The Mama In Me: Postpartum Anxiety Part II

[ The Shell of A Mama: Postpartum Anxiety Part I]

Jeremy took this picture of Owen and I when Owen was four months old. I was uploading pictures off of the camera when I came across this one, I remember just staring at it for a long while. Jeremy always says to me, "You are this boy's world, and nothing will ever replace you in his eyes." I saw that in this picture for the first time. I may not be the best Mama in the world, but I truly believe that am the best Mama for Owen.

I have always been high strung, a classic type A personality. I set goals for myself, reach them and instead of patting myself on the back - I examine what I could have done better and set a new goal. Most of my anxiety about things is fear-based , specifically a fear of failure or not being good enough. Motherhood is the perfect petri dish to cultivate this sort of self loathing. All of this resulted in my crash-and-burn frame of mind and a little back patting was in order.

In therapy, we worked on building confidence in my abilities to parent Owen. After all, I was succeeding. He was gaining weight. He was happy and healthy... and perfect. I just needed to recognize it and trust in my abilities as a mother. Each week I set small goals for myself - goals that either I could think about accomplishing, make some step to accomplish in the near future or actually accomplish.

I wanted to drive again, but Owen's hatred of the car seat resulted in him screaming the second we put him in the car. This made navigating a new city, by an already fearful Mama very challenging. But after ten weeks on bed rest and two months cooped up in the house with a newborn, I wanted to go to Target.

My first goal was to pay attention while riding in the car with Jeremy driving.
My second goal was to drive with Jeremy as the navigator (we did this quite a few times).
My third goal was to drive with Jeremy in the car but silent - letting me figure it out for myself.
And my final goal was to go to Target alone with Owen.

And this is how I gradually got better.

I worked on 'positive self talk' (I know it sounds kooky) every time I would fret about SIDS. I would tell myself my fears were irrational and Owen was fine. Jeremy bought me a video monitor and gradually my trips back to check on a sleeping Owen were fewer and fewer.

I never took a feeding for granted, and still don't. I use nursing and pumping as my quiet time to go to a place where I am the best possible Mama for Owen. I watch and cherish my baby. I let my mind be free and focus on relaxation and breathing. I play this song over and over again in my mind. I started being less neurotic about saving milk and my goal of 20 oz per day dwindled to 14, then 10, 8 and now still - 6. I have an embarrassing amount of milk in my freezer, of which O has only ever needed 12 ounces. My boy is going to be serving breast milk popsicles for his sixth birthday party - but it was all part of the process.

I wanted to take Owen to the public library for baby story time from 11:30a-12p, but I always had an excuse. I didn't shower, he was hungry, it was nap time, maybe next week - maybe next week. Finally, one day I was done spinning the excuses around in my head. Owen was tired and even a little bit hungry - I funbled with the Moby, the diaper bag, the house keys and left the house at 11:35am. I was late. I was walking into a group LATE with a tired, hungry three month old. WHAT IN THE HELL WAS I DOING? I walked the three blocks to the library the entire way repeating to myself, "You suck at this. God, you're a shitty Mom."  It was packed, there were probably 30 moms and babies sitting in a circle. I sat close the door so not to disturb anyone and watched Owen's eyes light up for the 15 minutes of baby storytime. After it was over, the girl next to me leaned over and asked if I was new. I said we had just relocated for my husbands residency. She said, "Oh yeah? What specialty? My husband is an ENT."  the girl next to her said, "Mine too, dermatology. Welcome."

Then something crazy happened. The woman to my right said,
"Is that wrap hard to tie? I always wanted to try one but it looked way too complicated for me. Did you walk here?"

Owen got hungry so I took him out of the wrap, put on my nursing cover and nursed him right there amongst women I had just met. Another woman, a GI fellow, looked at me and said,

"Wow, you are good at that! I still can't figure out how to use that damn cover. I'm always fumbling around with it worrying that my side flab is going to hang out -- I don't even care if someone sees my boob - its my gut that I want to cover!"

Before we left they told me they had a playgroup on Tuesday mornings and asked if Owen and I wanted to come. I wanted to come, more than they will ever know. I wanted to come.

I walked home, those same three blocks that I walked less than a hour before - this time - celebrating. I did it. I made it to the library, albeit 15 minutes late. And someone said I'm good at something! I wear my baby and I nurse him in public! He likes to go to storytime! The next week I was only 10 minutes late, and 5  the week after that. I've never been on time for anything in my life - so I give myself a little credit with that.

I go to playgroup with Owen on Tuesdays.
We go to Le Leche League meetings once a month.
We walk to the library storytime.
I am joining a young Jewish mothers group this week.

I slowly started to gain confidence and I began to walk with my head held higher. Being around other moms showed me that I wasn't the only one who worried about ruining my child before his first birthday. I wasn't the only one who was self conscious about my changed body and new role. I read every parenting book I can get my hands on. I take it for what it is, trust my instincts and look for strategies that will work for our family.

I remember that walk home like it was yesterday - the day that I started to see in myself the Mama I wanted to be. Last month, after almost three months with Pam she told me that if I was comfortable with it, she didn't think I needed scheduled visits anymore. She told me that the woman sitting before her was miles ahead of the broken Mama who entered her office back in May and that if I had any bumps in the road I could always call. Jeremy started residency and his 80 hr+ work week leaves me caring for Owen alone most of the time. For all intensive purposes, I am a single Mama. I probably would have gotten there eventually, but not in time and not at the level I'm at today. Its definitely hard and I have days where my 'positive self talk' voice just isn't loud enough to drown out the teething cries, laundry and dwindling bank account. But those days are few and thankfully, my husband is here to pick me up when I need it most.

So, me? I'm better now. I set little goals for myself and I celebrate my successes. I cherish every moment with my family and, I breath.

I have a therapist on retainer.

I am a work in progress.

I wake up in the morning with a desire to do my best and go to bed each night with a promise to do better tomorrow. Just like every other Mama I know.

A Shell Of A Mama: Postpartum Anxiety Part I

I've never written about this before, and not because I'm ashamed. There isn't room in my life for shame. It was more because the wounds were still fresh and I needed time. I needed words.

Owen's birth brought about some of the craziest emotions I've ever had in my entire life. Happy ones, sad ones, normal ones and desperate ones. After a pretty uneventful first two trimesters - bed rest really took a toll on me emotionally. Then after O was born, we struggled with breastfeeding. At his two month visit when we found out that he hadn't gained weight, Jeremy and I were broken to the core. The entire day is a blur for me, all I remember is the pediatrician shaking her head at the weight and then - as if I am a ghost in the room - I watch myself sobbing uncontrollably, tears falling on my tiny boy who is screaming at the breast. That visit threw me down a hole of self blame. This precious gift that I worked so hard to bring into this world - was HUNGRY.

At the time NOTHING was as it should be. We closed on our house the day my water broke. We couldn't find an apartment in Pittsburgh. We were (are) in the middle of a law suit for the bed bugs in our house last fall. Jeremy needed credits to graduate medical school. My employer was yanking my maternity leave (and pay). Someone stole $2,000 in cash from a sublet we tried to get - and we had to file a lawsuit against them as well. I was struggling with pain from some postpartum complications and my body was weak and still recovering from bed rest. And to top it all off, I hadn't finished all of our thank you notes yet (THANK YOU NOTES!?)

We were living amongst boxes.
We were worrying about money.
We were moving to a city where we had no friends or family.
My baby was hungry.
It was too much.

Looking back - all that was probably too much for almost anyone.

I cried, a lot. Ever day I cried. I cried because I couldn't pump enough milk. I cried because Owen wouldn't latch. I cried because we were leaving a home we loved. I cried because I felt I had no business being a mother. Other people saw us struggling. We asked for more help that we ever have in our entire lives in that three month time span. It was like Jeremy and I were shells of ourselves just going through the motions of our hectic life. Everything we knew was being changed, all at once. EVERYTHING. Our friends, where we lived, our jobs, our marriage, our finances. EVERYTHING. And we were responsible for this new little person who didn't happen to arrive with an instruction booklet.

And then there was the judging. People were judging us, as if we were auditioning to be Owen's parents. Watching us struggle, watching me fail. Some people did it quietly with odd glances and "helpful" comments "Maybe he doesn't want his arms strapped down like that (swaddling) - You should sing to him - Babies like to be rocked - Wow, he really takes to the bottle" while others laid it out there without a shred of finesse or tact. That criticism burned like salt in my open wounds. I didn't need to be told that I was being a terrible mother when I was already telling myself that very thing every minute of every day.

At first it was like the elephant in the room. We were chalking it up to baby blues and stress. We decided that we would move and settle in and reevaluate. The breastfeeding, the sadness, everything.

The first week that we lived in Pittsburgh, a lactation consultant came to our house to help me with Owen's latch. She showed us what a breastfeeding relationship should look like and told us to throw our bottles and timed feedings out the window. And we did. And he latched.

That same week I bought something off of craigslist, from a mother with two children - her husband was a doctor. I don't know if I looked broken or helpless or what but when I came to pick up the item - she invited me to her mom's group and insisted that I meet her there. And I did. Jeremy dropped Owen and I off in a church basement full of mothers. One of them came up to me and took Owen (he was crying) and bounced him in her arms while another woman handed me a brownie and a tissue. Another mother gave me the name of a great therapist. And I called her.

I went to a therapist in high school and told myself they were all quacks and I would never go again. But when I was faced with losing my husband to medicine and losing myself to the fear of failure - I chose therapy. Her office was down the street from our new apartment so Jeremy and Owen would walk me there and pick me up an hour later. Her name was Pam and I told her that I was the shittiest mother on the planet. I told her how I unknowingly starved my baby. I told her I was scared to drive my car and hadn't done so since moving. I told her that I stayed awake to pump whenver Owen slept and how I was hording upwards of 20 ounces of milk a day to assure that my baby would never again be hungry. I told her how I checked on Owen every five minutes because I was convinced he would die in his sleep. And I sobbed. I sob when I talk about it, I sob when I think about it and I sob as I type this because everything surrounding those first 11 weeks still makes a pit in the back of my throat far too big to ever swallow or forget.

I swear I saw tears in her eyes when I explained how effortlessly and completely I loved my son and the lengths I had gone to just to feed him. I told her I had a wonderful marriage and beautiful baby that I felt I didn't deserve and one day God was going to knock on my door and ask for it all back. I asked her if I had postpartum depression. She looked at me thoughtfully and told me she didn't think I was depressed. I was far too motivated for depression, and better fit a diagnosis of postpartum anxiety. She explained that women respond very well to medication - an option I dismissed immediately. So we made a plan to fix me. We made a plan to find the strong confident Mama I so desperately wanted to be. A plan to silence all of the negative thoughts that entered my mind. We made a plan that, over the next three months, saved me from myself.

I suffered from postpartum anxiety and after 11 weeks I sought help. And by doing that, I am a better Mama.