Tag Archives: Children

Why Cant We Just Talk About It???

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I have two of the most precious gifts I could ever be given, their names are Demi and Tory. I am obsessed with my girls. I love their little personalities, I love the way the laugh and smile, I love everything about them. I am that mom who blows up Instagram and Facebook with hundreds of pictures of my girls and is always beaming with joy for my sweet babies. I am that mom who puts up that perfect little life with her sweet little miracles all over the place, because that is what people need to see, no one wants to know the hardships on the other side of that computer screen, and we sure as anything don’t want to talk about it. 

I remember so vividly the day I snapped with my first daughter, the day I had no joy, the day I looked at her and wished I could take her back. I called my husband who was in Pensacola for work and begged him to come home, I couldn’t look at her. She wasn’t crying, she wasn’t moody, she wasn’t anything, she just laid there looking at me, and I didn’t want her. 

Fast-forward 22 months and my second daughter Tory is born. Surely this is something that I should be able to handle, I mean we have been there before right? I know all the symptoms, I know all the signs and we know what do to do to take care of it. It hit like a freight train, but this time, I took it out on my oldest, instead of the newest little one. My oldest daughter was hit with so much change and now her mommy couldn’t handle being around her again. Everything she did bothered me, I was annoyed at everything and couldn’t help but be so angry at her all the time. My husband kept saying he doesn’t recognize who I am because I am so angry all the time, not even sad, just angry. 

My baby is 11 weeks old. I am still battling emotions and the anger every single day. I have often wondered why this is something we don’t talk about, why this is something just swept under the rug and pushed aside. I think some of it can be that we are so afraid that we will be seen as ungrateful for this beautiful little miracle we have been given, while so many crave to be a mother, I think the other part is that you just don’t talk about those sort of things, but why not? 

Could you imagine the impact just feeling like you can openly talk about postpartum depression would have on so many moms? Letting them know they aren’t alone, you are not crazy, you are not a horrible person for thinking what you are and its ok to say it out loud so you can get help. I wish I could go back and look at myself after my first pregnancy and say all of those things, just to help me realize I wasn’t crazy or a horrible mom. I have to talk to myself daily and tell me those things even now, when I just want to disappear in the night and leave it all behind, when I struggle with everything that comes with being a mom of two girls. 

If I could say anything to myself before the girls or after it would be this: 

Dear Mommy, 

It is ok, being a mom is hard. People acting like it is easy or they have it all together, they don’t. You are going to experience so many emotions, so many thoughts and are going to think you are the worst person on this planet, you’re not. You are not the first person to have these thoughts or experience these emotions, and you won’t be the last. It’s called postpartum depression for a reason, you just had so much change in your body and now in your life, it will never be just you and your husband again, but those sweet little miracles are so worth it. You are going to struggle, you are going to want to run away, you are going to wish you could turn back time and make it all go away, you are going to look at that little face and sometimes you may hate it, but don’t allow those emotions to take you over. TALK TO SOMEONE. Know you are not alone. Don’t listen to the age old saying of “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” or “be grateful for what you have,” you are grateful, but you are also going through something so huge right now, and something that can be so dangerous if you don’t just talk about it. People who are telling you that have never walked through this, and you cannot hate them for it, you have to understand they do not know what is happening to you right now. It is ok to go lock yourself in a dark room and cry and scream, it’s ok to be angry, it is not ok to let it consume you and take away these precious moments you have so little time to enjoy. Don’t be ashamed of your feelings, be honest about them. Don’t be afraid of what people will think, what matters right now is not what they think of you, but getting you better so you can enjoy these babies. You are a wonderful mom, and the first step in being a wonderful mom is taking care of yourself, so do just that, take care of yourself. Talk to your husband, he is there for a reason, and he wants to be there for you. Talk to other moms, I can promise you, you will find someone who has walked through it too. Don’t be ashamed, be proud that you are taking action. Now stand up and do something about it, admit you have it, or it will consume you. You have to much good in your life to allow this dark place to take over. Seek help, be open and start fighting this now. 

 

I still have my crazy thoughts, but they are less now. I still get angry, but I go to another room and just let it out but refuse to take it out on my babies if I can help it. I so wish this was something we weren’t ashamed to talk about. I wish moms were open about their emotions, their fears, their struggles, but that doesn’t fit this world we live in where our stories are so perfectly and strategically told on social media, where we try and be what the internet and other moms tell us we should be without realizing our experiences, our lives, our kids are all different and we are just trying to be the best mom we can be. Instead we sit back post our perfect pregnancy and motherhood experiences, waiting and hoping for someone to reach out and dig deeper.

Tory – One Month

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IMG_2241Sweet Tory Kate was weighing in at 7lbs 15oz and 20 1/4 inches long on April 13th, exactly one month later she is already beating her big sister in size when Demi was 2 months old! Cannot believe how big my baby girl is already and how alert. She loves to hold her head up and listen to Demi talk to her. She is a pro at eating and sleeping, and mostly loves sleeping in her swing. Just like her daddy and big sister, girlfriend loves to sleep and at one month is already sleeping about 6 hours a night, which makes me very thankful for such awesome sleepy babies! And just like her big sister she hates being swaddled and that pesky blue bulb!

I love watching my two little babies together, and nothing makes me happier than Demi-Girl’s absolute love for her baby sister! We are so blessed with our two little babies and I cannot wait to watch them become the best of friends.

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Forget Support, We Just Hope For No Judgment

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Its so funny to me how when you have a kid, this is supposed to be such an amazing and happy time. Sure its a sleepless time where you are covered in spit up and poop so much you usually walk around in shorts and a sports bra, but hey even with those bags under your eyes and that stench of spit up or poop (not quite sure which one sometimes) its still a beautiful time, until the opinions start to come out.

For us the opinions started while I was pregnant, the ones of “I cannot believe you are going to have an epidural and put drugs into your baby” or “You are taking medicine while pregnant? Don’t you know what that will do to your kid?” Why yes, yes I do, my doctor told me what it will do, NOTHING, which is why he prescribed it because trust me this morning sickness is so bad if I don’t take this I will be in the same pjs until I give birth. At some point I just stopped saying anything back and would nod my head but good gracious the grief we began to get after we had Demi. I will never forget the first time someone was absolutely appalled that I had a c-section, like I had done sort of disservice to my child. I just wanted to scream “Lady, I had been in labor for 83 hours and was still only 3.5 cm, at that point what am I supposed to do?” My daughters heart rate was dropping, as was mine, they had me on oxygen and on top of that I was pre-eclamptic, had high levels of uric acid and toxemia, at what point is it ok for a woman to have a c-section and not be judged?

Breastfeeding was another big one, where people assumed that I didn’t try hard enough or take enough action with the lactation nurse, and I wasn’t giving my daughter the best shot at a good immune system. Yeah, I had gained well over 100lbs during my pregnancy, had been in the hospital 5 extra days after Demi was born with lactation nurses and when I got home was suffering from post-pardum so badly that it was making me resent my child for not latching and making me feel like I was a complete and utter failure for not being able to breastfeed my daughter.

Those two situations alone were enough to make me go crazy, I won’t even get started on the fact that I vaccinate my child and my husband works for a pharmaceutical company so that makes us all sorts of evil, but I digress. At what point did moms feel the need to become so judgmental and so condescending over the way someone is taking care of their child, or the medical procedures we choose to have. Now that Michael and I are thinking about baby number 2, the fact that I am not even willing to give a natural birth a thought after what I went through makes some moms cringe, and all I want to say is “you know what makes me cringe, natural birth. Please enjoy the labor I had and see if you are so willing to jump on that crazy train again.”

While I do have this awesome support system of a few moms who I love dearly and do life with as much as possible, its the moms that I don’t even know or the ones you haven’t seen in forever on social media that make you feel completely inadequate. Its like this whole social media thing has made people who would not be this confrontational in public all the sudden feel like they can scream their beliefs from the rooftops with the ability to hide behind their keyboard.

This whole being a mom thing shouldn’t be something where we feel condemnation or like we are failing because of our life choices with our children or how we gave birth to our children, because we all have this one major, absolutely beautiful thing in common… we are doing what we each think is best for our child and making sure we are doing everything we can to make sure they grow up happy, healthy and loved. Vaccinations, C-Sections, Natural Birth, No Vaccines, Breast Feeding, Formula, SAHM, Working Mom, it doesn’t matter the title, the choice or the belief, we should be able to surround each other with love and support for one another, not bashing and berating thinking that will suddenly make them come around to your way of thinking, because it won’t. As my husband and I sit here thinking about me re-entering the workforce, I am terrified of the inevitable responses of how a daycare is going to raise my child, or she must not be my priority that I know friends have heard, and as I started thinking about that, I wondered why we have become so callous to one another.

I am far from perfect. I mess up all the time, numerous times a day. Whether its the realization that I have been doing dishes and its been quiet too long only to find my poop covered 14 month old dancing in the living room playing with her dirty diaper, or realizing that those aren’t puffs she is eating but the dogs food, we should be able to come together, laugh, support, love and vent to each other about the every day craziness that are the little minions we call our children. No one understands what it is to be a mom better than other moms, and if we can’t go to other moms with our fears, tears, joys and excitement without views, opinions and judgements being shoved down our throat, who can we turn to? There is hardly a greater joy in this world that I have experienced then that slightly crazy, constantly gabbing, kitchen wrecking, Lonely Island loving, daredevil 14 month old we have loving dubbed the CEO of our house. Why not share in that joy with others who feel the same about their kid, may think a little differently than you and do things different as well, but hey you have one amazingly beautiful thing in common if nothing else, we are all moms!

 

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