What's the Rush? My Fears on Baby #2

My daughter Sabrina, at 16 months, is so stinking much fun right now.  I am loving this age. Yes, she has terrible two tendencies already, stamping her feet and shaking her head no to assert her opinions, but she is growing and changing with every second that passes by. Every day is a new adventure and I love sitting back and letting her grow into whoever it is that she is going to turn into as she grows older and more independent.  

Her independence is as endearing as it is frustrating.  Though I get irritated when she arches her back and grunts her displeasure with different situations, I also remember that this is the daughter I wanted.  One who thinks for herself, one who isn't afraid to speak (grunt, shriek, scream, etc) her mind.  One who would rather do something for herself than have it done for her.  And while some things that she'd like to do just aren't feasible at her age, I am insanely proud of her for wanting to do them.  

My parenting journey hasn't always brought me this much joy, to be honest.  It has been a long, hard battle to this point of comfort and enjoyment.  I was ill prepared for the changes that motherhood brought.  I thought I was mentally (and physically) prepared, but that was far from the truth.  While many women have traumatic birth stories, Sabrina's birth was mostly comfortable, about 1 hour of excruciating hip pain, and a begged for c-section which ended a long 17 hour labor.  That part I'd do over again in a minute.  I had a couple rough days after my c-section, but once I was up and walking around and gaining my strength back, my recovery really was smooth sailing.  Getting my staples out was scary and stressful, but the truth is I didn't feel a thing.  They were out before I even had time to squirm.  Easy peasy, right?  

Sabrina is heading towards that 18 month point at which most couples start discussing planning for baby #2.  Or baby #2, child # 3 in our case, as I have an almost 16 year old stepdaughter, my husband's daughter from his first marriage.  The thought of having another baby crosses my mind each and every day, for one reason or another.  But the truth of the matter is, I don't know if I want to.

I'm sure there is a collective gasp coming from society at large right now.  How dare you not be chomping at the bit to have another baby?  That's what you do in today's society!  You have a baby, then 2-3 years later you have another one.  It's just what you do.  Well, guess what.  I'm not feeling it at this moment in my life.  So why do I feel a huge, overwhelming sense of guilt about that?  Why do I feel like I am less of a mother because I am not charging headfirst into baby #2?

I've blogged before about most of the reasons that I am not rushing to have another baby. This isn't new territory. But what I haven't blogged about is the crushing guilt that goes along with it.  

First off, I was not someone who loved being pregnant.  While my pregnancy was pretty low-key, I slept horribly almost the entire time (you'd think that would have prepared me for the sleep deprivation to follow!), had terrible issues with heartburn, and just generally was uncomfortable.  I had no pregnancy glow about me.  I was simply just a woman who wanted to have a baby, and pregnancy was a means to an end.  People would ask me "Don't you just love being pregnant?!" to which I would snort and reply with some sarcastic comment to signify that NO I did not LOVE being pregnant.  I couldn't wait to NOT be pregnant, as a matter of fact, and I can't say that I have ever really missed that feeling since Sabrina was born.  I am happy to see my feet, to be able to paint my own toenails, and to down caffeine by the gallon if I so desire without feeling guilty or being judged.  

Already mentioned how birth was no big thing for me, and honestly wouldn't be moving forward.  My doctor mentioned a VBAC to me, but if I ever do decide to hop on the mommy train again, it would be on a one way track to the operating room for a scheduled repeat c-section.  Why mess with what already has worked?  I don't know that I would elect for major surgery, but since I already had to with not much of a choice, and I know what to expect, I'll pass on the sitz baths and the fear of using the bathroom in favor of a sore abdomen and temporary lifting restrictions.  Judge me if you like, but I have NO guilt about that part of this conundrum I find myself in.  C section or bust.

But seriously, this is the point in this story where things get dicey.  Pregnancy, eh. Birth, whatever, I'll deal.  The aftermath of birth, life with a newborn, AGAIN?  That's where I have my biggest dilemma.  Newborn phase.  Up every 2-3 hours.  While recovering from a c section.  Only this time, WITH A TODDLER!  Oh my.  It gives me palpitations.  

My Sabrina wasn't and isn't a good sleeper.  Still, at 16 months old, she gets up at least once at night.  A vast improvement from the innumerable sleep issues we've overcome in her life, which my sanity and I are immeasurably grateful for.  But still.  I've had a tough track record with her thus far, generally only getting 2 hours of sleep at a time between feedings in the early months, and with her getting up twice at night until not that long ago.  Forgive me if I'm a little gun shy about going down that path again.  I never again will question why sleep deprivation is used as a torture tactic.  I would have given any military secrets I had, along with my left and my right arm, for a good night's sleep.  With Sabrina, I didn't know what I didn't know.  But now, I KNOW.  I know what I'd be in for.  Yes I survived it once, but at some points barely.  

My biggest and most real fear in having a second baby is opening myself up to the possibility of having postpartum depression. Again.  For the first 3 months of my daughter's life, maybe more, I lived in some sort of drug-like fog.  I felt everything and nothing all at the same time. I felt more like a bystander in my life than a participant.  I had a physical, visceral fear of nighttime.  Because nighttime brought the hardest hours of the day for me, the hours from 12-6 when my saint of a husband went to bed and I was left on my own with a baby that they told me was mine but I had very little attachment to.  This baby that ate and cried (a lot) and slept (a little).  This baby that I knew I loved somewhere deep inside of me but that I more often than not felt annoyed with. What the hell kind of a mother was I?  One that was just going through the motions, I can safely say now on the outside of my fog.  One that knew what she was supposed to do and did it, but not because of some deep seeded motherly instinct.  My husband, my parents, they tried to pull me from my fog, but the truth was I just had to heal, whatever that meant. Time, I think, was the healer.  It healed my body, healed my hormones, and eventually, after a long while, started to heal my mind.  But there were days that were so dark, so unhappy, so scary, that I wasn't sure how I was going to make it.  

There's no guarantee it would happen to me again.  But there's also no guarantee that it wouldn't.  Only this time, it wouldn't affect just me and the new baby, but also my Sabrina. My Sabrina that has already been negatively impacted by her mother's battle with postpartum depression once in her short life.  Could I really do that do her again? 

I keep telling myself that everyone seems to have a second baby.  It can't be that hard, can it?  Every day I see stories in my Facebook feed about friends of mine with one baby adding to their family with baby # 2 on the way.  I am honestly overjoyed for them.  I know that having a sibling adds something to a child's life.  Teaches them to share, teaches them that sometimes others come first, gives them their first friend. But right now, I am not in a place where I am ready to make that decision for our family.  

There are many practical implications to the decision to have a second baby.  We technically do have a fourth bedroom that we could turn into a nursery, but it has significant drawbacks. It is a tiny little room that has no heating or cooling vent in it.  In the winter, it wouldn't be hard to run a little space heater in there; in fact, we still use a space heater in Sabrina's room and it works just fine.  But cooling the room is a more difficult feat.  It has one mini-window that cannot hold a window air conditioner.   So in the heat of the summer, I honestly do not know how that room would be temperature controlled.  Another downside is that room happens to share a wall with my teenage stepdaughter's room.  Our house is old, has little insulation, and certainly isn't sound dampening.  A teenager and a newborn aren't really meant to share close quarters like that, as teenagers are up til all hours in their rooms and newborns are doing the same...  in far different ways.  I just don't see that dynamic playing out well.  Finally, turning that room into a nursery takes away our guest room, which is used when my parents come to visit but mostly is used as my dog's room.  Yes, Baby has her own room and sleeps on the bed in there every night.  Previously she slept in the bed in Sabrina's room.  She obviously made the move to the guest bedroom when that room turned into a nursery.  If our guest room were a nursery, she'd be out of luck, and so would I, as my dog does not do well with change.  She'd be forced to sleep downstairs, which I don't really see going over too well.

We often go to Pittsburgh to spend time with my parents there, visit extended family, and watch our beloved Steelers and Pirates play.  Traveling 6 hours in a vehicle with one child is painful enough, but throw in a newborn and a toddler?  Those palpitations I mentioned earlier are back.  I do everything but stand on my head to amuse Sabrina on those never-ending rides, but throw in a baby to boot?  Mama might opt to stay home instead.  

I know there are always difficulties in life if you look for them.  And yes, I admit that I am not a glass half full kind of girl most of the time.  But the decision to have another baby is one that is life-changing, and I am not willing to make that decision based on societal pressure, real or imagined, or just because "it's what you do".  I may never be fully ready, but the fear and the guilt that I feel is enough to know that I have to trust my "gut" (as Leroy Jethro Gibbs would say) and just wait.  And if, in the end, our family doesn't add Baby #2, I hope that people won't judge me or think less of me.  It isn't a decision that I am taking lightly, that's for sure.

The Best Worst Year of My Life

Dear Sabrina,


Today, my love, you turn one.  Where the last 365 days have gone is a mystery to me.  The seconds started flying by the minute you were born.  From the minute I heard you cry, strapped to the surgical table in the OR, you had my heart.  There have been some bumps along our journey together, but never once did they make me doubt my love for you.  

Someday, you will hopefully become a mommy yourself.  And I will long since have forgotten the struggles and the hardships of those first 365 days of motherhood, so I am writing this to you so that you will not feel alone.  I will be there for you in every way I can, but time heals all wounds, and I will have moved on from these memories to those of you growing up, blossoming into a young woman and beyond.  But I need for you to know, to understand, to have a record of what I felt like being your mommy, and what you will likely feel being a mommy yourself.

You will feel the highest highs and the lowest lows in those first 365 days.  The most joyful moment I think I've ever felt was hearing your cry for the first time.  You were real, you were here, you were all ours.  Those first days, I felt like I was in a dream.  You were perfect.  But then the crash happened.  We went home.  You cried.  A lot.  You hurt me breastfeeding... badly.  And things started to unravel.  I cried, every single day, sometimes for hours at a time.  I felt like a failure, like you deserved a better mother.  Those were some of the hardest, darkest days of my life.  I hope, my love, that you never feel anything even close to what I felt.  But in the event that you do, know that mommy went through it with you, and while it was harder than I ever imagined, I made it, and so will you.

Being a mom is hard at any and every point in a child's life, but that first year is especially difficult.  You used to cry and cry, especially in the evening, and there was no way for daddy and I to know what you wanted.  We would take turns holding you, walking you around the house, praying that the hardwood floors wouldn't creak too much.  Praying that the dog wouldn't suddenly see a cat and bark her head off.  Praying that you would find some way to comfort yourself since we rarely seemed to be able to comfort you.  Some nights daddy and I would have to wake each other up for help because you just wouldn't settle down.  We prayed for some relief, for some kind of magic to calm you down.  Patience and time was all that seemed to work.  Sometimes you will be at your wit's end with your own little one, having no idea what to do.  In those moments, remember that mommy went through it too, and that sometimes taking a deep breath and having a good cry can help release tension.  Singing helps too.  

Remember to have fun in those first 365 days, especially those early ones.  I will always feel like I wished our early days together away, because I felt so utterly depressed, so tired, so alone in so many ways.  I look back on that with such regret in my heart.  You were and are such a gift to me, my sweet baby girl, and I wish I had enjoyed you more in your first days of life.  You spent 9 months growing inside of me, yet when you were born you were a stranger in so many ways.  If your little one's first days are difficult, don't beat yourself up sweetheart.  You didn't come with instructions either.  

Finally, my love, don't be too hard on yourself.  Being a first time mom is a HUGE adjustment, one that cannot be overestimated.  Change is hard, even good change.  Be kind to yourself and allow yourself time to adjust to being a mommy.  Someone else depends on you for EVERYTHING now.  It is a huge, scary, awesome responsibility.  Cut yourself some slack, ask for help, remember to do things for yourself too.  YOU matter too.

Sabrina, the joy that you have brought to our lives this past year is immeasurable.  Your smile, your giggle, your babbling, the way you walk through the room like a bull in a china shop...  You have a way of making everyone around you happy.  You have made me a better person.  You have challenged me to have patience, to let go of my perfectionist ways, and to just go with the flow and enjoy life as it comes.  My world, our world, is so much better because you are in it.  I will spend every moment of the rest of my life trying to give you everything, trying to teach you everything I can, trying to make you as happy as you've made me.  Never ever will you know how much I love you, until the day when you have your own little one.  Maybe then you can understand the deep, overpowering, dizzying love that I feel for you with every breath I take.  

To quote our favorite song, one that I've sung to you probably a hundred times in your short life, "I love you in the morning, and in the afternoon, I love you in the evening, underneath the moon..."

All my love, ALWAYS,
Mommy

Why I'm In No Hurry for Baby #2

My daughter is nearly 1 year old now.  She is the light of my life and I could never fully explain the joy that she brings me.  I am happily planning her first birthday party, enjoying this new phase of her being more independent, more toddler like.

But guess what?  I'm exhausted.  Not like "lack of sleep" exhausted (things have been getting better in that regard), but rather exhausted from the busyness of life with a 1 year old.  In addition to my mommy responsibilities, I work full time, which mostly entails me running from one meeting to another, sometimes in a different building altogether, answering endless emails, and just generally running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  

So when people ask me "So when are you guys having another one?" I do my best not to either laugh hysterically or smack them in the back of the head (a la Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS).  Do not get me wrong, I want to have another child.  My husband would do it tomorrow if I were on board.  But quite honestly,  I'm just not there yet.

There are many reasons why I'm in no hurry for Baby # 2.  Baby # 2 for me is child # 3 for our family, since Chris has a 15 year old daughter from his first marriage.  As I've written about before, life with a teenager and a toddler has its challenges.  Chris's daughter is with us full time now, so that means we are responsible for most of the transportation that goes along with having an involved, intelligent, responsible teenage daughter.  Swim practice every day, religious education every Sunday, outings with friends, high school football games, swim meets... The list goes on and on.  Factor into this equation having a toddler, one who gets cranky in the late afternoon and goes to bed by 6:30 every night like clockwork.  Bedtime every night is a three ring circus of my husband and myself giving her a bath, drying her, brushing and combing her hair, putting her PJ's on, and finally putting her in her sleep sack, all the while trying to keep her shrieking to a minimum (bath time is okay, everything else is torture) and praying that she will lay on the changing table long enough to get her diaper on before she starts flipping over, grabbing for us to hold her, etc.  By the time she goes into her crib at 6:30, we are exhausted!

Selfishly on my part, I also want more time with just my Sabrina.  I want to shower her with love and attention and let her continue to be the center of my world.  She is getting to such a fun age, one where we can really start doing things with her more, taking her places and allowing her to begin to explore the world beyond her house and her Nana's.  We plan to take her to Disney World next October, when she will be almost 2, which I am absolutely ecstatic about and cannot wait for.  I want to give her that time, with just us and her grandparents, to feel like she is the center of it all.. because she is!

Recently Buckingham Palace announced that Duchess Kate is expecting again.  Kate and I were pregnant at the same time for our first pregnancies; Prince Georgie was born in July, Sabrina in November.  It was really neat to watch her pregnancy unfold in the press, all the while my own pregnancy was unfolding.  But when I heard that she was pregnant again, my knee jerk reaction was "What was she thinking?!"  Then I remembered that she is a Duchess, has a staff likely at her disposal, although I do think she is a very involved mother to her son.. and then I realized why she would want to do it all again so soon.

Kate, you and I differ on this one.  I am so eternally grateful to have my daughter, to be a mother, and I can't imagine my life without her.  But I am not yet ready to do it all again. I did not love being pregnant the first time, and I anticipate that would not change with pregnancy number 2.  And I didn't even have morning sickness!  But the constant exhaustion, the GI issues, the shortness of breath, the muscle weakness...  While some people glow and love every minute of it, for me it was a means to an end.  (A wonderful, lively, smart, strong-willed end that I love with all my heart.)

But more than any of that, I am terrified of having postpartum depression again.  I haven't yet researched statistics on the re-occurrence of postpartum depression with baby # 2 when the mother had it with baby # 1.  I don't want to know, quite honestly.  I am so scared that I will bring another life into this world, and spend the first months of his or her life falling down the rabbit hole of depression yet again.  Because this time, I wouldn't only be affecting one child, but two.  It was hard enough to get through the first time, but I can't even imagine how hard it would be with two children to care for instead of one.

One thing I know for sure, that I'm sure people will judge me for, is that I will not even attempt breastfeeding with baby # 2, whenever the time comes.  I can't do it again.  I can't face the pain, the exhaustion, the uncertainty, the waiting...  I can't face hooking myself up to a breast pump, I can't face taking on the sole responsibility of providing food for my child.  I just can't do it.  I don't think breastfeeding caused my postpartum depression, but I think it sure as heck didn't help anything.  I was exhausted, beating myself up for my lack of success with breastfeeding, my baby was miserable and hungry... it just was a recipe for disaster.  I can't put myself in a potentially harmful situation again.  While I agree that breastfeeding is absolutely best, for me it's just not worth the risks.

So I'm going to take my time and enjoy life with my darling daughter for awhile longer, before we give her a brother or sister to love.  (And fight with.)  I know that when the time is right, Baby # 2 will come into our world and we won't remember what life was like without them.  I look forward to that day, but for now, I'm happy with life the way it is.

More Than the Baby Blues

I have had the good fortune of working in the health care industry for almost 3 years now. Not as a clinician (lucky for the patients where I work) but as a trainer and now coordinator of the training for the users of our inpatient and outpatient electronic health records. I honestly love what I do. I get to work with some amazing caregivers and learn many things about the medical profession without having to surrpress my gag reflux at the sight of blood, vomit, or worse. I'm not a doctor (or a nurse) but I do play one on TV. 

I found myself on the other side of the computer when my daughter was born. Instead of training users to document on their patients, I was one of their patients. It was a different world, being in the hospital bed, my care up to the same people that I've trained on multiple occasions. It was a very good reality check for me, and it's something that had never left me. 

Today, while in a meeting with a workgroup of users of our outpatient medical record, someone handed me a piece of paper that stopped me dead in my tracks.  The top of the paper read "Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Screening".  Wait, what is this?!  How is it that I, someone who has worked in healthcare and patient documentation for 3 years and who herself has struggled with postpartum depression, did not know that this screening tool existed?  

I did my best to turn my attention back to the meeting, but as I left the room, my mind was reeling. I read the questions, all 10 of them, and I realized that my answers to each in the days after Sabrina was born would have definitely raised a red flag. Why had no one asked me those questions?  

But whose responsibility is it?  The nurses on the maternity floor?  My Obstetrician?  Someone else, perhaps a nurse following up on me via phone?  I couldn't come up with a clear answer. And therein lies the problem. It is up to everyone and no one to screen for postpartum depression. And so many times, as was the case with me, it gets overlooked. 

They talk to us about breastfeeding. They talk about jaundice. They make you sign forms and watch videos from the 1990s about Shaken Baby Syndrome. They bring you into the office to do an exam 6 weeks postnatal. They remove your stitches or in my case, your staples. They tend to your physical needs, but what about our emotional needs?  Who is tending to those?

Timing is a huge issue with screening for postpartum depression. I myself began to feel the effects of postpartum depression the day I went home from the hospital, when Sabrina was 3 days old. Is this the case for everyone?  Probably not. In my case, if the nurses on the maternity unit had given me this screening test, I likely would have passed. It hadn't hit me yet. For many women, you leave the hospital when your baby is just a few days old, and you aren't seen again for 6 or 8 weeks. By that point, you are already deep in the bowels of postpartum depression if you are symptomatic. I won't go as far as to say that it's too late, but early intervention and education is obviously a better course of treatment.

I was lucky enough to have a husband and family who intervened and forced me to see my OB about my depression issues. Let me start by saying that my OB is a fantastic doctor. The best. I had the absolute best care during my pregnancy and my c-section was quick and easy to recover from. But that day, in his office, all he could offer me was to either medicate or wait it out. In my current, stable frame of mind, I understand why he said that. Clinically those are your options. There's no magic pill that will "cure" you. But that day, in the middle of one of the darkest periods of my life, I felt hopeless. Was there nothing else that he, or any other doctor or medical care provider, could have offered me?  Resources for educating yourself on postpartum depression,  the number to call for a local therapist, even an alternative therapy such as a supplement or herb?  Nothing more than medicate or wait?

For me, that's not good enough. There is too much information available in today's connected world.  We have tablets and iPhones and watches that do far more than tell time. Yet all we can offer to new mothers in peril is medicine?  Nope, sorry. Give them names of books, reputable websites, support groups, moms groups, anything. Give them tools to handle their feelings so that there are no more Paula Yates's. Give them something, anything, because what you are really offering them is hope. Hope that this horrible dark cloud will pass over them soon. To hang in there, just a little longer. That this feeling isn't forever. 

It is time to expect more, to educate, to spread awareness. It is time to not be ashamed.  

Edinburgh Depression Screening- http://womensmentalhealth.org/quiz-are-you-suffering-from-postpartum-depression/ 

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Robin Williams: Gone Too Soon

I am literally heartbroken over Robin Williams' death. And stunned.  It seems so out of the blue. He was one of the funniest men to ever walk this earth.  He had a genuineness about him that made him likable and relatable.  His characters were diverse, showing his depth as an actor and a comedian.

Growing up in the 80's and 90's, he was everywhere.  And to my generation, he was like a father to us.  Movies like Aladdin, Hook, and Mrs. Doubtfire portrayed him in a paternal role, yet always with a spin. In Aladdin, he brought the Genie to life, to look after and grant wishes for his pal Aladdin.   In Hook, he never gave up the love of his son Peter and went between worlds to bring him back.  In Mrs. Doubtfire, that same love drove him to dress up as an elderly woman to remain in his kids' everyday lives after divorce.  He made us laugh, and he made us cry.  We all loved him, no matter what role he played.  He was easy to like, and you laughed on the inside just looking at him, because he was THAT funny.

So the news of his death, a probable suicide, rocked us all to our very core.  How could this have happened?  How could a man, so funny, so loved, have felt so alone that he took his own life?  He had a family who he obviously loved, and who obviously loved him in return.  He had the admiration of his fans.  Apparently he sought help in the recent past, but it would appear to have been too late.  Something inside of him was not settled.  

A few thoughts have stuck out in my mind since this tragedy happened last evening.  The first of which is that depression is real and it is scary.  I know how I felt when I was dealing with postpartum depression, which was thankfully temporary and short term,  and I can honestly say that I was not myself.  I was not thinking and acting and feeling like the real me.  I was going through the motions in life, but I wasn't really living it.  So in that way, I can relate even a little bit to how Robin must have been feeling.  His struggle with depression obviously took him out of his "normal" mind and into a dark and scary place.  Despite all the love that surrounded him, he just couldn't deal with the reality around him.  I know that feeling.  Thankfully my depression never got to the point where I had thoughts of self-harm, but I see how quickly it could escalate to that point.  I am thankful that it didn't for me, and I am heartbroken that it did for him and so many others.

The second thought that keeps crossing my mind is to not judge a book by its cover.  Before yesterday, most people could never have imagined Robin Williams as a man with depression who would end up taking his own life.  He was the consummate funny man, his name synonymous with the sound of laughter.  And yet that is exactly what happened.  As a society and as individuals, we are sometimes too quick to judge others only by what we see in front of us.  In reality, that is only a snapshot of a person and of their life, their situation, their circumstance.   I myself tried to put on a brave face during my postpartum depression.  I didn't want to admit to others how I was feeling.  I was ashamed of it, and felt like less of a mother as a result of it.  Those closest to me saw the truth, but those more removed saw my Facebook posts and smiling pictures, not realizing the misery that I was feeling behind it.  I have to believe that this is what happened with Robin Williams as well.  As an actor, he could put on a brave face that probably could fool just about anyone.  I'm sure those close to him tried to help, as those close to me did.  But the truth is, there's no magic pill, there's no cure.  Something inside of you just has to change for the better.  I guess it didn't for him.

Lastly, I beg of anyone that feels the way that Robin did, or anyone who might be struggling with depression as I did, GET HELP.  Please.  Stop caring what society thinks of you, stop caring about others judging you, stop feeling weak because you have a problem.  You matter.  Take care of yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually, whatever it takes to help you find peace.  Life is too short, and you were put on this Earth for a reason.  So please, do something.  Talk to a counselor, talk to a priest or pastor or rabbi, talk to a friend or a coworker.  Go to church, take a yoga class, start a journal, start a blog, reconnect with old friends or loved ones.  Try something.  And if that something doesn't work, try something else, until you find something that gives you even a little bit of peace.  And finally, don't give up.  Just don't.  Call someone, call 911, call a mental health professional.  But don't give up.  

I want to end with a quote from Mrs. Doubtfire that brought tears to my eyes this morning.  This is how I will always remember Robin Williams.  I hope and pray that he is at peace now, and that the angels are roaring with laughter.

"All my love to you poppet.  You're going to be all right.  Bye bye." <3