised to be honest. To share my experiences. In my last post, I shared the story of how I boo-hoo sobbed after watching a video of a raccoon trying to wash off a piece of cotton candy before eating it, only to find out that cotton candy dissolves. If I could share that, why couldn't I share this?
The truth? Because sharing this felt like failure. The raccoon video story is funny. This seemed sad. I also felt like I had no right to post about this. I have read about women who cannot get out of bed. Who are unhappy in their role as a mother and do not understand it. That's not me. I love being a mother. I enjoy our days together. I feel fulfilled being a mother. Yet, something is off. Others have it so much worse, though. Who am I to complain about my situation? I have been blessed to have extra time at home with our daughter and we are both happy and healthy.
Then I realized something else. If I had a friend who was telling me the things I just typed, I would want to shake her for dismissing her feelings. I would hug her instead, of course, but I would want to shake her. Everyone has their struggles. Everyone's struggles are their own and equal in their own way. If I could share my struggles and make someone feel that they were not crazy or alone, why wouldn't I?
So, here we go.
How it started...
The day we brought our daughter home was the day we found out that she had a complex cyanotic congenital heart defect. This defect was not detected during my pregnancy, so it was all the more shocking to us. I did not let this impact me around our daughter. I did not want to project any worry or anxiety onto her. Every night, my husband and I made an effort to shower after putting her to sleep so we could feel like people in between her feedings. Every night, I balled. I wondered why God was doing this to our sweet daughter. Why this was happening. I stared at her while she slept, laying in bed with he fear that I would miss something if I closed my eyes. This fear all related to her condition and the wait until her open heart surgery - I brushed it off as being normal.
After her repair, the fear shifted, or rather, I buried it. Her surgery was on April 2nd, right around when the impacts of COVID-19 started to show in our area. The main impact for our family was the restriction of hospital visitors to one parent per pediatric patient. My husband and I could not be with her at the same time. Since my husband was working, we decided it was best for him to stay home during this time to ensure there was no added chance of exposure. I was her only known support. In the hospital, I was just grateful that she was doing so well. My focus was on her and making her feel as comforted and normal as one could feel in a hospital. When we returned home, she had a six week recovery period. My focus remained on ensuring she recovered smoothly, and monitoring our Owlet monitor to make sure there were not detected complications. Again, I acknowledged this as normal behavior for anyone whose child had had open heart surgery in her second month of life.
Once her heart surgery had passed, she was fully recovered, and we had received several "we could not have hoped for better results" appointments with her cardiologist, surgeon, and pediatrician, I still found myself watching her to make sure she was breathing. I found myself jumping at an unrecognized noise at night. I found myself forgetting to eat and only remembering when it seemed like my milk supply was dropping. I found myself up at night worrying that I was not providing her stimulating enough activities during the day. That she was too hot or cold. That I was boring her. That I was overstimulating or under-stimulating her. Heck, I even worried I was somehow traumatizing her by continuing to try feeding her vegetables when she so obviously is not a fan.
When I noticed it...
I do not call this Postpartum Depression (PPD) because I have spoken with medical professionals about my experiences and have not been diagnosed. Not having PPD, however, does not mean that you do not have postpartum struggles.
I realized that I was not quite myself when my husband and I were hanging out. He asked me if I was okay, and I was confused by why he asked this question. Why wouldn't I be okay? What could be wrong? He then told me that I was not my normal quirky self. I brushed him off and told him I was tired. At that moment, I realized just how many times I had said that to him. Always after our daughter was asleep and I was not actively mothering. I had to be Alyssa.
As a mother, I was always playing, singing, dancing, changing diapers, nursing, FaceTiming family, and trying to coax Little Miss into napping. I was soaking up every moment with her sweet girl.
Alyssa, the individual, well, Alyssa has no idea what is going on. I have never been in such a place of uncertainty. With all that is happening in the world, no one can be certain of anything, I understand that. I currently face an unknown with work. Though Little Miss is fully recovered and thriving, she is still a high-risk individual in terms of COVID-19. Do I go back to teaching at school physically and risk exposing myself and, in turn, exposing my daughter and husband? What is the school district's final plan? What are we going to be doing? All of these unanswered questions.
Where it comes from...
In my role as a mother, I see my daughter is happy and healthy.
As an individual who knew life before COVID, I fear that she is missing out. At this point, we have been in full quarantine for three months. We allowed one family visit when there seemed to be a lull in cases but have returned to not even seeing family now that cases are rising so quickly in our area. I feel such guilt over this. We are keeping our daughter safe and COVID knows no limits. It will not discriminate between our family and friends and strangers. We have very supportive family who understand this and are lucky to not be guilted by them. This does not make it easier. We want those who have not met her to meet her. We want them to know her and see her.
We haven't taken her anywhere other than the doctor and for drives. We had plans to go to the zoo, the pool, Disney (I know, I'm crazy), football games at the school I work for, events at her dad's work. We were supposed to spend time in other states with family and friends. We were supposed to have friends over, play dates. She was supposed to be baptized. All of these things were supposed to happen and I am ridden with guilt that she has not experienced these things.
Are these thoughts actually about her, though?
The answer that I struggled to come to is no. Little Miss does not know a life outside of this. She is not thinking about the things she cannot do because she does not know them. She is not feeling isolated. She is not "bored in the house and in the house bored".
I had to face the fact that COVID-19 was bringing up the insecurities and anxiety that I had brushed off since bringing our daughter home. I could not continue to pretend that I was upset for my daughter. That these were not just normal reactions or insignificant. These were genuine concerns and fears that I cannot shake and did not want to address. These are also feelings that did not exist until I entered the "fourth trimester".
This quarantine has forced me to face these anxieties and fears, and do so alone. Everyone tells you to reach out to local mom groups and join play groups once you are recovered from delivering. I had planned to do that, so that I could make friends who had babies and knew what I was going through. I am the first of my close friend group to have a child. While they are supportive, there is something about hearing someone else say they are struggling through something with you that gives you a sense of hope. Since I could not go meet up with people for obvious reasons, I was left to face these struggles on my own. Or rather, avoid them. There was only one problem: When you have watched everything on Netflix and Hulu, are on summer break, and are primarily home alone with nowhere to go, you have a lot of time to think. And boy, do these thoughts make me feel like I am being pecked at by 100 chickens.
What do I do now?
I, like most of us, have had to find our new normal. In the spirit of honesty, some days are better than others. When I realized that I was still frustrated and anxious, I tried to fix it all. I tried to get up, get dressed, put on makeup, keep a schedule, clean everything, cook a perfectly healthy meal hitting every food group. I tried to do it all. I prayed to God (who I am still pretty frustrated with to be honest) and looked to scripture for guidance.
After two days, it all fell apart and I felt defeated. I gave up on trying to make myself feel normal. Then, I tried again. This time, taking on one promise to myself. While I am able to keep my fears out of my mothering, they have already faded into marriage as my husband became aware of them. They also spilled into my ability to be a person. If they were able to spill over into those areas, how long would it be until they impacted my mothering and impacted our daughter? So, I started making one promise at a time.
That first promise was to eat three meals a day. However, the motivation behind this promise was to keep up my milk supply. So, once I had mastered that for my daughter, I made a promise for myself. Every night, after I put Little Miss to bed, I would spend at least twenty minutes talking to my husband about anything other than our daughter or our relationship. I would talk to him as my best friend. Sometimes we have nothing to talk about, so I ask him to walk me through the video game he is playing at the time. This has forced me to focus on myself as a person, rather than a wife or a mom. I am a social person. My social quota is typically met during the work day through my students and colleagues. Talking to my husband about random things and just socializing, brings me joy. It has also presented a unique opportunity for me to see the joy and excitement he finds in video games. Not just in playing them but in their design. In elemental choices that are made in the filming process that I did not existed. It has allowed me the chance to get to know my husband as a person and for him to share a passion with me.
My final promise was to acknowledge that I am going to fail. That some days I am going to struggle more than others and that is okay. Ultimately, what is important is that my daughter is happy, healthy, safe, loved, and fed. The same applies for me and my husband. If that means that we did not get through eight developmentally appropriate activities with perfectly timed naps and feedings, that is okay! If that means I stay in pajamas all day, that is okay! If that means I forget to take care of myself, that is not okay! I set the boundaries for myself, realistically, and will take it day by day.
I still do not know how things are going to go and yes, it still stresses me out. We are living in unprecedented times, and if you are like me, you are sick of hearing that! In the meantime, I will continue to provide a happy life for my daughter and address the concerns I face. I will actively pursue my husband, I will work on making things feel normal so that we, as a family unit, can thrive. I will also accept that failure and frustration are a normal part of this process, as much as I may be annoyed by it.
Thank you for letting me share my heart with you. I hope this helped, made you feel normal, or just gave you something to read during a pumping/nursing session. Let me know in the comments, below!
Until next time, friends. Stay safe and be well.
0 Comments