A Long Story

So inspired by my sister in law’s blog where she talks about a lot of tough things I am going to share my story with all of you mostly so I can get it out. You can take it and do with it what you want, but I think it proves that you can’t always judge someone by the façade they present. When I had Jeffrey I was so happy, it was my dream come true. I loved him and I loved that I was a mom. It didn’t take too long before I felt overwhelmed. I was in a hospital in a foreign country I was in pain (by my own doing…I did go natural) and couldn’t communicate with anyone. My roommate hated that I had a healthy baby and Cory always had to leave the room for half an hour when she wanted to go to the bathroom, they never brought me the right lunch, and for all the promises that someone would always be able to speak English, quite often no one could. To top it off I couldn’t figure out how to breastfeed my son. The nurses weren’t much help, since they didn’t speak English they would just tut-tut about how I was doing it and just hook the baby on. I wanted and did cry every day I was in the hospital. After two days I begged the TriCare liaison to ask the doctor to let me go home. I couldn’t handle being in the hospital anymore. They said that they were hesitant because of all the stitches and the fact that I was a new mom trying to learn to breastfeed. At the time I didn’t care. I just had to get out of there.


Things didn’t improve much at home honestly. I was exhausted and emotional and still couldn’t figure out how to feed my son. I cried a lot then. All the time thinking that it was just part of the post labor recovery that everyone had warned me about. I was so frustrated by the whole feeding thing and just feeling like such a failure that I could handle a natural birth but couldn’t feed my own son without bawling. We switched to formula which made me feel like I was even more of a failure as a mom. I got a mild infection a few days later and didn’t even want to hold my baby at all. All I wanted to do was lay on the couch and sleep. Thankfully my mom was there and held him for a few days while I just laid there in pain and misery. I felt even more like a failure when Cory would come home from work and I wouldn’t have the house clean or dinner ready, I think for the first few days he thought it wouldn’t be so hard, but he’s a good man and soon realized that life was going to change.


Time went on, mom went home and I felt like I was just struggling to get through the days. I was always so exhausted; I didn’t feel like doing anything. Unfortunately our house suffered and so did my poor husband. I had energy to take care of the baby and the desire to do little else. I was always on the brink of tears and cried more often than I care to admit. Cory’s work schedule was horrendous; the only good thing about it was that he wasn’t deployed. Not that I saw him all that much anyway with 14 hour days and then a couple hours of homework at the end of the day. I remember telling him I couldn’t do it anymore, that I felt like I needed more help. Being the amazing husband and father that he is, he cut back his school schedule putting his education on hold while I struggled to try to do it all.


I got into a routine with the baby and was starting to feel halfway normal. I was still always tired and still had little desire to do much beyond the necessities. I felt judged and criticized by people who I thought should have accepted me. I was blessed with a very loving and understanding husband though. He would take up the slack when I couldn’t or didn’t, he cleaned, helped with dinner, bathed and put Jeffrey to bed every night. He always said he was sharing the load but I felt like I was still a failure. We made it work though, taking care of our baby, our home and ourselves. But I still didn’t feel normal.


After Jeffrey turned one, I decided that if I hadn’t gotten back to normal yet, that something was wrong with me. Looking back, I should have gotten help much, much sooner. I had post-partum depression that went untreated for a year. I was embarrassed to talk to the nurse about it. I didn’t want to admit that I felt as bad as I did. I spent so much of my time trying to prove to everyone that I was just fine and nothing was wrong. But she asked me the questions and gave me the help that I needed. I hate to admit it but I feel like I wasn’t the best mom that I could have been for my son that first year.


He’s two now and I can say that I am feeling more at peace now that I have in almost three years. It’s taken me two years to recover emotionally from the effects of childbirth. I finally feel like I can handle things and I want to do things just because I want to, not because it’s a necessity or there’s no more clean clothes in the house. It surprises me that I am feeling good now even with Cory away. The few people that I talked to while I was going through this were very supportive, I just felt like people would judge me if they knew that I was having problems. Knowing all that I’ve gone through I can’t say that I am overly anxious to have another baby right away. I need to be the best mom I can for the son and for me right now that means just focusing on that. I am grateful for a husband who loved and supported me even when I was a little nutty. Things are so much brighter now and I feel honestly happy.


You get 5 gold stars if you made it through my whole story. I think I just needed to get it out for myself. It was very therapeutic.