This a subject I don’t see a lot on, so I figured I should share. All in thanks mainly to some very brave mommas that decided to share their experiences on fb, blogs and forums.
I’m generally a well balanced person, I let go of a LOT of dramatic ways around the time I hit my 30s. My basic friend rules are as follows: If you aren’t a good person to have around then you aren’t in my life, if you only talk to me to stir the pot then you will be ejected. If you are a taker and never give anything to our friendship then I keep my distance, knowing I’m only getting a call if you need something. I give friends three chances, but I don’t allow myself to be burned a fourth. I no longer fight for friendships that don’t exist.
With such a high tolerance I thought I had everything figured out…. until I had my daughter. The first 5 days in the hospital, I was scared to be left alone with this child so much so that I was hysterically crying the night they left her in my room. Between the pain from the c-section and the overall fear of just having a child, I kept being told it was my hormones. Then came release day, I over dressed my January baby to face the freezing world and bundled her carefully on the carseat. Everything looked perfect. We took pictures, all smiling, loving pictures but on the inside I was panicking that this hospital was just going to let me go home.
I was lucky enough to have a baby nurse for the first three weeks from my arrival home. With the extra rest I felt more at ease but I still felt like I was a stranger in this new world.
When the drs asked how I was doing, I said, “fine” and made a baby poop joke. If family managed to ask, which they rarely did, I said fine as well. Because admitting how scared you are just meant you aren’t fit for motherhood.
My husband wanted to extend the baby nurse one more week, I think he was as scared as me. But I declined, I in a few words basically told him, I had to get used to being alone with her.
So, baby nurse gone, husband back at work, and visitors stopped coming. So, it was just me and her. I had to find a way to make friends with my child. Literally had to have pep talks with my daughter about us having a good day and getting to know each other. Because no matter how much experience I had with children, nothing prepared me for motherhood.
I should admit, I was lucky to have a few friends that called and visited that shared with me how life was scary for them in the beginning. Those ladies are my ride or die mommas for life. If we had the time, we’d get matching tattoos of baby bottles or something in the like.
Eventually it started getting better, a lot better. We had a routine, naps together, we were finally synced. I longer felt like an outsider. However, now at 2 years old, she’s daddy’s best friend but that’s for another time.
I thought I had this all under control… then 6 months later, my brother got sick. I did a lot of running back and forth to the hospital, stopped breastfeeding. I was on the “we’re going to beat this” train and I was pushing full speed ahead without stop.
As he got sicker later in the year, my anxiety became me. I’d get numb, dry mouth and a feeling of suffocation, when we discussed his declining health. I didn’t want to burden my family with any of this so instead I became overly paranoid that God would take my child from me next. I guess, I had to focus on something else other than what was in front of me.
Sure, it sounds crazy but it was what I was dealing with constantly. It’s been almost a year since my brother’s passing, I don’t regret not seeking help but just as I had to get used to being a mother, I wanted to do this myself. I made my own hole and was determined to find my own way out.
After his death, I had 2 months between jobs, I hung out with my daughter, met up with my friends that were really there for me. I gave myself pep talks again. My goal was to feel like myself again. And I was determined to not allow my child only know sadness or my anxiety, it’s part of life but it’s unfair to make her think it’s all of life. I didn’t want her first year to be filled with the pain I was suffering from. And so we started dance parties in the kitchen, I started plopping her on my countertop while I cooked, I let her be silly when she wanted to and stopped worrying what people would think. I stopped thinking I’d be punished for being happy. It’s not what my brother would have wanted.
Fast forward almost a year later and we’re in a far different place, better but I allow myself to have breaks from motherhood. I tell my husband to handle it and stop throwing it all on my shoulders. I’m lucky that he understands and doesn’t question my mini breaks. Even if it is to let mommy pee in the bathroom by herself.
No one is the perfect mother, I don’t care what they think or believe. We all have our goods days and bad. My anxiety will never go away, but I no longer want to be ashamed of it. I’m not perfect nor is life.
—Jax
The Spit Up On Life 