Identity, motherhood, postpartum depression

Losing Suction

It’s been a rough few days (weeks?). I wish there was a good reason why – that might make it better, or understandable anyway – but there’s not. I’m just miserable for no good reason. Irritable because I have angst. Angst-ridden because I have hormones and a crippling sense of self-awareness? (Thank you, Virgo)

There have been days I have camped out with my laptop for hours. Stared out the window waiting for the light to change. Held myself because it was the only thing to do.

And then the strains of PBS children’s programming came to me.

The minutes and hours marked by Arthur and Thomas, Maya and Miguel rather than numbers.

And I knew I should move. I knew I should engage. I should scoop up that little wonder of a child and take her out into the world.

One day, we did. We traipsed around the yard, trekked to the mailbox, tried to imagine the garden in full bloom. But the mailbox was empty and spring was still a ways off.

Yesterday, we shut off all electronic devices and ate lunch together. We sat side by side, but I buried my nose in some manner of printed matter.

Today, we compared notes on the types of yogurt we ate; she turning her nose up at my Greek with honey, me trying to convince her she ate blue banana. green guava. purple passion.

The silly word games I remember playing with my first baby when I was a first time mama.

Learning colors through the culinary.

Exploring math while masticating.

And for the first time in a long time, my sense memory elicited a positive response. Bubbles of laughter reminding me that I know how to do this. I know how to make it fun. I know how to enjoy it.

All it takes to make it enjoyable is a little more effort. An invitation to join me as I move about my day. A question here, a comment there. Inclusion. When all I’ve been is insular.

I’ve so needed space for me, I’ve been pulling back. But all I’ve done is created a vacuum, a void they notice and try all the more vehemently to cross. Perhaps if I reach across the void, giving them what they need, I will get what I want.

Joy and peace of mind.

Being able to lay my head on the pillow at night knowing I’ve done my best and not feeling guilty at the time I set aside for myself.

There’s no sense doing a job you hate. And there’s no reason to make mothering more onerous than it is. That wouldn’t just create a vacuum; that would suck.

anxiety, motherhood, postpartum depression, Recovery

Chopping Mangoes

Is there an easy way to cut a mango?

I tried the avocado method. Cut in half, drive knife blade into pit, rotate blade quarter turn, and pull. Not so much. That pit was not having it. Didn’t budge.

I tried digging it out. That just hacked up the fruit flesh around it.

I did not have such warm feelings toward my mango.

I finally sliced the fruit away from the core, apple style.

Except my hands were completely covered in goo from the pulp most of the fruit had become.

Goo + santoku = not the optimal chopping situation

As three small children pulling at your pant-leg while wielding said santoku is not.

Giada’s fish tacos with mango salsa be damned. I was ready to fling that mango out the window or smash it against the wall. I’d have squeezed it in my fist if only it weren’t so damn slippery.

No, you can’t have fishies right now.

Mama’s trying to concentrate.

No, fish tacos aren’t disgusting.

Yes, I’m putting that green stuff in them.

How the hell do you cut a *&^%*(# mango!?

Potatoes, mangoes – whatever I’m chopping, preparing dinner is always a trigger for me.

It used to be because I hadn’t planned a meal. Countless trashed produce and late nights cured me of that. Now I plan an entire week of meals before food shopping. So that’s not the problem (well, that’s a PIA in and of itself, but that’s another topic for another day). I’m toast by the time dinner prep rolls around. I’m getting hungry myself. I’m tired. The sun is going down. Daddy isn’t home yet. That pot of anxiety boils up pretty quickly.

Revisiting the feelings elicited from chopping potatoes, things have changed. Potatoes are dense; mangoes are much softer, pliable. Potatoes are born of dirt; mangoes have a hard core with a soft surrounding (oh, there are so many metaphors for a post-baby body with that one). Potatoes are a cold-weather crop; mangoes thrive in a tropical clime.

I am a warmer, softer person than I was post-partum. I may not have tight abs, but I do have an inner reserve of power from which to draw. Like slicing through the pulpy flesh, a lot of things are easier, but not all (removing the pit).

I still get pissed off at the distraction and whining as I’m wielding a large, sharp knife, but I no longer want to cut off my fingers to earn an escape to the emergency room.

I’d call that progress.

And I’d call mango salsa on fish tacos freakin’ delicious if it weren’t so hard to chop.

* Against my better judgment, I’ve included the recipe for Giada’s fish tacos. Proceed with caution – and use sour cream instead of wasabi and crème freche, unless you like adding more stress to your life.

** I’ve also included a link to the proper way to cut a mango (There is a mango.org – who knew? Video is worth it for the entertainment value alone). I think I’d still proceed with caution.

anxiety, Living, medication, motherhood, postpartum depression

You Can Call Me Peri?

So I crack open this month’s issue of Family Circle, the latest installment from the gift subscription my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas, and see an article on menopause. Ok, think it’s safe to skip that one. But oddly compelled to read all printed matter that comes across my radar regardless of whether it pertains to or interests me, I scan the first page. In speech bubbles strewn about the page are various questions, worries, and anecdotes from peri- and post-menopausal women. More than half the bubbles could have been direct quotes from me! And I am not very peri at all!

The article invites me to “read on to find out how to outwit, outplay and outlast the next chapter in your life.” Thus begins a decade-by-decade breakdown on how to outwit this personified beast that threatens to overtake all women all over the world. “In [my] 30s,” I can expect my fertility to decline. Yes, knew that and no, that does not bother me in the least. I should become my healthiest self as “what [I] do now impacts how early menopause starts, how intense the symptoms are and how they affect my body.” Right about now, my dander is starting to get up – and it’s not just the lack of the third comma in the lists of three things that is doing it. I need to “bust stress” as “mini-meltdowns will be happening.” I should try tai chi or yoga or a “peaceful play list on [my] iPod” to “help alleviate menopausal related anxiety.”

It’s about now that I realize I’m fucked (and, no, I don’t mean the uncomfortable sex that I can look forward to in my 50s).

Either I’ve been perimenopausal since my prenatal visits for my third bambino or it’s gonna get a whole lot worse. How does one who seems to be suffering from post-partum post-trauma prepare for a whole lot more of the same?

There is a sidebar by my decade entitled, “Get the #1 Test You Need Now.” Apparently a baseline hormone panel (“an easy blood, saliva or urine test that determines [my] optimal hormone levels”) will assist my doctor in prescribing hormones “specific to [my] ideal range instead of the range of an average woman” when the time comes. I actually laughed out loud when I read this, eliciting strange looks from my daughters. My oldest asked what I was laughing at; how would I even begin to explain? That, when it comes to Mommy, there is no such thing as ‘optimal hormone levels’? That if the doctor prescribed me hormones based on the ‘range of an average woman’, the cocktail would be akin to a stiff drink of water?

While discussing “the (formerly) ‘silent passage’ is no longer taboo,” many women are still petrified by the thought of it. Except maybe for my friend – who has such irregular periods, she was almost wishing for it. But when I mentioned this to my mother-in-law, joking about it, she responded very seriously, “No, she doesn’t want it.”

So where does that leave me? No, I don’t have hot flashes. I haven’t gained mysterious pounds regardless of what I do or eat. But mood swings, irritability, anxiety – all de rigueur already – and I’m only in my first decade, according to this handy little guide.

I’m starting to view women’s susceptibility to hormones as this insidious little secret that was only hinted at as my mother described my body’s cycles to me as I sat on the bathroom floor over two decades ago. By no means was my mother light on the details; I understood my body’s workings in what, to a twelve year-old, was a revoltingly clear manner. But I didn’t know how pervasive those pesky little hormones were.

Yes, I knew there’d be a few days of PMS. Yes, I knew I’d be overly emotional during pregnancy. Yes, I knew there’d be a few days of baby blues. Then I noticed extra irritability that seemed to coincide with ovulation. Then those damn hormones ganged up on me with crazy, heart-wrenching situations in my life to send me into a swirling storm of anxiety and depression. Thankfully, my head broke water a while ago, but only with medication and therapy. And I still struggle.

I’d like to say that an awareness helps me prepare for and deal with the effect hormones have on my life – just as the article touts the “18 Things Every Woman Should Know About Menopause.” To a certain point, it does. But when you know the beast is coming no matter what – and you can’t run and hide because life won’t allow it – what do you do? Grin and bear it? Pray to the gods that in your next life you come back with a penis? I love yoga, but unless I take my strap and choke the hell out of the beast, it’s not gonna make it go away. Maybe I can drown it out with the soothing sounds of my peaceful play list while I try to achieve optimal hormone levels. Maybe instead of ‘silent passage’, it should be ‘silent scream’.

UPDATE May 2014: I spoke too soon on the hot flashes! My past three menstrual cycles have been ushered in by a week of night sweats. Good, clammy times!

anxiety, Living, motherhood, parenting, postpartum depression

This House is My Baby

Three years ago, I was in the midst of the maelstrom known as kitchen renovation while designing my own dream space in utero. In a house too small for three children and no money to move, we decided to do what we could about the logistics of our life.

We messed them up even more.

We ripped out the kitchen, thinking a more streamlined area would ease prepping and feeding three little mouths. Streamlined is not a word to describe a kitchen reno or raising three children.

Demo started one month and one week before my due date. Anal retentive to begin with and unknowingly suffering from a fledging case of postpartum depression, my list-making, obsessive planning, and futile attempts at control began. I created calendars scheduling every detail. I pushed my father-in-law to speed things up. I perpetually pissed off our floor installer for constant e-mail updates.

I wanted that kitchen done before the baby came. I needed running water to clean bottles and babies. I needed the nasty mastic under the formerly linoleum floor covered up so any residual dust wouldn’t assault my newborn’s fragile airways. I needed life in some kind of stasis before all hell broke loose.

How a finished kitchen would have prepared me for what happened in the delivery room and beyond is beyond me. But I felt that some measure of control over my physical world would provide me some sense of control over everything else. Well, I may not have known that then, but I can certainly see it now – especially since I’m trying to do it again.

Nearly three years to the day after the first pull of a crowbar in our kitchen, we’ve contracted a purchase and sales agreement on a new house. Gorgeous kitchen aside, we’ve reached the limits of this house. With one daughter just starting kindergarten and another young enough to make the switch to a new school hopefully not too traumatic, it seems like the perfect time. Well, sort of.

With interest rates historically low, causing a backlog in bank closings, and a seller who has a cat with special needs (don’t ask), getting into this new house in time for the first day of school is becoming increasingly difficult. And I can feel the anxiety ratcheting up as a result. I can feel that nag mechanism gearing up for e-mail assaults on my realtor, unrealistic expectations from our loan officer, and an overall sense of unrest at the universe’s apparent disregard for my wishes.

Every fiber of my being is screaming – make it happen! It must happen! You have to get these kids in that house so they can find a home for their lunch boxes and a place to lay our their clothes for the first day of school, make a dry run to the bus stop, and get a feel for that new place as home before they have to figure out a new school, too. It’s mommy guilt and good planning and type-A personality all rolled into one. It’s also unrealistic. Well, sort of.

If I felt any different, I wouldn’t be myself. I just don’t roll that way. And it’s coming from a desire to have the best for my children.

It also feels incredibly familiar.

Since 2004, I’ve been pregnant in two and a half year cycles. When my youngest passed two years and seven months, I realized that was the oldest I’d ever had a child without expecting the next. And I held my breath for the next three months. No child number four, but we still embarked on a tumultuous endeavor: this whole house-buying thing.

This house has become my baby.

Apparently I cannot live through a two and half-year cycle without giving myself something to obsess about until it comes to fruition. But while I see the parallels between my behavior now and then, at least there’s no such thing as post-house-buying depression – not until the first mortgage payment is due anyway.

anxiety, Automobiles, postpartum depression

Too Much Stimuli

Anxiety = Distraction = Stupidity

That’s usually the formula when I get super-stressed.

Nearing the end of my pregnancy with Julia and a hectic school year, I rushed from my teaching duties to get Bella at daycare. A tractor-trailer truck making a delivery pulled off the road just enough to make me think in my altered state of mind that I could squeeze through, but not enough for me to actually do so. My side-view mirror thwacked against the bottom corner of the loading shelf at the back of the truck, leaving an ugly black gash. The truck was none the wiser, my little car a gnat flying by in great, stupid haste.

A year or two later when I was stay-at-home mom leaving the house solo for the first time for an extended period of days for a writing institute, the mornings were harried to say the least. I zipped to the adjacent capital city and through the busy streets, late of course. On one particularly narrow street always lined with cars, I again misjudged my time/space continuum and thwacked that poor mirror. I’m surprised that poor thing hasn’t just shriveled up and fallen off the car in protest (though the automatic adjusters are not quite as precise anymore). Perhaps it would have if it’d happened a third time.

Luckily, it didn’t. This morning, it was almost the front end of the car that got it. And it was not an inert object on the other end of the deal. Fortunately – for the mirror, the car, and my marriage – all that occurred were many angry faces directed at me through two windshields worth of glass.

What is it about anxiety that makes my mind go elsewhere?

Postpartum, it was intrusive, irrational thoughts that invaded my consciousness. My thoughts are no longer reaching those levels of irrationality, but the fact that they’re more ‘normal’ is almost worse. It’s easier for the distractability to fly under the radar until it’s nearly overwhelming, until it’s almost too late.

Except for the moments when I freakishly self-aware. The moments when I can feel my thoughts spinning out of control; an energy boiling up under my skin threatening to force its way out and roll on down the street; my mind grasping for one singular thing to hold onto and coming up empty. At those moments, it’s like I’m at the center of a maelstrom of thoughts, worries, ideas swirling around me with no one stationary object to use as a marker.

Planning meals for the week and writing a grocery list? Choosing which household chore to do first in the limited amount of time before the kids get home from school? Prepping the house for a realtor’s evaluation? Aaahh! I’m supposed to prioritize in this state of mind? Choose from myriad options and lists of items? No wonder I drive into things. I’m driven to distraction. Unfortunately the next stop is stupidity.

I must get a grip – maybe it just shouldn’t be on the steering wheel till this storm passes.

motherhood, parenting, postpartum depression, Recovery

Mom – that’s enough

A couple of weeks ago I made the mistake of calling in to a radio talk show. Stupidly enough, I thought the host, a contemporary of mine in age and many ideas, and I would be able to have an intelligent dialogue. I had forgotten the talent that radio hosts have to turn every conversation on its ear until it follows the tack they had intended for that evening’s show.

I called to counter that ridiculously inflammatory article ‘timed’ to coincide with Mothers’ Day. I said that the issue was not whether this woman should be breastfeeding her child, but that this magazine had the chutzpah to title their article in such a way. As if mothering isn’t a hard enough job on its own, as if women don’t constantly question themselves, and as if some of us don’t already feel tempted to attack others’ decisions to validate our own. There is no need to create divisiveness where there should only be support and camaraderie. For when it all comes down to it, aren’t we all just struggling to make it through as best we know how?

The topic of blogging came up, the host wondering about the now infamous woman from the cover photo’s own blog. I said that while I hadn’t read it, blogs can be an enormous help to other readers going through similar experiences. He said, yes, I can see if you or a loved one are suffering from some rare disease and there is a support group or information on a blog, but a blog on mothering? Sharing your ‘fresh’ experiences on something that has been done down through the millennia?

I felt the fire rise up the back of my neck, but I knew the conversation was over.

This man does not know I am a mother. Who blogs. Who receives enormous benefit from it as I come to grips with the person left in the wake of postpartum. Who has felt like less of a woman because I didn’t do X, Y, Z with my babies and children like I knew other moms were doing. Who has suffered in misery thinking I was so completely and totally alone. Like a failure. Who shares my story in the hopes that other women will not suffer as I did.

And he could never possibly understand.

And that, I understand. This post is not about attacking him. Everything’s relative, this I know. My own husband said, Jen, when he’s a father and watches his wife go through it, he’ll know.

But there are many people who already know. The women – my aunts, my grandmother, my friends, my cousins, women wrangling their children at the grocery store, women struggling to drop their kids at daycare and get to work, women all around the world – with whom I’ve shared my struggles. It took me a long time to admit I wasn’t the perfect mom I tried to portray. But when I did, my confessions were met with nods, knowing smiles, affirmations, similar stories. There is a special bond with these women. A comfort. An unspoken feeling that they’ve got my back – if for no other reason that they’re not going to judge me because they’ve been in my same position.

That’s what women need to share – not the stepping on each other in the struggle for perfection, but the imperfection. That’s the only way we can shatter the idea of ‘the perfect mom’ and end the war for our self-esteem and self-image. Because who the hell are people trying to sell magazines and get radio ratings to tell us if we’re mom enough? That’s up to us and our fellow moms, the women who are all in this together.

anxiety, Living, motherhood, postpartum depression

No Use Crying Over Spilt Whatever

Pinch, pinch, pull.

If my daughter’s preschool teacher can inspire twenty-five four year-olds to use this technique to open their pint-size pouches of fruit snacks, you’d think I’d be able to employ it to open a bag of pasta.

Not so.

Employing said technique, I managed to send dozens of uncooked Ditali skittering across the counter. Surprisingly enough I caught myself before a torrent of curses loosed from my mouth, which is usually what would happen. I pressed my body up against the impending avalanche and managed to keep all but a few Ditali from dropping. I gathered the rest up by the fistful, after seeking out a few strays, and threw them into the boiling pot, shepherding the lost sheep to lead them to the slaughter. And the overused idiom came to mind.

There really is no use crying over spilt whatever.

If I had flipped out (as I said I’m wont to do), what purpose would it have served? I’d give my two year-old a few more choice words to add to her repertoire of words bound to be repeated when least desired? I’d pump my blood pressure up a few points? I’d push even more pasta over the precipice with my spastic gesticulations? Really, there’s nothing positive that ‘crying’ would have added to the situation. I’d still be a few Ditali short of a pound.

Not unlike the time I decided to bake Christmas cookies with all three kids. Though the ‘baby’ was fifteen months old and I should’ve been ‘recovered’ from postpartum depression, I still got stressed very easily, had very little patience, and hated anything that made my job harder. In this case: candy sprinkles. Each time a candy-coated ball hit the floor, my rip-shit meter went up another notch. Then Bella picked up the bottle, gave it a good shake, and the whole flippin’ lid flew off, blanketing the floor in a layer of rainbow-hued ball bearings. I felt the wave of anger swell up inside me, but like some out-of-body experience, I stopped it before it crested. Somehow, it occurred to me that it didn’t matter. Let them throw candy around like confetti, for goodness sake – couldn’t get any worse now, could it?

This is not to say I’m happy when things like this happen. Very often, you will find me cursing when I find myself under the dining room table on my hands and knees in the middle of dinner mopping up spilt milk. And stuff like this is just one more thing threatening to push me over the edge in my already heightened state of stress.

I try to be Zen. I try to employ my relaxation response. I apologize to Jesus for taking His name in vain – again (something I never did until I had the third kid, by the way). But like there’ll always be stressors, I’ll always be striving to keep it on the down low. Just like I’ll be finding those flippin’ candy sprinkles under the stove each time I pull it out for the rest of my life.

anxiety, motherhood, parenting, postpartum depression, Recovery

Three Ring Circus

Don’t tell my baby, but my third pregnancy was a huge surprise.

My husband and I cut our wedding cake to the tune of Dean Martin’s “Memories are Made of This” – we envisioned a life with ‘three little kids for the flavor’. But just like the top to the spice jar coming loose unexpectedly and dumping a whole pile of paprika in the pot, we got all that flavor all at the same time.

When Julia, our second, was born, we said, “Oh, yeah, she’ll definitely have to be older than Bella is now when we have a third.” God chuckled at that one. Just after Christmas just under two years later, we found out Number Three was on its way. Angela was born when Julia was four months younger than Bella was at her debut as a big sister.

When we found out I was pregnant, my husband and I were instantly wrapped in a cocoon of haze. Everything seemed blurry and just out of reach. Lost in our own thoughts, we wandered around in shock. We didn’t tell anyone right away because we’d always waited until we knew the baby was well on its way, but also because we were waiting to wrap our heads around it.

Mere days after proof positive, we attended a New Years’ Party. In attendance was a mother of three I’d come to know through the host. I knew wasn’t emotionally or mentally able to tell her I was about to join her club, but I needed some assurance that I could do this. She always seemed such a magnanimous mother, building her children up while laughing enough with them to keep them grounded. If she said it was do-able, I could do it. I asked her what it was like going from two to three children. She said, “I have never been more acutely aware of the fact that I only have two hands.” We laughed, her sense of humor seemingly able to overarch any obstacle in her way. I can still see her standing there, those two hands raised in front of her.

Her words came back to me once we were all home from the hospital. When someone asked me what it was like going from two to three, I said, that yes, there is some truth to the theory that it’s easier than going from one to two because you’re used to keeping all the balls in the air – but what no one tells you is that there’s always. a. ball. in. the. air.

I was a veritable ringmaster with all the balls I kept hurling into the air and trying frantically to catch and hoist again. There was no intermission. No time to catch my breath. And I felt like I’d missed a very important set of lessons at circus school. The fact that this circus took place under the big top of postpartum depression did not lend any sort of solace to the situation. There were times I felt like I was the #1 attraction for the freak show. But even though I was at the mercy of my hormones, I somehow made it through – and thankfully didn’t end up looking like the bearded lady.

Life is still crazy, but I’m feeling less so lately. It’s just the usual brand of crazy, the kind that comes with three little kids and the flavor they bring (aided by the hula hoops the Easter Bunny brought each of them this year). It may have been an acquired taste, but now it’s my favorite flavor.

postpartum depression, Recovery

No Salt in this Wound

There really is no point to a saltine – except for the salt, of course.

For some reason, as many other kids, I loved them when I was little. I think it had more to do with trying to stand it upright in between my top and bottom teeth or shoving it in my mouth in one bite rather than any great gastronomic pleasure. I didn’t return to them until I carried whole sleeves of them around with me during my bouts of morning sickness three times over. That’s the telltale sign of a pregnancy, isn’t it? The white, crinkly cellophane pulled open at the seam, the stack of perfectly pointed squares cascading out into the open, and hopefully, into your belly to quell the ravaging beast that threatens to ruin every waking moment – not just those in the morning. A friend’s mother says that she hasn’t touched a saltine since her pregnancy over thirty years ago. I can’t say I blame her. It is not a pleasant connotation when that’s your last memory.

So, imagine my surprise, when I found myself chowing down on them as I rushed to an appointment in the car. So light and insubstantial, I was flying through the sleeve with reckless abandon – actually just savoring the salt and waiting for some sort of gratification from the mush that the enriched flour had turned to in my mouth. I had bought them for the kids, but running late and low on fuel, I needed a quick and easy – if not satisfying – snack.

After I’d downed a quarter of the sleeve, the sharp bite of the salt searing into my tongue, I realized what I was doing. I was eating saltines! After a miserable last pregnancy, I avoided at any costs anything that reminded me of those memories that made me shudder. I gave away all my maternity clothes with great aplomb. I threw out the sitz baths and lanolin left in the house. A wicked pack rat, I even sorted through and shredded all paperwork from the hospital. Saltines fell into this category. I didn’t fling them out my window, a crazed cracker hail sending birds flying, I just didn’t even think of pulling a box off the grocery store shelf.

In one conversation with my therapist in that first year of recovery, I explained how I felt as if I were grieving a death. I marked each familiar date, each holiday, each anniversary of some hard memory – noting it, like the rung of a ladder I had to climb to get up and out of this hole. ‘Okay, I’ve made it past that one,’ I’d say. I’d survive one set of negative memories at a time and start to wipe them away with new ones.

It wasn’t easy and I knew I wasn’t suffering the same grief as someone who had actually lost a loved one, but, as my therapist so astutely pointed out, I was suffering a loss – the death of my life as I had known it. Things were totally – in some ways, irrevocably – different. It was time to move forward with the positive and with this new knowledge and see what would happen. Life certainly wasn’t over – it was just different.

As was the action of eating a saltine. I wasn’t a kid crushing one into my mouth as I cavorted on the beach with my parents. I wasn’t a desperately nauseous woman at the mercy of her upset stomach (and those damn hormones). I was an adaptable survivor who could do simple tasks again without the crippling connotations once associated with them.

Saltines have never tasted so good.

motherhood, parenting, postpartum depression

My Lifesaver

“I save you.”

My two-year-old daughter said this to me one morning as I dressed her. She reached up from the changing table and grasped my arm, hugging me to her.

“You save me?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, a smile lighting her sweet little face.

She’s been playing games of chase, tag, and intrigue with her older sisters, which is no doubt where this line came from, as they ran from imagined assailants. But these three small words held a much deeper meaning for me.

If it weren’t for Angela’s love – and my love for Angela – I might not have survived the three years that have elapsed since the news of her coming.

I read recently that humans have an evolutionary predisposition to always think the worst. If we did not anticipate danger, we would get eaten by the wooly mammoth hanging around the corner. If we didn’t worry constantly about starvation, we wouldn’t feel compelled to gather berries for the coming winter. If it were always sunshine and roses, the species as we know it would not exist.

However, in the modern age, where thankfully we do not have to parry with wooly mammoth, this predisposition makes living a life of gratitude really hard. Being genetically wired to pay attention to the negative, the positives of our life fade into the background without a concerted effort on our part.

And, sadly, I can say that I let that happen throughout my pregnancy and postpartum with Angela. Letting the blessing of a child be outweighed by the unexpected timing of it. Letting myself be buried by the drudgery of day-to-day rather than being uplifted by the wonder in her eyes. Letting myself founder instead of accepting the help I needed.

There were times when I could pull those positives back into the foreground. Little arms wrapped tightly around my neck. Sitting in the living room, surrounded by my husband and the girls. Watching the three of them splash in the bathtub. I even started a gratitude journal as a concrete reminder of the blessings all around me on a daily basis, especially helpful on those days when the clouds made it impossible to see them.

It was through the filter of Angela’s unconditional love that I began to see the world differently.

If at the end of the day, chaos ruled, but our kids were safe and happy, all was right with the world. If things didn’t go according to plan, maybe that was because God had a better one. And if we weren’t happy, maybe that meant we were supposed to be doing something different anyway.

I decided to do a lot of things differently. Acutely aware that there were some things in life that would choose me with no regard to my misery, I decided to only choose things that would bring me joy. I found myself contemplating risks I never would have taken pre-partum. With newly opened eyes, there were new possibilities.

It was Angela who gave me eyes to see. She gave me back my life. If her birth – and the resulting struggles – hadn’t happened, my serious examination of my life and place in this world wouldn’t have happened. And every time I got lost or distracted by the discouraging things around me, her two little arms around my neck reminded me to come back to center – to the heart of what truly matters.

Angela returned the wonder to my eyes. Watching her find her way in the world inspired me to find mine. She is the ultimate gift of love – and isn’t that the greatest blessing of all?

Chopping Potatoes

and other metaphors for motherhood

Category Archives: postpartum depression