The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

So today's post will be part confession, part update, and part therapy.

This past week, we've crossed the Three Month mark. For three full months now my body has been void a growing bebe (sugarbutt is reading the word 'fetus' here... i just know she is). For three months our car has had an extra passenger. One who makes no beef about hating every minute of riding anywhere. For three months now, there have been new sounds and sights in our house that point less to an intruder- but more to a new member. For three full months our hearts have changed to include the addition of the cutest and sweetest littleDuck you've ever seen.

If we've ever had a talk about motherhood (and lets be honest, that's all we ever do here! ;) then you know how much I cling to milestones. Milestones validate all the hard times... they add priority and magic to all the good times. They serve as a marker of where you have been and where you could be going. They remind you that life is in the details- and no matter what, time marches on...

To keep things honest and authentic, I've got to confess that things lately haven't been so great. In fact, some days they've been just plain hard. I wasn't going to post anything about my personal delima- but after talking to a handful of really competent, inspiring mothers- I feel that there is no shame in this story. In fact, it's quite triumphant.

Let's dive in shall we? When Jax was born I did great. Seriously. I took this new bebe in stride and recovered and felt like a million bucks. In fact, I felt so good- and was handling it so well that I kind of amazed myself. Shouldn't this be harder? I mean, I just birthed a human being and I'm up on my feet cooking, cleaning, creating, homemaking, and all.together on top of the world! Odd, yes. But I felt good, regardless.

BUT things started to change. Abruptly. At my six week postpartum visit, my doctor put me on the 'mini.pill' as birth control. This was standard procedure and a typical pill for nursing mothers. It allowed me to prevent pregnancies while still nursing Jackson. Fine by me. Whatev. I certainly didn't want to get pregnant so soon... and nursing Jackson is a priority to me. So it's all good. However, things started to change for me as soon as I started to take this medicine. I didn't correlate the two... probably because I was busy tending to two human lives that rely souly on my ability to care, tend, and provide for them... a functioning home of four... and a recuperating, nursing body. All while waking to nurse the bebe every few hours at night. So I wasn't good at making connections here! (In fact, I've suspended all memory and remembering functions until uninterupted sleep resumes at night. FYI.)

I started to feel really tired. Like could hardly.drag.myself.out.of.bed.tired. I felt like I was underwater... walking with bricks tied to my ankles. I was sad. Aggressive. Frustrated. Angry. And most of all, OVERWHELMED. I had some of the most bleak thoughts I've ever thought in my whole life. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I literally felt like my three boys' lives and happiness depended 100% on me and my ability to be the best for them all the time. I could hardly breath under the pressure. *My sister suffered some fairly tough postpartum depression after the birth of her first child. Ever since then, she's been really protective and proactive with MY motherhood experience in hopes to ward off any lingering, inappropriate postpartum feelings. Plus, I've enlisted a few close friends and my husband in helping monitor me and encourage me if I were to need it. Well, in addition to these desperate feelings and frequent headaches- I knew something wasn't right. I was not right. I was nothing like myself. Something was dreadfully wrong.

The good news? I started to research this particular pill I was on. I didn't have to dig very deep to find tons of other stories just like mine! I felt instantly relieved that perhaps this wasn't true postpartum depression- rather side effects from this birth control pill. After talking with my doctor, he immediately recognized my experience as a reaction to this medication. *whew* I stopped taking the pills immediately and have been feeling better day by day ever since. *VICTORY* Now, I will say that I am annoyed by having had this experience but am so thankful that it only took a couple weeks for me to realize and fix this problem. I just wish that birth control options weren't so hard on the woman! I mean... of all our choices out there, none of them are really easy on us. The responsibility of this does rest heavy on our shoulders completely. You know?

Plus, it scares the heck out of me how trusting I was to introduce a new drug into my system. *My doctor is great. I think he's really incredible, caring, and supportive of me. So this isn't on him.* BUT had I researched this medicine prior to taking it, I could have avoided this pit.of.despair that I fell in to. And better yet, it would have put me on a natural path of mental health earlier.

Anywho, I'm grateful to have reached this Three Month victory having dodged that awful bullet. I've got a great support system who keep an eye on me and encourage me every day. Being a mom of two hasn't been easy for me- But it's so much easier now that I don't have artificial hormones pushing me around! I was made for this job- and I know now more than ever how important it is for me to be healthy in all ways! I mean it's like that old saying, "If Momma ain't happy, no body is happy." So true, right?

So if there are any young mothers out there reading my blog- take heart. We've got a big job. The biggest job of all. AND it's not easy. But with the right friends and some honest conversation we can navigate this journey of motherhood, one milestone at a time. Right?

As mothers we all understand sacrifice. We sacrifice our bodies, our time, our passions, our freedom, our energy--- but in the end, it's these faces that make me mean something. Because of these faces, I matter. Here are a few pics of my beautiful boys... the ones that make all this hard work worth while.



Three months looks good on him, no?



Oh, James. He is still so shiny.new to me...

I love my bebies. Completely. We've come so far...

Thanks for following along with me in this journey... as I strut, soar, fall, confess, and find my way back. Life is good.

Peace, love, and soy milk.
xo
lmkw