My baby has made a habit of staying awake until 1:30 am and I don't know how to fix it. I am exhausted and upset, and I feel extremely alone. I don't know how many more nights like this I can take. I wish someone would take notice of how miserable I am. 

Worn clean out

Tonight I am thankful my kid is asleep before 1:30 a.m. like last night. I will be extra thankful if she doesn't wake up 6 million times so we are on time to church and not drowsing through the homily. 

Fuds

I'm thankful that we have food in our house and we don't have to rely on food pantries to help us out. There is no shame in reaching out when you need help. I'm just grateful that we haven't had to do so.

Buns, guns and abs + thankful things

I am on day 4 of a 30-day "Buns, Guns and Abs" challenge, in which I started with 50 squats, 5 push ups and 25 leg lifts and will ostensibly finish with 250 squats, 40 push ups and 100 leg lifts. It has not been easy, after all I did just have a baby and your stomach muscles do crazy, crazy things to accommodate your tiny human.

As always I forget to blog every day, so four things I am thankful for:  1) my relationship with my grandma. I talk to her probably once a week and it is really nice to have that connection still despite the fact that we live four hours away; 2) the Internet and my iPhone. Thanks to these two things, I am able to find workout challenges, healthy recipes, apps to start running, and I am connected to a wonderful group of moms who encourage and inspire me every day; 3) my dad. We haven't always had a super great relationship, but as I learn what it takes to be a parent, I appreciate what he has done for me more and more; 4) WIC peer counselors. Without the gentle guidance of my peer counselor, I probably would have given up breastfeeding. It has become incredibly important to me and a wonderful bond between my daughter and me that grows and grows. It's shameful that the government keeps cutting from that program, because it has been so important for so many moms. 

Day 10

I'm thankful for my family's health. We (my husband, my daughter and I) haven't been struck by any major illness aside from this whole PPD mess. My daughter's pediatrician always comments on her health, curiosity and advances in milestones. We've got some aches and pains, but overall we have been very blessed and I am grateful for it. 

Thankful digest

I am not great at blogging every day. Here's my thankful things day 3-9.

3. I am thankful I chose to breastfeed and fought through ppd, thrush and multiple bouts of mastitis to keep it up for 7 months and counting. Holding my baby in my arms, nourishing her, and seeing her sweet smiles is so wonderful. It more than makes up for the sore nipples and uterine contractions the first few days and weeks to hear her gulp the milk made especially for her and to see her growing. 

4. I'm thankful we live so close to the park and get to enjoy the beautiful fall leaves. 

5. I'm thankful for the relationship I have with my pets. I love snuggling up with my cats and dog. 

6. I'm thankful I'm being given a second chance to have a relationship with God. I am thankful my sins are forgiven and I can be better and help others. 

7. I am thankful I have been given the ability to express myself through writing. It is and has been an important outlet for me throughout life. 

8. I'm thankful for the roof over my head, the clothes on my back and the heat coming out of the ducts. I'm thankful for my hardworking husband who has provided for us the 10 months I've been differently employed.

9. I'm thankful for coffee. It's delicious and it helps me keep up with my tiny human. 

Giving thanks

A ton of friends and family are sharing the things they are thankful for this month, and I think I would like to do this as well. I am kind of uncomfortable with posting it on Facebook, because I feel like that's the modern equivalent of shouting it in the street. Posting it here is still sharing, of course, but it feels more intimate to me. I don't mind my family and friends who are doing this on Facebook, but I am guilty of curating my life a little on there and this is likely to be frank and personal. So here is where I shall post it. OK, I think I'm done rationalizing now.

 It's true that like most people, I have many, many things to be thankful for, and this is a nice meditation that will prevent me from taking things for granted.

 It's Nov. 2, so I will need to come up with two things for this post.

1: I am thankful that I am now healthy enough to recognize some of the things I did while pregnant and pp as unhealthy, or at least on the strange side. For some reason while I was pregnant, I found the brand name Nuk grating in the extreme, to the point where I felt compelled to mark out the name on some nipple balm with a sharpie. I'm not sure if that is actually a sign of ppd or anxiety, but I was cleaning out a closet and found the nipple balm. I was like, "Oh yeah, I remember that. Man that's kinda weird." 

On a more serious note, I thankfully have not had any instances of self harm or suicidal thoughts  (not ideation, just your garden variety 'I should just kill myself') since I got my dosage bumped up a smidge. I don't feel numb, I feel normal. Which feels awesome. 

2. I am thankful for my family. My husband who works so hard and who is so heart-meltingly good with our daughter. He has been so patient with me through this parenthood journey, from the days when I couldn't stop sobbing for no reason to the nights when I threw my hands up and had to leave the room. And my sweet, smart, beautiful, inquisitive daughter. Despite the ppd that robbed me of some happy moments, my baby and I have a wonderful bond. More than anything, my child has shown me the meaning of the word blessing. I understood it in an abstract way before, but now I really get it, I think; the feeling that something or someone has bestowed upon you a precious gift that is not to be taken lightly. 

Feeling accomplished

I mentioned before that part of my struggle as a new mom who happens to be staying at home is feeling like I'm not doing anything. I know I am nurturing a child and maintaining a household, but nobody seems to want to pay me for that. And for a very, very long time, I have not really been maintaining the household, just basically keeping the walls from falling down around us. There's a poem, "Song for a Fifth Child," that says "Quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep! / I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep." 

I've tried to keep this stanza to heart as I watch dishes pile up, but I am starting to believe part of my recovery or sanity, if you will, has to be finding the time to keep a tidier house. I am using Pinterest to find chore schedules and tweak one to our house's needs, and I'm using an app called "Unf*ck Your Habitat" to motivate myself. 

I feel like a major mood booster at the end of the day is being able to say, I went on a walk, the baby tried a new food, we read three books, AND I organized the pantry, folded and put away three loads of laundry and tidied the kitchen and living rooms. 

I know some days are always going to be better than others, but I think taking pride in my household is important to keeping my head up.

I'm a Warrior Mom

The timing for the opportunity that just came into my life is almost too good to be true. Just as I was starting up this blog, it came to my attention that Postpartum Progress, a charity whose mission is to "improve the health and wellbeing of women and children by increasing awareness of postpartum depression and all other mental illnesses related to pregnancy and childbirth..." was looking for volunteers to be part of something called the Warrior Moms Battalion. 
More than 200 women across the United States have signed on to the Warrior Moms Battalion. Hopefully, we are going to spread awareness about PPD, but my personal hope is to reach out to mothers and families locally by starting a support group. I was browsing the Postpartum Progress website, and was shocked to discover there are no PPD support groups in all of downstate Illinois. Nowhere for moms like me to go, to know they aren't facing the battle alone - it seems ludicrous. One in seven women experience postpartum depression or anxiety, according to Postpartum Progress. I think there is a definite need for us to come together and help each other. 
Because I was lucky enough during my pregnancy to stumble onto a great group of moms online, I have seen firsthand the difference that a caring group of people can make, whether they are in your town or online. I know how important it is to have a supportive group of people standing with me as I experience the joys and trials of parenthood for the first time. 
It is so exciting to have this mission. I feel filled with purpose. My best friend just shared a quote on her Facebook: "Allow your passion to become your purpose and then it will become your profession." I feel like that is happening for me right now. 

How I knew I had PPD

The possibility of having postpartum depression was one of the many, many things I worried about during my pregnancy. I have a history of anxiety and - while not technically depression, I have been known to be fretful and melancholy.
In hindsight, I wish I'd mentioned the possibility to my doctor even sooner. I waited about 5 weeks, and by then I was crying all the time, impatient and snappish with my husband and frustrated with my daughter. I feel like I should have known something was off when I lost my cool over a completely innocuous comment made by my husband the day we came home from the hospital. My mother, stepfather, brother and nephew were all here to see the baby, and we arrived home late the night after the Raspberry was born. All my husband said was, "Where's her hat?" and I felt the (completely erroneous) weight of unspoken accusation behind it.
A really helpful resource for new moms who might think they have PPD is a website called Postpartum Progress. They have this list of symptoms of PPD and postpartum anxiety written so anyone can understand it, not just medical professionals.
The list really resonated with me and still does to some extent. At my pre-medicated worst, I wasn't eating, I was crying all the time, and I couldn't sleep even when the baby was asleep because I was on edge constantly, convinced she was going to wake up at any moment.
If you are having any of the symptoms on the list, please contact your doctor. Even if you're not sure, even if you feel guilty (which you shouldn't) please let your doctor know how you're feeling. Even though I'm not out of the woods just yet, things are immeasurably better now that I am taking some medicine to balance things out.
And as always, if you are feeling these things and just need someone to talk to, you can email me at ppdtbh@gmail.com. I'm here to listen.

Working, mom?

At age 17, I was taking orders over the phone and waiting tables at the most filth-encrusted Pizza Hut in central Indiana. I slid on the black headset with unwieldy battery pack at McDonalds one summer, where I rinsed dishes until the early morning hours. I made sandwiches and lattes, wrote business stories and took shaky video in a Kentucky courtroom. I spent one miserable month trying to sell warranties to surly Best Buy customers so I could make rent my senior year of college.

The point is, until Raspberry came along, I have always worked. I had to stop working 33 weeks into my pregnancy because of early labor, and my boss could never get me working from home approved.

I tried to return to work when the Raspberry was 6 weeks old, but my depression and guilt, along with an ill-timed nursing strike from my tiny human, made it clear to me then:  I needed to be at home with my baby so she could thrive and I could recover. 

She's almost 6 months old now and starting on solids. She still nurses quite often, but it's not every 45 minutes like it used to be. And our finances are looking grim.

I'm starting to put in applications for part-time work. I think if I can find something local, it will be all right to leave the raspberry with papa on his days off and go make us some make-those-ends-meet money. It's not only a financial necessity, I think it may help with my recovery as well. Days when we make it out of the house are always better than the days we stay cloistered. 

What are your experiences with working or staying home with your children? What advice do you have? Please leave a comment below. 

Hi there

Hi there. You can call me Red. I am 27, the mother of a 5-month-old girl, and I have been diagnosed with postpartum depression. I was diagnosed around 8 weeks after my daughter, who I will refer to as Raspberry, was born. It's taken me this long to get my shit together and start blogging about it. 

I am medicated and doing pretty well at the moment. As long as I remember to take my meds, I don't have any issues, so I feel pretty lucky about that. I am, however, angry yet that PPD had to happen to me. PPD stole the early days of my child's life from me. I kept her alive, thank goodness, but it's a blur of anxiety, exhaustion, sadness, fear and guilt, when it should have been a time of great joy in my life. I should have been bonding with my baby and instead I felt like I was losing my mind. 

This is something I wrote while I was waiting for my medication to begin working. 

I have a healthy, beautiful child who loves me and gives me her smiles and giggles.  I have a home, and a loving partner, two cats and a dog. I may not have much of a job right now, but I have the skills to get one when I can.  I have friends and family who love and care about me.  so why do i feel like this?

My goal with this blog is to connect moms and families affected by postpartum depression. I want you to know you are not alone, because that was how I felt for a long time, despite the fact that I have friends and family who love me.

I can be reached at redppdtbh@gmail.com. If you feel alone, you can e-mail me. I will soon have it set up so I will get notifications when someone emails me. I am not a counselor, psychiatrist or psychologist. I am just a mom who wants you to know you're not the only one going through this.