The D word...

For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a mom, lots of babies, big family, drive a mini van, pass down the clothes, need a big table...FAMILY. 

When we got pregnant with our first, Reagan, I felt like my dreams were coming true, I mean minus the constant "morning sickness" the heart burn the general horrible feelings (because lets be real no one dreams of that part of pregnancy). 

Nine months later our beautiful baby girl was here, things seemed pretty smooth, a few issues, sleep deprived,  the new mom feelings and the hormonal craziness...but something was off, something was wrong with me. I was the D word... depressed....I hated that word, I hated myself for being "depressed" I was a christian, a mom, you can't be depressed. BUT I WAS.

The waves came and started crashing over me, one after another, they were hard, they stung, they were cold and scary:

first wave: you are a bad mom

second wave: why are you sad, some people can't have babies and you are complaining about yours

third wave: you will never be happy

fourth wave: you do not have what it takes

fifth wave: mom guilt for feeling this way

and they just keep coming, pretty soon it takes all of you under.

I lied, to myself, to my husband to my friends, that I wasn't depressed, that I wasn't sad.

 

About six months later, I finally opened up to my midwife. I cried, I let it all out, I was honest for the first time . And the funny thing was, for the first time in six months I felt like I could breath. I felt fresh air. She sat with me for 45 min just listening and hugging me. At that moment I knew one thing, If I want to be free of those feelings I can no longer hide them, I can no longer do this alone. We all become moms different ways, we all have our own stories, we all have waves that crash over us and take us out, but that is when you become brave, that is when you become strong, that is when you become the woman you were created to be, in those storms in those moments when you feel as though you will break, as if you will loose it all, drown, be swallowed up, YOU WON'T. 

We made a list of things for me to do, to help deal with the PPD. Simple yet powerful things that help, like take a walk (get out of the house) 

exercise (the endorphins help) 

go on a date night once every couple weeks or once a month

get a babysitter if you can and have a little alone time, go and browse Target and drink coffee, just be you, not a mom, YOU for at least an hour. 

I had to deal with those lies, those lies that like to creep their ugly head in and whisper or yell at you in the worst and most vulnerable times. The lies that we believe because its easy, it easier to believe you are failing than succeeding, its easier to give up than to fight. 

I read a blog, from a strong woman who is in her battles, in her fight, and she said 

"we are called to be warrior moms, to raise warrior kids, who turn into warrior adults, who can and will change the world" 

To all my mom friends, we are in this together, lets be warriors today. I know you are, I know everyday feels like a battle, but know you are not alone. We are all in this together. 

Nicole 

Choosy moms choose...?

Choices.  Since childhood, I have relished the opportunity to make my own.  I have always regarded it as a right rather than an opportunity, one afforded to me by my good fortune to have been born here in the U.S.  I chose to attend college, where to attend, what to study and how to spend my free time.  I choose whether or not to vote in governmental elections, and I choose for whom I cast my vote.  I chose to pursue a serious romantic relationship with a wonderful man, and I chose to have his baby, to build a family with him.  Little did I realize at the time that the decision to have a baby would just create a seemingly never ending daily array of choices that I would be making on someone else's behalf.  That opportunity is not so relished.

As a stay-at-home mom, most of the daily responsibility of caring for Sofia falls to me.  I make breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I schedule her doctor appointments and playdates.  I do the grocery shopping and other errands with a toddler (and snacks) in tow.  I change her diapers and dress her, sometimes multiple times a day.  I read books to her (often the same three over and over again), I kiss her boo-boos, I dry her tears, I carry her around on my hip.  Along with those responsibilities come many choices:  what, when and how much I should feed her; when I should go shopping and what I should buy; what clothes she will wear; what lines/pages of her books I should skip over on the second, third, fourth, and fifth consecutive readings; when she really should be carried around versus when she should just try to occupy herself - the list goes on and on.  Most of these choices are easy enough to make and come as second nature by now as she is almost 21 months old.  It's the larger, more serious choices with which I struggle.

Just this weekend, while playing with her daddy (that wonderful man I mentioned earlier), Sofia sustained an injury to her left arm.  After a fair amount of tears and toddler hysterics, it became clear that while she was not comfortable, she was not in pain as she allowed us to squeeze her hand and rotate her wrist, elbow and shoulder.  Still, she wouldn't use her arm - not to high five, not to bear any weight, and, perhaps most tellingly of all, not to accept a snack.  Instead, it just hung limply by her side.  We both felt that Sofia needed some medical attention, but a trip to the emergency room seemed like overkill and definitely something to be avoided right now while the flu epidemic is raging.  We placed calls to several nearby urgent care centers, and either they wouldn't treat patients her age or they couldn't treat those types of injuries.  So, after speaking with a family member who is a pediatrician, we chose to skip a trip to the hospital, unless of course her condition worsened.  We both agonized over whether or not this was the smart choice, the right choice, even a good choice.  In the end, our choice was a safe one (this time) - Sofia started to use her arm again without any issue within 48 hours and quickly resumed engaging in monkey-like shenanigans around the house.

The choices we make for Sofia won't always turn out as well; we won't always luck out.  At least once or twice, we will likely choose poorly for her.  We will aim not to, of course, but we would be fools to expect that we will always have the foresight or good fortune to choose correctly.  My hope is that whenever we are faced with making a big choice for her that we will do so with love and care and that we will not allow expedience or convenience to influence us.  We must remember not to make the self-serving choices we normally would for ourselves but instead to consider Sofia's well-being first and foremost.  Of course, most parents probably aspire to achieve the same goal; I know that we aren't unique in this way.  I do believe this to be one of the greatest challenges of parenthood, though, and I hope that when she is old enough and experienced enough to understand all of this (likely not until she becomes a mother herself), she'll realize that we tried to do our best for her.  I hope that she will choose to forgive us our poor choices just as readily as she will choose to celebrate our good ones. 

For now, I will choose to savor the opportunity to make choices for Sofia rather than regard it as burdensome, because much sooner than I will care to admit, she will be yearning to make choices for herself, and that's when the real worry will begin.

Biggest Challenges as Mom and Wife

Happy Monday All!

I decided last night to ask a couple mommy friends what they liked to read about on blogs to get an idea of what to write about today. One of our readers and soon to be occasional writer, Jamie, gave me this great topic! I have a feeling she'll give us some good blog posts in the future!

After pondering a bit what I think my biggest challenges for both being a mom and a wife were, I realized that these two things together are my biggest struggle. When am I a mom, when a wife, how do I balance these two things and how do I know if I am doing enough for each? Daily, I feel like I'm being pulled a million different directions. Am I doing everything (moms know this word carries a lot of weight)  I need to for Jase, am I showing my husband that I love him as much as I should be (as much as I do), am I keeping the house together, ect.

If I break down my day with titles it looks like this: Mom, Wife/Mom and then Wife. Can you guess my day, usually? When I'm with Jase, he's my main focus, when Scott gets home from work I carry both titles and when Jase is in bed I am focusing on my wife duties. Of course we all know it's not always that simple, the lines blur together everyday. This is where it becomes hard to tell if I'm doing enough for each. There are days when I wish I could just be mommy and days I could just be a wife, but life just isn't that easy.

I really don't have an answer on how to balance the two, but here are the things that help me juggle both. On weekends, when my husband is home, I feel the most accomplished. I think having Jase and Scott around makes me focus on both of my titles as equally as I can. I also feel better when I separate time for each, willingly. For instance when I take Jase somewhere special just him or when Scott and I can get away together alone without Jase. The second is much harder to come by so sometimes we have to take advantage of Jase being in bed and us having quiet alone time.

What are our biggest challenges as a Mom and Wife?

<3 Lindsey