PostPartum
It would be so much easier if I woke up and my body was covered in a rash. Perhaps I could have a small cough or drippy nose. I would then know. It would be obvious that something was wrong with me, but that isn’t how it happens. At first you attribute the mood swings to the stress happening in your life. I mean who wouldn’t be a bit frazzled after moving and having a new baby? Of course it is stress. And the constant stream of tears? Well, I did just have a baby my hormones are just normalizing. Everybody has bad days. The loss of patience and irritability? I haven’t slept well in weeks and any normal person would be a bit annoyed. At some point it becomes harder and harder to explain and justify. And then it happens. After Max was born it was uncontrollable anger at David for leaving his coffee cup in the sink after I had just finished the dishes. This time it was being so frustrated at Lucy I gently pushed her out of my bedroom and locked the door. I didn’t throw her to the ground, or hurt her, or violently push her – but push her I did, and the underlying anger that was bubbling inside of me was scary.
Depression. Postpartum depression.
Depression isn’t like any other kind of illness. You can’t go to the doctor and point to a physical ailment and say “fix this”. It is like a toxic gas that slowly creeps into your life. You know that something doesn’t smell quite right but you can’t figure out where it is coming from until you are doubled-over sick with toxicity. And once you are sick it taints everything around it.
I spend most of my days feeling overwhelmed and on the verge of tears. All I can think about is wanting to sleep. If I could just sleep. And yet, even when the baby is asleep I can’t sleep. Insomnia plagues me at night. Every obstacle and daily frustration feels like an insurmountable problem that needs to be faced. My mind restlessly wanders from one thought to the next never settling. I’m incapable of decision making. Just getting dressed or deciding what I’ll cook for dinner paralyzes me. I spend hours aimlessly knocking around my house unable to focus my mind on any one task. My inner voice obssessively chants; “So sad. I’m so sad.”
My only comfort is David. His presence seems to settle the demons and lets me be at ease – even for an hour. I know what I need to do. I’ll make the necessary calls to doctors to get medicine prescribed and people to help and people to talk to about it. In the meantime I feel a bit like Eeyore waiting for the rain cloud to blow away.
Oy! 2009!
Editor’s Note: I wrote this in January with the intention of it being my end of year wrap up. It obviously never got finished and I never published. However, in hindsight I realize how 2009 really was only the precursor for the down right misery of 2010. Soon I will share with you the challenges we’ve been facing here at the Morley household but it really all started in 2009.
2009 was one of those years that came in like a lamb and left like a lion. Since it seems like the thing to do, here is my 2009 recap:
January: My little boy turned 3 years old which was shortly followed by him giving up his pacifier and then potty trained. It seems as if almost over night he went from baby to boy. This has made me realize that there isn’t a girl alive that will ever be worthy of enough to be with Max. He might as well resign himself to a lifetime of bachelorhood now because I can’t imagine anybody loving and adoring my son like I do.
February: Lucy turns 5 years old and we enrolled her in Kindergarten. Had I known then the amount of extra effort and commitment it was going to entail having my child enrolled in school I don’t think I would have signed her up. (I kid, I kid, don’t send hate mail). David and I also decide that since WE can’t decide whether to have a third a child or not we are going to give God six months to make the decision for us.
March: The beginning of March was marked by Max having a small visit to the hospital. A severe case of rotavirus left him dehydrated, weak and sick. If you’ve ever had a child so sick that hospitalization was required then you know about the parental torture you experience. Those were four of the worst days of my life. The good news is that I doubt Max will remember any of it. The bad news, I won’t ever forget. I don’t know how parents, who have chronically ill children, find the emotional strength required to face that torture day after day.
April/May: We took a short trip back to Michigan to visit the parents where my kids were once again reminded that going to my parent’s house is similar to visiting Disney World only without the crowds. Our visit included an “unbirthday” party that had a 200+ balloon drop, wind-up toy games, prizes, cake, hotdogs roasted on a carnival style roaster and candy. Seriously, how do you compete with that?
June: After purging our house of a baby crib, car seats, baby clothes, rattles, changing table, and all other baby accouterments we discovered that I was pregnant. You see God thinks the ironies of life are HI-LARIOUS. It is a whole “God joke” thing. Having suffered through a miscarriage almost a year to date from this pregnancy test coming back positive David and I were a bit hesitant. My doctor spent the first twelve weeks taking ultra-sound pictures every two weeks and indeed this is the most heavily photographed baby we have had.
You know how when riding a roller coaster the beginning of the ride is usually a slow steady climb before you garner enough inertia to whiz through the remainder of the ride? Well, the first six months of 2009 was the steady, slow climb.
July/August: The summer seemed to fly by. The kids went to “nana camp” and we spent multiple weekends at the lake house. I was trying to revel in the joy of Lucy’s last summer before her school year adventures began. I also tried to not throw up while teaching. I was a success on both counts.
September: I have to admit that this past semester of teaching was one of my most challenging. It felt like I was facing every possible obstacle and/or challenge imaginable. I was teaching with a new textbook that was awkward and clumsy. I had students who were uninspired and uninterested in being in class. Then, in contrast, I had students who were so excited to be there I seemed to have an endless flow of questions and demands outside of the class. I also met some AMAZING students who I hope will not fade off into the distance but continue to let me peek in on their progress and their lives. Granted, most semesters are like this, but this semester seemed to have large amounts of all of these things. I spent all semester feeling like I was behind and scrambling to catch up.
October/November: David and I bought our first house in 2001. The house was small, and inexpensive. Our plan was to stay here for five years. It has been nine. By November we purchased a new house – on a whim. We did not spend months looking at models or neighborhoods or touring with a real estate agent. We had been watching this particular neighborhood for awhile. And when a house came available that was unusually under priced for the area we bought it. We took a deep breath, looked at each other and took the plunge, knowing the hell that we were starting.
December: I wish I could just forget about December. The stress of final exam week, being seven months pregnant, trying to sell our house, and prepare for the holidays all during the same three weeks was more than my emotional state could handle. Everybody felt the ramifications of my breakdown. David and I spent most of December fighting and I spent most of the month crying. I cried all the time. I cried because of the kids. I cried because of school. I cried because of my students. I cried because of David. I cried because I was pregnant. I didn’t want to talk to anybody because just telling people what I was thinking or feeling made me cry.
Every storm reaches the end. The holidays found David and I basking in the warmth of family love and support. We left behind school and work and our house and spent time as a family and as a couple. We stopped fighting, started apologizing and realized that we weren’t mad at each other only stressed out. We dreamed about our new house and recommitted ourselves to the purchase of the new house. We’ve returned and let’s hope 2010 will find our family a bit more calm.
Sacred Space
During a world religion class in college my professor talked about the difference between sacred and profane space, sacred and profane time, and how we as a society mark certain things, times, dates and locations as being sacred. I loved this concept and I remember becoming acutely aware of my own sacred space. Recently this idea has found its way back into my consciousness.
This past week our wireless internet connection got corrupted and I lost my internet access at home. At first this seemed dire, frustrating and desperate. However, by the end of the day I realized how much I had gotten done because I wasn’t distracted by the insignificant minutia that seems to constantly be demanding my attention on the internet. This led me to consider the idea of consciously disconnecting during certain times of the day or week. What would happen?
My first experiment came Saturday night. David and I were attending a “grown-up” party with alcohol and music and no children or even people who also had kids so there would be no swapping of kid stories. I turned my iPhone off and left it at home. Think about that people. I TURNED MY PHONE OFF AND LEFT IT AT HOME. I WENT SOMEWHERE WITHOUT MY PHONE. MY PHONE WAS NOT NEAR MY BODY. Do you recognize the enormity of this ? Do you recognize the sheer craziness of me making that decision? Well, I did it. I went a total of four hours without access to the internet, facebook, email or text messaging. And you know what happened? The world did not end and for once I wasn’t distracted by things that were peripheral to my activity but I was actually able to exist in the “now”. I made eye-contact, I talked with people, my mind settled and I focused on what I was doing.
This first experiment went so well that the next morning I decided to not bring my phone with me to church. Although at times I felt a small tug of disappointment that I couldn’t “check-in” with the world I overall was pleased at my ability to keep my attention on the people and things around me versus the “others”.
I like this idea of sacred space and have decided to start consciously marking sacred times in my life when I disconnect. I don’t want to be checking my email while I’m trying to spend time with my husband, or playing a board game with my kids. I don’t want to hear the chime of a text message while I’m trying to have a conversation with a good friend. Don’t get me wrong, I still am madly in love with my iPhone and I will not be giving it up any time soon. But I’ve decided to reclaim my sacred space. I’ve decided to try harder at living in the now and not the later.
