I grew up in a small branch of a small blue collar development in a small woods outside the then seemingly vast city of Philadelphia. The first half of my childhood was stunningly gorgeous, though I hated it at the time. I wanted to trade the creek and the woods for the mystery of foreign cities. I wanted to suffer, because I thought that was how art was made. When my mother told me I needed to see beauty to make beauty, I snarkly replied - how? Where is it?
In the second half, my mother died slowly of brain cancer over the course of years. I was assaulted by my abusive boyfriend. I discovered a love for shit toxic to me. And, finally, had a psychotic break.
I’m also pretty dang happy with my life today. This is basically the only thing that “qualifies” me, if anything qualifies anyone ever, to give advice.
I’d like to thank everyone who ever touched me. Metaphorically or literally, gently or with a hard punch. Everything that’s ever happened to me brought me here today.
It's been almost a year since the terror, the fear, the absolute love and crushing doubt. Less than a year since I went off the deep end. Less than a month since I started to resurface and face our luck like looking into the teeth of some unexpected beast.
It's almost six am. She went back to sleep, but I didn't. Jacob's been trying, desperately, to get me to normalize my own sleep schedule now that she's finally normalizing hers. He's been using all his tricks - shouting it at me, saying the beginning of it and then saying 'whatever' if I don't react in some way I haven't figured out yet and storming off. Sleepily urging me to come back to bed when I sit up in the wee hours of the morning like lighting's struck.
"Please?"
It's not that simple. I've always woken up at odd hours - it just never mattered before because I could sleep Whenever I Wanted, a power I never in my life appreciated before I had a baby and lost it forever.
I used to write at these times. I guess that's what I'm doing now - go me. But normally, these days, I put something pastel and thoughtless on the television - tlc or hgtv, something soft to barely live to. I live a fuzzy half life until I have to do something again. My bones creak when I get up, an ache that just follows me now. I haven't talked to a doctor about it.
PPD has stolen quite a lot from my family, but I think the main thing I personally have lost, have only just clawed my way back to, is an appreciation for what happens next.
It is past six, and she wakes up, and the laws of sleep training (a process I never supported child-free but have since seen the Immense benefits of) are allowing me to go get her.
She is standing, barely awake, just beginning to get upset as she realizes she is alone. She hears me before she sees me and lets out a cry - our house is old, and creaks when I step on it.
When I walk in she is simply more upset. I have not picked her up fast enough. If I hadn't walked in, she would've probably found her binkie (muppy) and gone back to sleep.
But then I do pick her up. She puts her own bink in her mouth and sighs, collapsing against me. I carry her downstairs and the house sighs too.
We sit in front of that fuzzy half-life. She tilts her sleepy head back, sees me for what might be another first time for her, and smiles like a drunk.
I love her I love her I love her I love her.
For those still in the thick of ppd, this will sound like a raisin clinking against the great concrete wall of your depression. I'm going to say it anyway - it gets so, so, sooooo much better.
I carried her through my depression and I hate myself for the way she weighed me down like I was dragging an entire world by my tits. Now in my recovery she is like a little tug boat pulling me along at incredible speed, and the world is bright and real ahead.
I am not quite at the end, but I am close enough to see now that it Does end, and that you get what you thought you lost anyway there, too. Before there, even. Along the way, you do regain whatever it is you missed out on sad.
Hi honey. Hope you are well♡. I went in for an xray and found out I was pregnant! 5-6 weeks, I dont have an ultrasound or bloodwork for another month. Now, I have tattoos and piercings, but since i was a kid I have an extreme fear of medical needles/shots. On top of that, I have anxiety as well. Do you know of anything I could possibly try or things others have tried to make that part less stressful and scary? Bloodwork and the epidural are the only things I'm really freaking out about so far.
Hey! This is probably too late, but this question is near and dear to my heart, so I’m gonna answer it anyway just in case someone else might wanna read it.
I too have always had a fear of needles/shots. I too also have tattoos and piercings. Go figure.
What I did at first was try not to look, but that actually made me more upset, so instead, I started looking. I watch the needle go into my skin, watch the blood come out, watch the whole process. By the third time, I wasn’t even scared anymore.
As for the epidural - this is what I did. I insisted, for a long time, that I simply wasn’t gonna have one. Uh-uh, not for me. Then, when the time came, I was in labor without the chance of one for thirteen hours since they couldn’t find us a room. By the end, I Did Not Care Anymore.
It fucking hurts, tbh. Like. A lot. So don’t worry about the epidural - you will have a choice to make in the moment, to either do this thing you’re scared of or keep being in the worst pain of your life, so it was pretty easy in the end for me to do it.
Hey! I recently came across your blog and honestly the positivity and advice you give, and reading through your story is amazing! I'm suspicious that I'm pregnant after an accident with my partner and, while they're very supportive, outside of them it feels very very lonely. I've told only a handful of people and I still haven't decided what to do if I am pregnant. But your blog feels like a solid place in all of this and I just want to say thank you so, so much. 💗
I’m so glad! I made this blog exactly for you, and a few other folks, and me, so I’m glad you are getting something from it.
I don’t know what you decided to do but so long as it wasn’t ‘give birth to the baby and then eat it like the mice do’ I support it! I hope you’re in a more certain place in your life and happy with whatever decision you made.
hey so i think i might be pregnant... i just turned 16 and i haven’t had my period yet and it’s very rare that it’s this late... i can’t go buy myself a pregnancy test because i can’t drive anywhere by myself and i don’t have any money.. i don’t know what to do.
Firstly, I’d like to apologize for not checking this blog’s inbox for literally months after I gave birth.
Secondly - are you alright? If you see this can you send us an update?
Just need to share... I'm 40 wks 4 days today with our rainbow baby! We never thought we would be here after so many times being told we were infertile. I had my check up this morning and they scheduled me for an induction tomorrow evening. I lost my mucous plug right on the exam table 😭 it was mortifying but the doctor was very chill about it! I can't wait to meet our baby but I'm so so anxious about labor.
AMAZING!! I’m so happy for you! I guess you’re already months into being a parent at this point - I hope it’s going well and I’m sorry I didn’t see your ask till now.
I’m 17 and pregnant for the first time and being able to see the unfiltered opinions of others on how tough it is really helps. I’m so nauseous I can’t eat anything rn but seeing others make it through really helps!!
Congratulations! I’m so happy this blog is helpful to you.
Still have no advice for the nausea besides ‘it’ll stop when it’s over.’
I have heard to try saltines, tho. Never worked for me but who knows
Why i am really pissed off (about gender roles and bad teachers)
This is my kid and she is 5
She wanted to take hulk with her to school today, and she was so happy that i took her pic. she loves avengers, she watched the movie multiple times, and she always asks me for their action figures, especially from Black widow and Iron man but unfurtunally She only got the Hulk one that was from her older cousin (not only because i´m broke but also i cant find any black widow anywhere) but thats not why i´m really freaking mad…..
As soon as she got to the school her teacher looked at her, and with wide eyes and a disgusted voice and said
You, with a Hulk doll? well that is surprising
so i immediately stepped in and asked the teacher to please pay attention during play time, because i didnt want her to have a hard time with the boys,
after i picked her up the teacher told me that everything went ok. that my baby had gave the toy to the boys and went to play something else.. that struck me as really weird, because Nico was really exited about playing with her friend and his Capitan america. so on the way home i asked what happened
They took him away and didnt let me play with them because i´m a girl, they also tripped me so i fell during P.E, but i didnt see who did it.
She also told me that the teacher did nothing, not even when she fell and cried….
But the worst part is that she spent 40 minutes back home hugging her hulk and giving it kisses and telling me how she didn’t want to take it again to school because she didn’t want her friends to be mean and take it away again, but my heart really broke when she asked me
Could you please take care of him tomorrow when i will be at school?
he is brave but i don’t want him to be alone
Now we will sit to watch Avengers again with a bucket of pop corn and the hulk. but i know that it will be a long long time before i manege to convince her that she doesn’t have to hide the fact that she loves these heroes, and that the problem is with the other boys not with her.
the fool: do you have any nicknames?
the magician: have you ever written a poem or song about somebody else?
the high priestess: what is your dream date?
the empress: do you think you will ever get married?
the emperor: what are some names that you like?
the hierophant: do you believe in ghosts?
the lovers: do you have a crush?
the chariot: thoughts on astrology?
strength: what is your dream occupation?
the hermit: what is your favorite soda pop?
wheel of fortune: first three songs that come on shuffle?
justice: favorite color of rose?
the hanged man: favorite movie soundtrack?
death: what are three things you want to do before you die?
temperance: can you describe a strange dream you’ve had?
the devil: do you enjoy thunderstorms?
the tower: favorite colors to wear?
the star: have you ever seen a psychic?
the moon: have you ever written a love letter?
the sun: do you believe in magic?
judgement: do you enjoy school?
the world: do you like waking up early?
This isn’t quite normal for her anymore. She’s about nine months now, and if given the right circumstances will sleep from eight till six, sometimes. But her parents are both bipolar and routine has always alluded us, so. I’ll admit, she rarely faces the right circumstances.
This time it was because I went out while she was sleeping. Don’t worry - her dad was there, was ready to take care of her, but normally is working at this time and it literally did not even occur to me to say - feed her dinner. Obviously, right? Feed her dinner before I’ll be home, when it’ll be her bedtime and she’ll be too tired to eat?
So she didn’t eat dinner, and wasn’t interested by the time I was home. There’s this thing that happens when she hits my boobs where she just is more likely to go to sleep. I like to think it’s because she remembers the lull of breastfeeding, but we only really did that for a week or so, so. Maybe not.
Maybe?
Motherhood for me has been ripe with a kind of ongoing, minor tragedy - it is not predictable, and bad things happen. She was mine, and I had a birth plan ready for getting her out. It was going to be something I did, me personally.
It was not.
I pushed her out, but they cut me to get her faster at the end, and cut us apart from one another as soon as they could. I remember my laugh when I saw her, the joy welling for a brilliant second and then - confusion as blood spurts between us, “Wait, I wanted delayed cord clamping... “
She is taken away, to a table on the far side of the room, and I am unable to reach her. She was mine, and then G-d said in their bellowing voice “she is not.”
I don’t remember what I said, what I tried to do. She struggled under the doctor’s hands, which seemed brutal in the clinical way they held her down, forced her limbs and her lungs to living.
They let me touch her face, I think because I was really fucking loosing it. Then, she was gone.
I said already that Jacob and I - Dad and Mama - are not the best at establishing a routine. That being said, I thrive on a plan, even if that plan is made an hour before the event. I do not thrive on my plans being forcibly changed. I do not thrive on events happening to me and my world that are outside my control. She was part of my world, I thought.
It would be forty five minutes before they would let her father see her. I had opted for an epidural thinking I wouldn’t have to move much after I gave birth anyway, right? We spent the rest of our hospital stay walking back and forth, back and forth, to the nicu. My hospital bag was gutted of my own things, hers left untouched. Jacob didn’t like me taking cute pictures of her there. I don’t think he’d realized it was real, yet.
That was hadn’t gotten the reality we’d been more than dreaming of - expecting. a healthy baby. Our baby was very sick.
She got better quickly. We were lucky. I’m not denying that - in a lot of ways, we have merely skated by, thwarted the obstacles thrown at us. But it was still not according to plan, and that fucked me up, I’ll be honest.
They starved her in the nicu, to save her. My milk dried up. Another dream dashed.
The first time I held her she butted up into my chin with more force than I ever would have expected for something so small and sick. I tried, very hard, to make my chin soft for her little head.
She still does that. Butts her head up under my chin when she wants to be cuddled. With even more strength now, of course. She is tall for her age, has thick hair and big dark eyes and her father’s face miniaturized.
We have been so very lucky.
Everyone has an unlucky number though, and I worry that hers might be one. All her firsts seems torturous and hard in a way I didn’t expect. My first lessons of motherhood were that she is not mine, I have no power, really, and part of this will always be watching her suffer. Her first breaths - ragged, gurgling, so far from me - haunt me.
But the thing about my daughter is, she kept at it, and she breathes fine now, even blows out her own boogers and wipes them on my shirt. She stands after falling, determined, bellowing for us to look at her with an escelating ‘da da da DA!’
I don’t know my point at all. I think ppd is loosening it’s hold on me - I can see something bright, not just on the horizon, but around me. I can see that we have been lucky. That we are, without a doubt, lucky.
How’s you baby? Wishing you so much or and good vibes ♥️
She’s healthy, happy, thriving. In desperate need of sleep training. Smiles at everyone and everything. Has no fear in the face of heights or falls, but screams bloody murder without fail every bath time.
Omg saw your ask/reply about finding out about pregnancy late... I didnt find out until almost 5 months too!! I was 20 weeks when we went to our first appointment 😅 I'm super irregular and had had spotting during month ~3 so I didnt suspect pregnancy, I just thought I had a really bad flu!! (I also drank and smoked until I found out woops) but baby was born perfectly healthy!
Approximately five hours before my daughter would pass the window from premature into acceptably term, my water broke in front of a Barnes & Noble. It was brown, I remember, and smelled richly fungal in a way I figured was probably normal? Yes?
I had already been to the hospital tho, spent the time in triage with my heart drawn tight and thrummed with the beat, the waves of contractions washing over me like rebirth.
And then been told to go home.
I wasn’t about to do that again.
I called my sister, water still dripping down my legs. I felt like a waterfall. “I’m peeing,” I mumbled as she answered the phone.
“What?” She said.
“So,” I started again, halting. “I probably just peed my pants, but…”
“… but…?” Maddy said, her voice rising.
I asked her to take me home. She did. We told Jacob what “might, remember, might” be happening, and he called out of work. Began walking around the apartment, into each room, clapping every now and then and saying “We’re having a fucking baby!” as if he’d just heard.
“I’m probably just peeing,” I assured everyone.
We made our way leisurely to the hospital. I was beginning to feel pains, and Sookie, my as of yet unborn wee one, was oddly still within me. She was an active baby as a rule - I used to say she was a kickboxer or a gymnast, and practicing her moves in there.
For probably the first time, real fear. I don’t know why I hadn’t felt it before this point. I hadn’t been The Worst I Could Be, but I’d snuck a few cigarettes, drank a few small glasses of red wine because I’d read a book (one out of like, twelve, mind) that said it was fine.
When we got there, according to Jacob, I “lumbered” in and then, leaning heavily on the front desk, got out between heaving breaths, “I probably just peed, but…?”
I remember saying it calmly, but whatever. The nurses laughed. Took me back to a tiny cubicle crowded with machinery, which tipped to converge on the most uncomfortable cot I have ever in my life laid upon.
This is where we would spend the next ten hours.
See, Sookie decided to make her appearance at the same time as many another baby, and there simply weren’t enough rooms. My water had broken, sure! But I was evidently ‘barely’ having contractions.
I did not feel this way.
After ten hours of this becoming much and much less like I peed myself, we finally got a room. I went against my own “””””birth plan,”” perhaps negating it for the first time. It would not be the last. I asked for an epidural.
The guy came in. I remember very little about this night, but a few faces stand out for me like divine figures, gods of medicine working upon my body. My body and hers.
This man stands out. He had a small, thin mustache. He hummed lowly while he worked. He told me to arch my back and I did. Between contractions he slipped a needle into my spine and I felt it like a static burst.
It was supposed to be the last thing I felt for a long time. It wasn’t.
“Keep your legs down. The epidural can’t reach your legs if you don’t keep them down”
“Are you sure you’re not numb?”
“Give it another hour.”
“Keep your legs down”
“Are you sure you’re not numb?”
“We have to break your water”
“What? I thought it already broke!”
“Sometimes it reseals. We have to break it again.”
A crochet hook, plunged inside me and twisted, pulled. Silence after my yell.
“So, the baby pooped.” Shrug. “It happens.”
It must happen, then. No biggie!
“Are you
sure
you’re not
numb?”
Finally, finally, mustache came back. He seemed pissed. “You must’ve moved it,” he accused me, and then did another.
And finally, finally - I was numb.
So numb, in fact, I fell asleep. I dreamed about her - running, running, always running.
Always just out of reach.
They came back in to check me an hour later. One nurse did, actually, and then - lots of people, nurses and doctors alike.
Jacob had collapsed on the couch. He’d stayed by my side the whole time i was in pain, only allowing himself to sit down after the second epidural. Now, though, it was time.
It was time.
It didn’t occur to me that there were too many people in the room. I remember very little of the following, while at the same time holding bright details in my mind like glass - clarity between the drugs, the strange almost-pain, the pain without details, without color. Feeling my skin rip like raw chicken - not something that’s me, just something I’m holding between my legs.
I pushed four times, and then - she was there.
Her eyes were huge. She had a full head of hair. Her mouth was open, and she was silent.
I didn’t get it yet.
The tiniest noise, like a gurgling gag. A yell from Jacob, from Maddy, maybe from me.
I held out my arms.
The cord was cut abruptly. “Wait,” I said, “I wanted delayed cord clamping.”
She was attached to me. She was part of me. Then, she was gone.
They took her away immediately - I didn’t even touch her. She was in the room at first. I could see her under the light, skinny arms and legs jerking, moving like she was swimming, but with startles, stutters in movement.
Moving like she was drowning.
I don’t remember what I said. I know I said a lot. Begged, pleaded, cried, shouted, hell, even prayed. I don’t pray.
They let me touch her cheek before they whisked her out of the room. She was above me, blinking blearily, staring. She was wet, still, and hot as metal left out in the sun. Then, she was gone.
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