Excuses

Thomas is pretty hard-fisted when it comes to keeping the electronics away from the babies.  I'm the one home with them all day, and I'm a little more lax on the rules.  Often, he'll come home and ask me:
What's this sticky stuff on the phone screen?

"Oh, that was Rosie.  Sorry."

"Why did Rosie have the phone?"

"...Sometimes I like to go to the bathroom without little fingers reaching in the toilet.  Sue me."

A Post Partum Profile

When you’re expecting, you have nearly nine months to get to know that bundle of joy inside of you.  Nine months to imagine what she’ll look like, what her personality will be, and how much you’ll love her when she’s finally in your arms.  And you do love her already - for every kick in the present and all the potential of the future, you love that baby that has already made you a mother.

That’s why no one could have ever explained to me, could have possibly convinced me, that when my baby girl was born I wouldn’t fall instantly in love with her. 

And yet, that’s exactly what did - or didn’t - happen.

When my baby was born, we didn’t have that magical bonding moment every new mom describes when we first looked into each other’s eyes.  When I first saw my baby being carried to the weigh station, being cleaned and diapered, I felt awe and wonderment.  I also felt fear and disbelief.  Then, in the midst of delivering the afterbirth and my obstetrician trying to stop the bleeding from a detached placenta, Thomas tells me that I held her, but I have no recollection of that moment.  From there, I waited each day for that maternal bond to form with my perfect new girl, and yet, I continued to feel so little for her.  It was easier when family was around, gushing over how precious she was, to feel that she was something special, but it was when we were alone - especially during those middle of the night feedings and later, when the family had left and Thomas went back to school - that I could barely muster any affection for my baby.  Most often, I felt regret, some resentment, and a lot of despair.  

I’ve always tried to be an accurate person.  So when people asked me how I was, how motherhood was, how the new baby was in those first weeks after her birth, I would answer diplomatically, yet truthfully: It's hard.  But it's getting a little better each day.  I couldn’t recite the cliches about motherhood being magical, or my baby being perfect that I’d heard other new moms deliver.  I just figured I was a little more honest than everyone else, that everyone else was having just as hard a time and didn’t want to admit it.

At my 6-week post-natal appointment, I was given the routine survey to assess postpartum depression.  The nurse that met with me let me know that my score fell right in the middle, so I could go either way as far as any treatment was concerned.  I told her I would refrain from seeking any treatment since I already felt like I was beginning to get better.  The truth is that I was a Canadian figuring out American health care on a student’s budget - I just assumed achieving mental health was out of my price range.  I knew I was having the baby blues, but still, I believed that I was within the range of normal.  I was managing.  Surely, I didn’t have a reason to be worse off than any other.  

Rosie was 4 weeks old and giving social smiles before I felt that I really loved her.  Longer before I liked her.

She was 4-months-old when I could first say that I was able to find some moment of happiness in each day.

But it was at 13 months, just 1 month before my second baby was due, that I finally hit a turning point.  I fully and quite suddenly “snapped out of it”.  It wasn’t until I found myself feeling better, feeling more myself than I had in the last year, that I realized just how awful I had been feeling and for how long. 

It seemed like a night and day difference to go from simply getting through each day - often resenting my role of mother, questioning my choices, and desperately searching for purpose - to loving life!  All of a sudden I was hopelessly in love with my little girl; I had energy and motivation to make her a meaningful part of all my daily tasks; and I was finally beyond excited to welcome our little boy into our family in a short time.

If I'm being truthful, I began writing this post months ago when I was still in a dark place.  What I wanted to say then was how I was robbed of the joy a new baby should have held.  I wanted to be bitter that I didn’t have the magical new mom experience.

Now as I sit here typing, all I can express is gratitude.  

I’m grateful for my two beautiful children.

I’m grateful to be a mother and to have the opportunity to stay at home and act as their primary care-giver.  

I’m grateful that the awful feelings of postpartum depression didn’t last forever and even more grateful they didn’t come back with the birth of my second child.

I’m grateful for (surprisingly) affordable modern medicine so that I don’t have to risk feeling that way again.

And, perhaps, I’m even grateful for my first postpartum experience because it has given me a better appreciation now for the wonderful blessings God has put in my charge.

Infidelity

Sometimes...

I feel like I'm cheating.

On Rosie.

With Andy.

While I'm consoling and commiserating with her, I'm secretly making faces behind her back to get him to laugh.