Part two: A Crack in the Door Filled with Light

This is part two of my postpartum journey. You can read part one here.

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I heard one time, “Books find you when you need them.” I have certainly had this experience. The one where you’ve had a book on your shelf for months but then finally pick it up to read it one day and find that it’s exactly what you needed to read—the exact words your heart needed to hear and you’re wondering why you didn’t read it sooner. More than the books finding me, I believe it’s God prompting my heart to pick up that text or God moving in the heart of a person to share a book or article or podcast with me because he knows it’s what I need in that moment. I’ve been part of this experience and the receiver of it too many times to deny that it’s true.

And it’s exactly what happened to bring some light to my postpartum darkness.

I ended last time by telling you how I didn’t feel very connected to my own son — how I didn’t feel the lovey feelings I wanted to toward my own child. I wanted to. I wanted to so, so badly. But instead I was bombarded constantly with thoughts that I shouldn’t be a mom because I didn’t know what I was doing and that somehow this tiny life had upended my own. And let me tell you what, that’s a horrible thought to have when your dream of having a baby has finally come true. How could this sweet little one make me feel that way? And then even having these kinds of thoughts made me feel guilty and ungrateful so I certainly couldn’t tell anyone about them, right?

When Nixon was a few months old, my friend shared an Instagram story with me because it was all about postpartum, so she thought the information might be helpful. She didn’t know it would be the catalyst for my walk out of sadness, but we never really know those kinds of things, do we? The Instagram story she shared was from Dr. Cassidy Freitas. She’s a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and in the story she talked briefly about postpartum “scary thoughts.“ Before watching the story I had no idea that scary thoughts were even a postpartum thing, but after she explained them, I definitely knew I was having them and her insights caused me to follow her on Instagram and tune in to the things she was posting.

In December, Dr. Cassidy shared her own birth stories, and this podcast helped me make sense of how I was feeling regarding Nixon’s birth. As you know, I didn’t want to have a c-section, but that’s how he was born last August. C-section was difficult for me because I didn’t get to see Nixon’s birth (because of the curtain) and I also didn’t get to hold him for about fifteen minutes after he was born. That might not seem like much, but for someone who planned to labor and have immediate skin-to-skin and keep him attached to his cord for a moment, etc., this was nowhere near what I wanted or what I had planned. His cord was immediately clamped and cut. They showed him to me for just a brief second before taking him to the warmer to clean him off and check him over. And then, with just an hour in recovery together, Nixon was taken to the nursery, where he stayed for the next three hours under a warmer while they tried to help him stabilize his temperature. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I later felt like all that missed time together was the culprit for my feelings of non-connection. And even though I knew in my head that God was part of it all and it worked out just as he planned, I still blamed the circumstances of his birth for my feelings.

In her podcast Dr. Cassidy explained the reason she felt disappointed in her own c-section birth story is because it interfered with her idea of what it meant to be a good mom. We all just want to be a good mom, right? Isn’t that our goal? So we have these ideas of what it means to be a good mom before our baby is even born. We take care of our bodies, try to eat right, get enough rest, all for the health of our growing baby because we are already trying to be a good mom. As far as birth, my idea of a good mom was going in to labor naturally, letting my body do the work it was made to do, getting an epidural when I was ready, having Aaron cut baby’s umbilical cord, among other things. We make these birth plans because we think, “This is what a good mom would do. This is what I think will make for a meaningful birth. This is the right, healthy thing for my baby when it is born.” Because we’ve read all the books and we’ve listened to podcasts and taken classes and formed all these opinions of what it means to be a good mom. So when all of that was taken away from me, when he was born via surgery and whisked away, was I still a good mom? When he wasn’t gaining weight and we couldn’t seem to kick the jaundice and we had to go to the doctor so much, was I a good mom? Or did I start out, moment one, with a F on my mom report card?

It took me months to realize this, but, no. For one, there’s no report card. And for two, bonding with your child doesn’t happen solely in those first few seconds after they leave your body. It happens constantly, quietly, and over time for the rest of their lives. And while his birth was wildly different from my plans, I was a good mom because I did what I had to do to keep him safe. I did what I had to do to make sure he was healthy. Certainly, everything went according to God’s plan and I tried to comfort myself with that knowledge, but Dr. Cassidy finally gave me the words for the things I was feeling. And it gave me a little more freedom. I finally let myself off the hook for everything going differently than I planned. It felt like maybe there was finally a crack in the door of my darkness filled with a little light.

Our first day at home without Aaron at just over a week old. Headed to the doctor’s office for the fourth time.

The thing I battled the most in the early days were my own thoughts. We think we can’t control our thoughts —they just come in our head and if I’m thinking it, it must be true because where else would it come from? In a follow-up to that original Instagram story my friend shared with me, Dr. Cassidy wrote a blog post on scary thoughts. She said,

“… we want to begin to develop a new relationship with our thoughts. Just because you have a thought, does not make it true or realistic. Getting hooked by our thoughts and spiraling isn’t productive and can pull us out of being present with what actually matters most to us. Begin to look at thoughts as data or information that your mind is trying to share with you.”

She goes on to show you how to do that and it made me realize what I value and what my thoughts were trying to tell me. In addition to that post, I recently read Jennie Allen’s, Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts, and, wow, was it so good for my heart. I recommend this book to everyone. Her words echoed so much of what I had read in the blog post but helped me see it through the lens of the gospel. Through her book I learned that we do have control over our thoughts. Jennie writes that when a thought enters your mind and starts to take you down a shame spiral or a toxic spiral, you can stop yourself and say, “I have a choice to continue down this path.” You don’t have the follow the spiral of your toxic thoughts.

So, when I would sit in Nixon’s room at night and start to think, “What if he dies?” I would say to myself, “I have a choice,” and let my heart and mind know that I get to choose what I dwell on. I don’t have to dwell on those horrible thoughts. I can instead dwell on what is good and right and true. I started to repeat phrases to myself like, “God is good and does good and wants good for me.” I reminded myself that He is for me. He is for Nixon. And instead of toxic thoughts, I can choose to be grateful. Gratitude interrupts anxiety. So instead of rehearsing my anxieties, I rehearsed all the things I was grateful for that day and it was like I could feel the unease drain through my feet and out of my tense body. Nixon and I could both relax.

(I want to take a moment and address something: I am not trying to say that you can think or pray yourself out of mental illness. There are chemical imbalances and things that cause much more serious anxiety and depression than what I am addressing here and for that, I fully advocate meeting with your doctor and deciding what is best for you. Medicine is a common grace and, as a friend reminded me after I posted part one, your feelings of anxiety and depression are not a lack of faith. THEY ARE NOT A LACK OF FAITH. I wish someone would have told me that years ago when I dealt with regular panic attacks, so I’m telling you. It is okay to seek help.)

Finally, a couple of days after that blog post from Dr. Cassidy, she released a podcast she recorded with Cara Dumaplin from Taking Cara Babies. I have followed Cara since before Nixon was born as I tried to prepare for his birth so I was excited to see what they both had to share. It was at the end of this podcast that what Cara shared made me cry as I stood at my kitchen counter. In talking about scary thoughts and gratitude and being careful of the words we use with ourselves, she said,

“I’m going to say something aloud that maybe parents are like… feel guilty for saying aloud. ‘My life changed since I had this baby. Maybe I’m not meant to be a mom.’ Wow, that’s authentic right there. That feeling. But let’s follow it up with truth. So, where’s truth? So, my life has changed. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a mom. Okay, there’s an authentic thought. But here’s the truth. But I am a mom. And I was given this baby for a reason. And there’s no better mama on the planet for this baby than me. And say those words out loud. Here’s what I’m feeling and here’s truth and gratitude.”

And it was in that instant that the door was kicked open for me and light flooded in. I feel like it was such a precious gift from God that she addressed the EXACT thought that stole the most joy from me. I always wanted to be a mom, so why was I feeling like I shouldn’t be now? I’m crying again just remembering the moment. I AM a mom. I’m Nixon’s mom. And no one else can do it better than I can — no matter how dumb I feel some days. No matter how incompetent or embarrassed I am by what I don’t know. No matter how many thoughts try to intrude. I was chosen for him. I’m his mom and I can do this well because I have been given him as a gift. I knew this before he was born so I don’t know why/how I forgot it once he was born. But hearing her say that helped me feel free in a way I hadn’t felt since before Nixon was born. It was like the light flipped on and I could start to speak truth to the lies that had camped out in my heart for the last several months. Hearing that someone else might be thinking some of these things —that I wasn’t alone!—changed so much for me.

So truth started to fill my heart and allowed me to open the door and step out of the darkness. It wasn’t immediate. I don’t want to act like it was this lightbulb moment and I was “fixed” but it was through hearing truth, talking to my husband about my feelings (and finding we were feeling some similar things!), journaling it out and praying to God that helped me break the chains little by little. The other part was that Nixon got a little older so he was sleeping a little better, which meant I was getting more sleep. It’s scientific fact that sleep deprivation causes your brain to operate at an impaired level. So essentially new moms are just walking around impaired while caring for a newborn and acting like we’re just fine. Ha! We have to stop that. I certainly wasn’t fine. We have to sleep however we can get it —have someone come over and watch that baby so you can sleep. You don’t have to use their nap time to do the dishes or the laundry. Those things can wait. Rest is holy.

I loved Nixon from the moment I knew he was growing inside me at just four tiny, sweet weeks. But scary thoughts, postpartum anxiety and sleep deprivation after he was born caused my feelings to be as wild and untethered as loose kite in the wind. So loving him was love in action before it was ever a feeling. And isn’t that the way with love anyway? We talk about it in marriage –how it’s not always going to be a feeling. It’s not always going to feel the same as it did when you were first dating. It’s a choice to love. And when you act, when you make that choice, the feelings will follow. And, for me, they have. Gosh, I love this boy so much. He is growing and changing every day and getting so much more fun all the time. He is so sweet —loves to smile and laugh. He has the same buoyant spirit as his dad. He is so stinking precious. I know what it’s like to feel in love with him now in a way that I didn’t those first several months of his life.

My eight month old smiley boy.

So the book, the podcast, the blog — they all found me when I desperately needed them. And it was the words of others that helped free me. I knew I was capable of this deep connection I feel with Nixon now. I knew I just had to break through the heavy storm cloud I was facing and I would finally feel the love I had been showing him through action for the last several months. So I’m thankful for the help that came at just the right time. For the words of others that set me free. For the way God brought them to me. Don’t hesitate to share something that might speak to someone else’s heart. You never know if it’s just exactly what they need to hear!

And who knows, maybe it’s these words – my words – that are setting you free. In her book, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott wrote,

“Toni Morrison said, “The function of freedom is to free someone else,” and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else.”

So here I am trying to free you. I hope it helps you see some light.

Part one: Walking in the Dark

I wanted to write this before now but it felt too raw, too vulnerable, too much. I wanted to write in the midst of it, but I find I can never do that. I can’t write when I’m in the murky middle of my circumstances because it feels too exposed and ugly. I have to wrap my own mind around it before I can share. I have to get some distance from it before I can tell you about it. So here we are with some distance and I want to tell you now. This is my postpartum story — the one about bits of anxiety and sadness and the scary thoughts that had a stranglehold on my heart.

I want to start by saying, if you’ve just had a baby and you’re feeling like maybe your mind has gone haywire, you’re not alone. It’s okay to feel this way. It won’t last forever. Your body is a hurricane storm of hormones and emotions, flinging out thoughts like shrapnel in the wind. They feel uncontrollable. They feel all consuming. But they will not last forever. And as I learned in the book I read most recently, you have a choice. But we’ll get to that.

I wanted to be a mom as long as I can remember – I’ve told you this in writing. So you’d think that upon the birth of my child – FINALLY! My own child! – I would have been elated. And I really was — it was all very exciting and so surreal. When a day you’ve dreamed about forever finally comes, it’s here in your grasp, it’s like you’re looking around the room to see if anyone else knows it’s happening. Like, “Hey, do you see this!? They’re letting me take this baby home! It’s mine!” It’s weird and wonderful and makes you momentarily question if you’re even old enough for such a responsibility. A whole new person in my care? What? When do the real grown-ups show up?

Nixon was born early(-er than I thought he would be), my milk didn’t come in for five days, he was very jaundice and on a bili light at home for 24 hours a day and at the doctor every single day for the first two weeks of his life. He was having his heel poked for blood draws on all of those days. I was supposed to be triple feeding him and weighing him before and after he ate. And also, did I mention the major event that is c-section and recovery? I was so painfully (or blissfully?) naive before and would think, “Oh, she had a baby,” like it was the simplest thing. Oh my gosh. Having a baby is A WHOLE THING. I actually felt like I was going to split open or rip a stitch every time I would cough or laugh or sneeze. Ask Aaron. I specifically asked him NOT to be funny.

Sweet boy glowing on his bili light.

So those early days were certainly a lot more than just having a baby and simply taking him home two days later like I thought we would. And I’m not saying that other people don’t have it worse. Babies are born every day with more issues than these, but for this first time mom, it felt overwhelming. Add to this complete exhaustion. This would all be a lot on a normal amount of sleep but we weren’t sleeping! Nixon was awake every single hour of the night for weeks. I’m not trying to make it sound worse than it was, but I’m trying to remember it as accurately as possible. I was very (very, very, very) tired. So that’s the backdrop for where I was and what I was dealing with in the early days.

I started praying against postpartum depression when I was six months pregnant. Knowing my own propensity for anxiety and bouts of mild depression in my life prior to Nixon, I just asked God to not even let it be part of my story. I asked him to spare me. And yet, I can tell you now, after coming out of the fog, that he did not. And perhaps it’s so I could come here on the other side and tell you about it.

It started with mild anxiety in the week or so after Nixon was born. This wasn’t initially alarming to me because I felt the same way after my miscarriage in 2018. Anxiety swept over me as my hormones leveled out again after I lost that baby but it went away after a month or so. But with Nixon it lingered longer. I couldn’t let anyone else take care of him even though I desperately needed a break because I was so concerned about him. Thoughts flooded my mind constantly like, Is he eating enough? Is he sick? What if I drop him? What if he dies? Did I miss the chance to connect with him because I didn’t get immediate skin-to-skin when he was born? Were we cooking him on that jaundice light? I still have nightmares about that last one — I would wake up in the night and his little body felt so hot so I would lay awake with his body against mine, waiting for him to feel cool again. (Part of his jaundice care meant taking his temperature every few hours and writing it down. He was never actually overheating temperature-wise, but I felt terrible.)

As someone who values efficiency and order, I prided myself on having my house cleaned up and everything in its place and dinner made when Aaron got home from work, so the fact that none fo those things got done in the early weeks weighed on me. I put ENORMOUS pressure on myself to easily have a baby and get back to my normal life — to just fit him in to my daily agenda and to do so very breezily. When that absolutely did not happen (because it’s outrageously unrealistic) I felt like a failure who just couldn’t balance everything.

And those anxious thoughts continued as the weeks of no sleep wore on, only they seemed to be getting worse. It was always in the dark of night, after a particularly frustrating day, when Nixon didn’t nap well and I didn’t get things done around the house and Aaron and I didn’t have a chance to connect, that’s when the lies would start pouring in. Or I would sit on social media while he nursed reading about all the ways you should simply “watch for sleepy cues” and the baby would practically put themselves to sleep or how everyone was “so in love” with baby from day one, that’s when I’d have horrible thoughts. I would sit in his room, rocking back and forth, back and forth, thinking things like,

“You shouldn’t be a mom. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Moving to Nebraska and having a baby was a mistake.”
“How could you not feel so in love with your child?”
“There is something wrong with you.”

On top of these thoughts I was worried about taking him anywhere because I was afraid he was going to cry. I thought he would start to cry in the middle of a store and I wouldn’t know what to do. I was worried I wouldn’t have his diaper bag packed right and not have the things I needed for him. I was concerned about taking him to my own six-week checkup because I didn’t want him to cry and make me look incompetent. I felt like I would be embarrassed by not being able to calm him and people would look at me like, “Why doesn’t she know how to take care of her baby?” And of course if I was a “real mom” who loved her child, I would know what to do.

One month old

Instagram and social media did not help. I might say you should avoid social media altogether as a new mom. Moms posted pictures of their five week old sleeping through the night and how they were so in love with their baby. I couldn’t get Nixon to sleep longer than three hours, let alone through the whole night. I did what I call the “night dance.” This is the dance of waking up, feeding, rocking, shushing, putting back to bed, and hoping to sleep for twenty minutes before it started over again. This night dance was always a mystery because when I laid down, I had no idea just how much half-sleep I would get before cries pulled me back awake. It honestly caused another side of anxiety where I just dreaded going to bed because I didn’t know what the night would hold.

So I wanted to post pictures of Nixon and tell you how much I loved him, but I didn’t feel like I loved him. I loved my son the moment he was born because of who he is – he’s my son. He came out of my own body. But I looked at him and felt like he could be anyone else’s baby. (I feel so bad about this now I can hardly tell you about it. But it’s truth.) I was taking care of him day and night but I didn’t feel very connected to him – not like I wanted to – not like I knew I could. I cried one day after my mom and sister left my house and told Aaron, “I feel like they love him more than I do.” I told my friend one time, “I guess I just feel like this is a long babysitting job that never ends.” So the love I had for him wasn’t a feeling. I felt like he took a lot of work. I felt like he cried a lot. I felt like he turned my world upside down. I felt like I was barely surviving. But I didn’t feel like I loved him. Love was a choice in those days. It was an action word more than a feeling. But I felt bad that it wasn’t feeling also.

These feelings of non-connection lasted for months. I wanted to connect with Nixon. I wanted to feel so in love with him — that heart-bursting, soul-busting, mushy, gushy love that makes you feel like you could spontaneously combust at the sight of them. I didn’t want to keep ruminating over these crazy thoughts. I knew in my head that these things weren’t true. I could tell myself they weren’t true, but I still felt them. So I stumbled through the early months of having a baby. I felt like a bad mom and a bad wife. As someone who strives to do all things well, I felt like I was doing nothing well, and instead just feeling absolutely crazy — so very unlike myself. I didn’t recognize my body or my own mind. I prayed and prayed and prayed but the feelings of anxiety and sadness persisted.

And it’s not like they were debilitating. I still took care of myself and my child. I was taking care of our home. It could have been much worse and for some, it is. But not feeling like yourself for months on end — feeling like you’re walking around in the dark and you can’t find the light switch during a time you know is supposed to be happy and exciting — is isolating. People kept telling me, “Soak it up!! It goes fast! You’ll miss it!” which just caused me to feel worse because I knew I wasn’t doing it “right.” I wasn’t gloriously soaking. I was doing something more akin to drowning. It felt like trying to navigate through dense fog.

I had plenty of friends and family around to support me, but I didn’t tell anyone I felt this way. I figured everyone else just knew more than me about being a mom because I hadn’t heard anyone say they felt this way. I knew postpartum hormones were wild but by month three I was beginning to believe that maybe this was just my life now and feeling this way was the new normal so I better get used to it. I figured other people didn’t feel this way at all and something was wrong with me. And that’s the biggest lie the devil wants all of us to believe every day of our lives: that we are alone.

Thankfully, by God’s mercy, I came to find that none of this was true.

More to come…