44 Sessions

Part I: The Last Days of Pregnancy

Callum Ray Shipley was born the day before his due date, on Wednesday July 5, 2017 at 3:30 pm at Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. He weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces and was 21 inches long. 

On June 22nd, I had a weekly prenatal appointment at my OB/GYN’s, and they checked my cervix, and found that I was not dilated at all. The following week, on June 29th, they checked my cervix again and I was dilated to 1 cm. They also stripped my membranes. I was told that 30% of women go into labor within the next 24-48 hours, which was not the case for me unfortunately. The following day, I lost my mucus plug, and it continued to come out over the next couple of days.

On July 4th, I woke up in the middle of the night with watery discharge, which was different from the mucous plug remnants that I had been experiencing the previous couple of days, and I thought that there was a chance that I had a small leak in my amniotic sac. In the morning, Matthew and I drove to our ward 4th of July pancake breakfast activity and I started having contractions on the drive over, between 4-8 minutes apart. They were not strong, but I could tell that they were definitely contractions. We stayed at the breakfast and talked to friends, and then started driving home. I told Matthew that I had been having contractions the whole time and about my suspicions about my amniotic sac. We decided to call the hospital to ask what we should do. When we got home, I called, and they said to go ahead and come in just in case. We quickly packed hospital bags, but left them in the car, because we knew that if my amniotic sac did not have a tear in it, we would be sent home because my contractions were not strong enough or close enough together for me to be admitted. We entered the hospital, I changed into a gown, they checked my cervix and my contractions. I was 3 cm dilated and my contractions were every 4-5 minutes apart. They were stronger, but not strong enough to be too painful. They checked the fluid in my vaginal canal, and it was not amniotic fluid which indicated that my sac had not ruptured, so we were discharged. The nurse said that I was borderline on being admitted- if I had been 4-5 cm dilated they probably would have admitted me, but she expected that I would be back within 6-24 hours. 

We left around 3pm, grabbed come chick-fil-a on the way home, repacked our hospital bags (we had done it in such a rush and while we were in the hospital we kept remembering things that we hadn’t brought that we needed), and I tried to stay on my feet for as long as I could, because I knew that walking and standing would help me go into labor faster - and I really wanted a 4th of July baby. We cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I cleaned all the toilets, vacuumed the entire house, dusted, folded laundry, cleaned the kitchen, swept, everything that I could find. I didn’t want to come home from the hospital to a messy house. Matthew organized the baby’s room to make room for the crib, built the crib, and did some work on B is for Baller. I timed my contractions for hours. Around 4-5pm they started getting stronger. I’d have to stop what I was doing occasionally until it wore off. They were every 3-7 minutes apart. They started getting shorter and shorter, but sometimes they would be 2-3 minutes apart for an hour, and then would jump up to 5-6 minutes apart for another hour. It was frustrating because I didn’t want to go to the hospital and be sent home again. When I was standing and walking I noticed they were shorter. At around 10-11, I was exhausted and we watched the Office for a couple hours. I wanted to wait as long as I could to go to the hospital because if we went too soon, I was afraid of being sent home again. At around 12:30 AM, I couldn’t handle the pain so we packed up the car and headed to the hospital. 

We got to the emergency room entrance where we were previously told to go, and it was packed. It was the night of the 4th of July, and it was raining, so there were a lot of emergencies. When we pulled up, we were told they were out of wheelchairs, and waited several minutes until they found one for us. They took us up to triage, and I was checked again. I was 5 cm dilated and my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. The nurse said that they usually don’t admit people until they were 6 cm dilated (which was different from what the other nurse had told us just hours previously), so she was going to check with the doctor to see if they wanted to admit me. I didn’t really care, because I was determined to be admitted because I was in so much pain and my contractions were 3 minutes apart, which is when they said to come in, and I was not leaving the hospital without a baby. Probably around 20 minutes later, an elderly nurse with a sweet and soothing Jamaican accent came in and said she was going to put in an IV. I told her that the other nurse hadn’t come back with word from the doctor whether or not I was going to be admitted and she told me, “Sorry- that nurse is new here. You’ll be admitted.” We were in triage for probably about 2 hours total, and finally they took us to the delivery room.

And immediately it was epidural time, thank goodness. I was absolutely terrified of the epidural… Not because I thought it was going to hurt, which it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought it would, but because here I was sitting on this bed, leaning over, still having contractions, and there is a needle going in my back around my spinal cord. I was certain that I was going to jerk around and end up paralyzed. I did move around a bit, just because, well, I was having contractions and who can sit still through that? But I am not paralyzed. That epidural is and forever will be in the top 5 of my best things ever list. Immediate relief. No regrets. That was about 4AM. And then I went to sleep! It wasn’t the best sleep ever, because when you get an epidural, they make you wear a blood pressure cuff that inflates every 15 minutes- no one told me about that! Eventually I was able to sleep through some of the inflates, but most of the time I woke up. Later rant: how it is near impossible to get ANY sleep at all in the hospital. Ever. 

Part II: Birth

On July 5th at around 9:30 AM, the doctor came in to check my dilation. I had not progressed at all, and my contractions had even slowed to be 4 minutes apart. They gave me some pitocin, and within about an hour, I was 10 cm dilated and contractions every 2 minutes apart. At some point, I don’t remember when, my water broke, and they said I was ready to push, so they got all the nurses together, all the equipment ready, we texted our moms and told them it was go-time and at 11 we began!

Oh how pushing sucks. The doctors told me that the average length of pushing for the first baby is 1-4 hours. I was determined to make it in that 1 hour. I pushed my little …. out. It was a different experience than is shown in the movies or what you think about in your head. The first half hour was fine. I felt good about it all. I felt like I was in control and I could do it. I was really good at telling when a contraction was happening and was immediately ready to push to ride it out. I could feel my legs really well which freaked me out, because I was under the impression that an epidural numbed everything from the waist down, but everything else was painless. Just uncomfortable. They had me push laying down on my back, push laying down on my right side, my left side, sitting up, holding onto a bar, putting my feet on a bar and pulling on a sheet… I didn’t know there were all these techniques to childbirth. It was kind of cool. There were some I liked more than others and some that felt more effective than others. Matt was very involved in the whole process. The second half hour I started to get tired. The third half hour I was starting to get scared and anxious. I started feeling the pain seep through the epidural. I felt numb, but there was this terrible and gnawing ache at the base of my tailbone. At this point, the doctor checked to see where the baby’s head was and it hadn’t progressed at all. I lost control and sobbed. I wasn’t sure this was a possible thing to endure any more. The doctor suggested that we take a break, and I agreed. The next 20 minutes were hell. Whenever I felt a contraction come on (which I could very clearly feel at this point, as my epidural started to dissipate), I cried “I can’t, I can’t,” again and again, and feebly tried to push the little amount that I could, but did not give it my all. I kept upping the dosage on my epidural button until I maxed out, but it brought little relief. 

We began pushing again. Between 1pm and 3pm, I don’t know what to tell you, other than I remember very little of what happened. I was in a lot of pain, but I had this strange sense of peace. Almost as if I was given some sort of divine assistance in strength and will to continue. I kept telling myself, “I can do this for 30 more minutes, and then I can’t do it anymore.” And then those 30 minutes would pass, and I’d repeat that to myself again. I knew I had to keep going, and I knew it would be ok. I was exhausted, but I continued to go because something that didn’t come from within me propelled me forward. The doctors were nervous that the longer the baby was going through the stresses of labor, it could be dangerous for it. They closely monitored its heartbeat. In a regular labor, the heartbeat quickens during contractions because the baby is stressed. My baby’s heartbeat stayed almost constant- during contraction or not. It was just relaxing there! Because it was not stressed, they never insisted on a C-section. They kept offering, but I knew I wanted to keep trying. Really did not want that C-section. Those 2 hours, things slowly and slowly progressed. I could feel the pain very clearly. The epidural was wearing away. Around 2:30 an anesthesiologist came in and gave me some fentanyl, which provided immediate relief. At around 2:45 the doctors could see the head coming nearer and nearer and prepared the room for the baby to be delivered. Those last 30 minutes were the most exciting and the most difficult. I knew I was almost there. I had to push my hardest. Matt was able to see the baby crown, and saw its hair. They kept saying, “Just a few more big pushes and then the baby will be out.” The doctor told Matt that he could announce the gender to everyone once he saw. I remember seeing my baby for the first time and not understanding how that huge chunk of human had exited my body, let alone existed inside it in the first place. I didn’t feel him come out. I watched Matt’s face as he smiled and whispered, “It’s a boy!” No one heard him but me, so the doctor loudly repeated “It’s a boy!” so all the other nurses could hear. The next 15 or so minutes were all a blur. He was wiped off, handed to me, Matt cut the cord, I smiled for a picture, he cried, they weighed and measured him, I was sewn up in 2 torn spots, Matt held him. It was a sweet, brief moment. I held him, and he looked at me, and we had just waited what had seemed like forever to finally have our baby. His name is Callum Ray Shipley. The name Callum is Scottish, as is my ancestry. It sounds a little like my maiden name, McAllister. Matt’s mom’s middle name is Rae, and my paternal grandfather is LeRay. And those are the things he is named for. We were so happy. We were both hoping for a boy. I was relieved that after 4 and a half hours of pushing, it was finally over. 

I did not easily or quickly feel a connection to him. I figured that would come. I was just exhausted. I knew I must have loved him, because after all I was his mother, and he was my son. People rushed in and out of the room doing who knows what. I was dizzy. There was a lot of blood. Someone came in and had me sit up to remove the epidural. I suddenly couldn’t hear anything. It was like white noise had replaced all traces of sound and commotion going on around me. It lasted a few minutes, and then I could hear again. I needed to vomit. I hadn’t eaten in several hours but nausea swept me up. It was so hot. I started soaking my sheets and pillow with sweat. I was limp. I drank water but it didn’t help. The epidural lifted off of me and I started feeling everything, sweating more. My head was so heavy and my neck was so weak. My hearing intermittently stopped. They transferred me onto a new bed. I lost my hearing again. All the recovery rooms were full, so we were to stay the night in this room. And all of a sudden we were alone, the three of us. Matt had texted everyone to let them know all the details. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was in shock, and in so so much pain. We video chatted with some family members anyway. Between chats, a nurse came in and I fed Callum for the first time, or tried to. He could not latch onto my left side at all. I had to pump and feed him with a syringe. I felt completely stupid. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea if he was even getting anything out. A nurse ran some tests because I was showing signs of blood loss, to see if I needed a transfusion, which I ended up not needing, but only by an inch. 

Then suddenly, almost out of nowhere, the tears came. I sobbed. I sobbed because I felt fiery pain everywhere- places I never knew I could. Because I was helpless and limp and inadequate and clueless as to what I was supposed to do. I sobbed because I was supposed to be responsible for this sweet baby, but I couldn’t stand, walk, or even reposition myself in my bed. I was terrified. People came in and out of my room asking questions I didn’t know the answers to. They wanted part of my placenta. They wanted to know why I wasn’t doing skin to skin right then. They wanted to know who our pediatrician was. They wanted to know if I had fed the baby recently, and if not, why not? They wanted to us to sign all these papers, they told us risks of circumcisions and what was his name going to be, and was I feeling depressed, and did I want to see a lactation consultant, and no, we don’t have pacifiers because we don’t recommend that, and are you bottle feeding or breastfeeding? And I so desperately wanted to be alone. Away from everyone, away from my baby. 

It started becoming evening and they had removed my catheter and I needed to go to the bathroom. The nurses brought over some sort of walker-looking thing and helped me stand on it and wheeled me over to the bathroom where I became dizzy and nauseated and vomited. Peeing was like hell. They loaded me up with all sorts of ice packs and pads and sprays and witch hazel things and I felt like I was wearing a diaper; probably because I just about was wearing a diaper. They wheeled me back into bed and I wanted to just lay there and disappear. A sweet and compassionate nurse took pity on me and took Callum away for two hours to bathe him and check his hearing so that I could sleep. 

Three medical student friends came by and different times to check in on us, and I received a priesthood blessing from one of them. Another two friends came by with Wendy’s for us, and another came by with a Jamba Juice. We are seriously so blessed with some of the most thoughtful friends. 

The next day brought more of the same, endless people going in and out, questions, pain, tears, failed breastfeeding attempts, calls to family members. I don’t remember doing a lot of diaper changing, mostly because I didn’t feel like I could stand. Matt took care of most of that. I don’t remember holding him a lot. I still didn’t have that bond with him that I thought I would have. It wasn’t coming. I was nervous that I would not be able to enjoy motherhood, or love my baby. I was given motrin and ibuprofen for the pain, which did little if anything. I had to essentially beg for them to give me something that actually helped in the slightest. 

After being discharged, we went home to a power outage and a broken washing machine. A guy in our ward came over to help Matt fix the washer and I painfully showered and sat around not knowing what I was supposed to be doing. This was so new. Every aspect of my life had suddenly and irreparably shifted. How I woke up in the morning, how I showered, what I wore, going to the bathroom, my routine during the day, dealing with a thing that interrupted whatever I was doing at any given point of the day and demanded my undivided attention, how I slept… Everything changed and I wasn’t ready for it. I don’t know how one can be ready for it. 

Part III: The After

The next 3 weeks were difficult. There were moments that I enjoyed holding my baby. There were moments of “I didn’t get peed on when I changed a diaper!” There were times that I looked at him and felt so blessed to be a mother and was in awe of such a perfect tiny creature. I looked through pictures and videos of him at the end of each day, and admired his tiny tongue, and laughed at the way he farted in his sleep, the way his mouth was in an “o” shape like he was surprised, when he sneezed and said “ooooh,” the way he smiled in his sleep, the way he stretched in the morning and his toes curled into little talon-like bird feet, his pterodactyl chirps, the warmth of him cuddling on my chest. I had… so many angels. People who would stop by with treats, and hold him. Texts asking how I was doing and offers of help. I didn’t know what I needed, but the thoughts and prayers of dear friends made everything lighter. My sweet mother would take one feeding every night so that I could sleep a little longer. I couldn’t have survived without her.

I remember one day that I dropped by a friend’s house because she offered to let me borrow some baby clothes she wasn’t currently using. She handed me the clothes and we exchanged “Hellos” and “How are you doing’s” and for some reason instead of saying, “I’m alright,” I started to cry. I just stood there on her porch, halfway in her door and cried. I hadn’t had a terribly bad day, my mom was still in town and helping, but I just felt overwhelmingly terrified at this new predicament I found myself in. Those smiling muscles I had been accustomed to use to mask the pulsing emotional pain of new motherhood failed me in that moment, and I could not hide my grief. Immediately, she embraced me, and I felt her body tremble as I realized that she too was crying. I think in that moment, more than any other time in my life, I truly understood the concept of “mourning with those that mourn.” Pure and unadulterated empathy. 

And then there were dark moments. It felt more often dark than not. There were times where I screamed and screamed face down in my pillow. For reasons I still don’t know. Fear, anger, resentment, despair, many times unprovoked. I felt like what set me off most was when I was alone with my thoughts- unexplainable and illogical feelings of heaviness, loneliness, lack of purpose or meaning, and the inability to see through it or understand that it is not real, or at least temporary. It is a tangible fog of deception and anguish. When he would wake up, I would cry because the quiet was over and the pain and blood and frustration and chapping of breastfeeding would soon begin. I passed him off to someone else almost immediately after feeding him. I sobbed daily. Multiple times a day. Healing from childbirth was a slow and arduous process, and going to the bathroom was nightmarish. I didn’t have a bowel movement for a very long time because I was terrified of the pain I would surely feel. In hindsight, I imagine the difficult 4 ½ hours I spent pushing in labor traumatized me into fearing that.  When he slept, I didn’t want to be in the same room as him. I always put him upstairs to nap. I hated going to sleep at night. I can’t quite explain the feeling, but it was the awareness that it was the end of “conscious freetime,” and when I awoke, I would be subject to the wills of my baby. I felt claustrophobic, strangled, physically overstimulated. I felt worthless and failing. I was terrified to leave the house. I couldn’t get a handle of breastfeeding in my house, let alone in public. When we did go outside and Callum cried, I knew everyone was looking at me and wondering what kind of crap mother I was who allowed her baby to cry. I became anxious and jittery and tearful. If I ever did leave the house on my own, I never felt relief. I always knew there was a ticking time bomb waiting for me at home. I felt ashamed for “abandoning” my baby when I did leave home. I was supposed to take care of him. I even felt like it was more of my responsibility than Matthew’s, not that he did anything to make me feel that way. I just had this strange sense of shame for asking him to do anything or leaving Callum with him. When friends offered to help, I didn’t take them up on it, because, why shouldn’t I be able to do this myself? All my friends have their own kids to worry about and they’re obviously doing just fine. My mind frequently visited a memory of a college class I had on child development where they discussed the negative psychological effects on children caused by postpartum depression in their mothers. I knew I was ruining my baby, because I didn’t like him, I didn’t want to hold him, I didn’t enjoy feeding him. Because I was crying and sad constantly. I knew that he wouldn’t develop normally or be as emotionally healthy because of me. And I loathed myself for that. On the worst days, I found myself driving alone on the freeway, glancing at different spots on the side of the road wondering if I happened to veer off, if it would kill me without hurting anyone else. Of course, I knew, it would hurt many people, friends and family, unrelated physically to the crash. Which is probably why it was never a serious consideration. Just a thought occasionally haunting my conscience. But so was the thought, “Maybe Callum would be better off?”

When I wasn’t feeling sad, I felt nothing. Just absence of emotion. Still, empty, numb.

Part IV: 44 Sessions

Friends who had experienced similar difficulties offered resources, but most of them recommended a doctor at Duke University who consults with new mothers experiencing PPD and gives them recommendations with what to do further. He was a kind, older man who asked gentle, thought provoking questions, and listened, recommended support groups, a psychiatrist, and psychotherapy. It never worked out for me to go to support groups, but I did see a psychiatrist and ultimately a psychotherapist. I was not eager to do either. I won’t talk a lot here about mental health stigmas, because you probably already know. Going to therapy is not something typically used as the subject of an instagram or facebook post. You don’t “check-in” online so others see where you are. “The other day I was talking to my friend and she said…” typically conceals the truth, “My therapist told me…” I never answer the question, “What did you do today?” with, “I went to therapy!” If someone asked me to have a playdate or do something with them at the same time as a scheduled session, I was going to a “doctor’s appointment.” I’m sure some people were curious why I had to go to so many doctor’s appointments. I didn’t want people to know. I didn’t even want to go at all. I didn’t want to be this person who needed it. 

I went to a young, hipster, albeit kind psychiatrist once. We adjusted the anti-depressants I had been on since I was 18 and then didn’t go back. Then I started psychotherapy with my therapist, Jane. The name still kind of makes me cringe. “PSYCHOtherapy.” Therapy for psychos. Obviously. I thought at first it was mostly a waste of time. The first few sessions I had consisted of: sobbing on a couch for an hour to a stranger, while simultaneously emptying a box of tissues, ending with “Are you sure I really have to be here?” (“Yes.”) I set a goal for myself: be done with therapy by Christmas. 6 months was PLENTY of time to get through everything I needed to. I think mostly the money it was costing, and the fact that the more time I had to stay there, the more crazy I probably was were the two leading factors of this goal. 

Therapy isn’t the most fun thing in the world. 

If you’ve ever been to a therapist, you’ll know the routine and tricks. How they all have their own catch phrase to begin each session. (“Where do we begin?”) The long awkward staredown silences that feels like a game of chicken- who will breach the quiet first? The fixation on childhood and how it screwed up your adulthood. The pushing to finish all started thoughts- I wasn’t ever allowed to start a thought and then say “never mind,” no matter how much I didn’t really have a totally full fledged thought. I always had to follow through. The upbeat attitude. The weird vague questions “What are you thinking?” “What would that look like for you?” “How does that make you feel?” It [initially] drove me insane

Little by little, I cried less and less at these sessions. I arrived feeling panicked and anxious. I left, not with a skip in my step and a grin on my face, but feeling calm and capable. Jane wanted to talk all about my childhood, my parents, my husband, my education, my experience growing up a member of the church. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want my life to be picked apart and analyzed- as though something traumatic I experienced in my past was repressed and causing all this angst and fear. I didn’t buy into all that. I was here for postpartum depression, not a mental health background check. The longer I stayed, the more apparent it was that I would not be ending by Christmas, because although I was less weepy and miserable, I could tell we weren’t really getting anywhere. Despite what I thought, it is hard to open up to a stranger. Therapy is raw, vulnerable, and painful. It’s like re-breaking an emotional bone that didn’t heal properly so it can be recast. Eventually I decided that if I was ever going to get out of this place I had to give into the process, even though it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me and would be incredibly uncomfortable. We got to work.

As it turns out, things that have happened in your past can affect the kind of adult you are. The more we talked about things that happened, people I interacted with, and how I acted in my younger years, the more parallels we found to the way I think and act as an adult. I don’t think this is the case with all things; not every trauma or bad experience you have as a child is going to screw you up as an adult; we are resilient beings and cope and bounce back a lot more than we can imagine we are able. There were some things that I experienced as a child that could have negatively changed the course of my life, but they didn’t. And there were some things that happened that still do affect me today. I found that having someone that was impartial and empathetic was helpful to act as a sounding board for all the emotions that I had. I learned how to read myself and express what I was feeling and why. I learned how to communicate better with Matthew. She gave me podcasts and books to listen to. We discussed them in our sessions. I was given difficult assignments. I opened up to family members, and became closer to some family members. I learned to be self-compassionate. This was probably one of the greater takeaways from therapy. It is imperative for our mental health to practice self-compassion. There was a voice in my head that began to advocate for myself whenever I would discourage myself for my poor parenting, gently reminding me that perfection was impossible and that I was actually doing a great job simply because I loved my child. I learned to give myself permission to feel. I learned to not compare.  Small victories accumulated until it was the norm. Many of the things that I feared the most- being judged by others for having a crying child, or taking time for myself to relax- became things that I was not ashamed of. I could take a deep breath and remember that literally everyone’s kid cries. It doesn’t mean I’m a neglectful caretaker. Everyone needs a break. I’m not selfish because I need to take a nap or hand my baby off to someone for an hour or two. I appreciated the women in my life and found common humanity with them. I understood what “It takes a village” means, and it's not just physically watching over each other’s kids, it's the emotional support and empathy that is necessary to our survival. 

I started seeing her less and less frequently. I hadn’t cried in a session in a long time. Usually I had something that was going on in my life that was frustrating and we would talk through it, but eventually, things were just fine- not perfect, but fine. I was coping with things on my own. Until one day, at the end of a session, she said, “How do you feel about making our next session our last session?” This was a shock to me because I hadn’t thought about ending therapy since Christmas when it had been my goal to get the heck out of there. It was now October, 10 months later. I was really nervous. It had become a security blanket of sorts. I was used to going about my life thinking about the difficulties and challenges I faced within the mindset of, “I’ll talk to Jane about this.” Now that would be gone. I think I even cried about it a little when I got home. It’s not as though I didn’t have other people to confide in, it's just that I felt unfiltered with her. I could say whatever I wanted without consequences or repercussions. Not that I said anything particularly outrageous or secretive, but I did always feel very safe, understood, and empathized with. I said OK.

Our last, and 44th session was simple and reflective. She had me prepare a list of any questions that I had for her. I really only had one. How do I not “relapse”? / What do I do if I do? She told me that therapy is done in chunks. Many people have times in their life when therapy is needed and a specific thing is worked on. And then they go out in the world on their own and practice what they’ve learned. And then they can come back and work on another problem that arises if needed. There is no shame in returning to therapy. It’s not a “one-and-done” thing. I didn’t love that answer, because honestly one-and-done would be a super great thing, but I also felt less anxiety knowing that if I did need to continue therapy again, it wouldn’t mean that I was crazier than the average person or had some serious mental issues. It was normal. I’d say I’m a pretty big fan of feeling normal. We talked about resources, ted talks, and books and podcasts, things to help me continue learning and growing, Esther Perel, Brene Brown (she’s a huge fan), Kristen Neff… And then it was done. I walked out, picked up some celebratory “good job for finishing 16 months of therapy” chick fil a and went home. 

Part V: A year later

If you’re a mom (or maybe even just a really good guesser) you know that being a mom has its good days and bad days. There are days when my kid is a psycho in the grocery store and people tell me how cute he is and I’m like, “Do you want him?” Days where you are blow-drying your hair for literally like 2 minutes and all of a sudden a spark of genius propels a toddler to drag over a chair, pull the permanent markers out of the top drawer of the office supplies, and go picasso on your living room wall. Days where you go upstairs to grab your kid from naptime and there’s just… poop. Everywhere, poop. Walls, sheets, hair, hands, face, clothes. A week spent with hand-foot-mouth cabin fever. Days your baby wants to be held upright all day and will not sleep. It is tiring, it is physically and emotionally exhausting. We all know this. 

The past 2 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, and 6 days have literally been some of the hardest days of my life. I have been pushed physically and emotionally further than I thought was capable of myself. I have sobbed and screamed and seen the worst possible versions of myself. I am not an expert after going through this. I don’t know everything now. 

I am a better person because of it. I am more patient. I am more capable. I am more loving. MOST of the time (ha) it feels worth it. I have no regrets about becoming a parent. I love Callum more than anything. I love watching him learn new things. I love how curious he is about things that I find mundane (like pinecones and crayon wrappers). I love how affectionate and empathetic he is. I love how he soothes himself by rubbing his belly button. I love (sort of) how stubborn he is about choosing what clothes to wear. I love how independent he wants to be. I love how bright and quick and smart he is. I love his red hair. But gosh… YOU-HAVE-NO-IDEA unless you have a red haired child how often people will bring it up. My record for one 30-minute grocery store trip is 7 times. Strangers love to talk about these 3 three things: (1) Their own family history of red hair (“My mom’s cousin’s daughter’s best friend’s former dog owner’s son has red hair!” (Mostly a closer relation but you get the idea)) (2) Your family history of red hair (“Is his dad a redhead?” “Where did that red hair come from?” Also they love making super hilarious sex jokes, i.e. did it come from the fed ex man/ milk man/ home teachers (ugh that was the worst one) / mail man / garbage man (seriously?) I’ve heard it ALL and NONE OF THEM ARE FUNNY) (3) General compliments (“I love his red hair!” “It’s beautiful!” “He must be a stubborn one!” (yes, thank you) “It’s so handsome!”) 

Therapy saved me. I don’t have much more to say than that. It is ok to be in therapy. It is ok to take medication. The mental health stigma is insane. It’s time for a change. If you or a loved one are suffering from postpartum depression, take the initiative, advocate for yourself, and take care of your emotional health. I was in therapy during college before all this happened, and we weren’t getting anywhere, mostly because I was feeling sorry for myself and choosing to blame rather than move forward. She said something to me along the lines of “The trauma is not your fault, but the healing process is your responsibility.” I’ve since heard that this doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, because they feel it negates and dismisses the experiences of the traumatized and doesn’t create a framework for healing. When my therapist first told me this, it felt like a slap in the face. Up until this point, she had been a warm, compassionate, if not a bit coddling support system. I won’t say that this phrase is appropriate for everyone, but in the place that I was in my healing journey, it was the exact thing I needed to hear, and it has resonated with me ever since. As hard as our experiences may be, there comes a point where we do have to choose to heal (not on our own though- with support from the village, a therapist, a psychiatrist, family, medication, etc) or to not. The choice is ours alone. No one can force us to heal emotionally. It is a daunting but important concept. When there are moments in my life that I struggle emotionally more than others, I remind myself to take control of my mental health, and that usually means reaching out to something or someone else for help. I don’t feel alone in this journey.

In the beginning, people always told me “it’ll get better.” And it did. But every child is different and so even though you might have a village behind you, helping you, there are so many unanswered questions as to how your personal journey will go. People used to tell me, “It gets better at 4 months” or “It gets better at 6 months” or “The first 2 weeks are just hard!” “The first YEAR is hard!” And when you’re in the thick of it, this is not a particularly comforting sentiment. How can you hope for the light at the end of the tunnel when you don’t know how long the tunnel is or how bright the light will be? Will it be as bright as it was before? Or maybe a different kind of light? How long will it take? I felt real anger a lot when people just told me to wait it out and it would get better. How is feeling like you are dying every day an ok thing to expect of someone? Why is this a norm- that women who have babies have to go through this tortuous pain, and then experience sometimes devastating emotional repercussions for weeks and months afterward? All while healing from the physical trauma to sensitive parts of their body. And not being allowed to sleep the amount their body needs to heal. And having to do it mostly on their own. Reflecting on this in hindsight, half of me wants to say, “But how else can it be done?” and the other half of me KNOWS that more can and MUST be done for postpartum women. Women are suffering and dying and are not getting the resources they need. Childbirth and the issues that come along with it are literally as old as man itself. It’s gotten better in many ways, thanks to modern medicine, but in other ways I can’t help but feel like Eve herself probably experienced many of the same things that she had hoped would be different for women of the future. (I feel this passionately, especially as a global issue. Please read “Half the Sky” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn)

All that aside… Everyone who told me that it does get better was right. It does get better. Being a parent to a toddler is a million times better than being a parent to an infant. And I don’t know if that’s because it's easier, or if it's because you just had to change so much of yourself in the beginning that now you’re more ready to handle all the changes that accompany the cognitive growth of a child. But mostly I think you just learn to love more. I didn’t feel that instant connection to Callum. And I didn’t for a long time. But as things got better for me emotionally, I became more able to love him. I felt a lot of shame for a long time about not instantly loving him, about having to learn to love him. But, through therapy, time, and a whole lot of self-compassion, my perspective has shifted from “I can’t believe there was a time that I didn’t really feel love towards my own child” to “I did something I have never done before- I had a child. I am a learner, because I am doing all of this for the first time. It is expected that I wasn’t an instant-expert upon my child being born, because instant-expertism is not a thing. I learned to love and that is something that I am so proud of, because it was hard, it took a lot of work on my part to heal my emotional health, and because my child deserves to be loved, and I am the mother my child needs.” I love being a mom. His mom.

I love him.