I’m a Working Mom, Too

Prefacing the post by saying that this is my personal analysis and collection of thoughts around the new show “Workin’ Moms” on Netflix. It has received rave reviews and came highly recommended to me, but I wanted to share my POV as a new [working] mom struggling with PPD.

 

Three new moms sit in a mommy-and-me class. “It could be worse,” one of them says, staring down at her deflated milk-makers. “Yeah, but it could be better,” her friend replies, using her hands to push them up to reflect a perkier, younger set.

This is the first scene of the hit Netflix show Workin’ Moms. I, for one, thought that interaction was absolutely spot-on. On the daily I stand in front of my full-length mirror and wonder what happened to my pre-baby body. I related to this portrayal of motherhood immediately, but the episode quickly took a turn I couldn’t quite reconcile with, and continued to make me cringe from that moment. The next dialogue involved a mom admitting she’s struggling with Postpartum Depression. Following this confession, she is then met with horrified stares from other moms. Seeing the expressions on their faces, she goes on to play it off as nothing. Throughout the corresponding scenes we see this mother verbalizing her hurts, anger, anxiety, and ultimately her desire to commit suicide. It’s portrayed in the show as a joke, as something to laugh about, and as if it only affects the ones that can’t “get it together” after having a baby.

Have I watched more than just the first episode? No. Will I? Also, no. At least, it won’t be any time in the foreseeable future. While I can appreciate the media in all forms attempting to make light of serious and sad situations, I don’t find it particularly “funny” while in the midst of this trying season in my life. There is a time and place for these jokes, but for me that time is not now. These scenes made my husband laugh, but as I sat next to him, I fought back stinging tears. I hid my pain, and my mind took me back to some of those dark places I know far too well. What was meant to be a half-hour of laughter and fun for us had turned into a grueling thirty minutes of emotional and mental torture for me. The show re-exposed wounds that have only recently been covered by a bandage. Not only had these wounds remained open during my entire pregnancy, but have continued to grow during the postpartum months.

TO ALL MOMS OUT THERE (expecting, new, experienced, etc.): It’s OKAY to get help. It’s OKAY to talk about your depression and anxiety. It’s OKAY to feel sad, happy, angry, excited, scared, hopeful, etc. What shouldn’t be okay is feeling as though you are the odd one out, or that your feelings and emotions aren’t a big deal and should be kept buried inside due to the stigma that this first episode put on a mom dealing with PPD. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here for you – don’t let the fear of other moms’ judgement keep you from speaking up and getting the support that you deserve. You are strong, you are brave, and you are being the best mom you can to your kid(s).

All Tied Up

Photo by Francesco Paggiaro on Pexels.com

Sometimes you make decisions that you believe to be drastic, life-altering ones; other times, however, you choose to go down paths that the entire world would agree are permanent life changers. For me, that choice was to have a tubal ligation (a.k.a – “getting your tubes tied”). Yes, I know it may seem crazy to some people, including a large majority of those in the medical community that I had to speak with, but it was one of the best decisions I believe I have ever made. I recently posted a story on Instagram, and asked my followers if they had any questions regarding this procedure and my decision to undergo the knife to have it done. There were many inquiries, and this post will hopefully clear up some of them, as well as shed light on aspects that you may not have thought of.

When I look at this face, I can’t help but smile. My heart melts, my racing thoughts come to a slow crawl, and the world seems to stand still. The responsibility of raising a child is not one that I take lightly, nor should I. As parents, Nate and I are very blessed to have been given a wonderful child who was born happy and healthy. Sleeping through the night by 6 weeks, I did not experience much of that new-mom-exhaustion that so many of my friends are having to deal with. This didn’t make pregnancy, childbirth, or the emotional toll of being a mom any easier, though. While throughout the pregnancy I kept my hopes up that maybe my mind would change after he was born (as everyone at my OB/GYN’s office kept assuring me), I still came away from the experience knowing that I never wanted to do it again.

About 3 months after Jameson was born, I realized that the feelings I was experiencing were not going away. My psychiatrist had upped my doseage of anti-anxiety medication, and that helped tremendously with the daily mental hurdles, but the looming worry of ever being pregnant again kept me up at night. Jameson was sleeping soundly, but I was unable to do so. Until the age of about 22, I had desired to have at least 3 children of my own. As I got older, I started to develop a deeper understanding of just how much work goes into being a parent. After having a child of my own, the option of being “done” having children became very attractive to me. Worried that maybe my thoughts were only the source of postpartum depression, and not actually a true desire to never again bear biological children, I called to set up a counseling session with my OB/GYN.

Before meeting with my doctor, I began to research female sterilization. Every article or journal entry I came to would attempt to redirect all conversation about tubal ligation before 30 years of age to the alternative use of an IUD. I have several of my own reasons for not wanting an IUD, but the main reason is that it’s temporary. I wanted something permenant. I knew I didn’t want to have more children myself. A surrogate? Sure. Adoption? Absolutely. Getting pregnant again? HELL NO. I knew the medical rebuttle – patient regret. That was the biggest concern of all doctors, that their patient would eventually change their mind, and that their only options at that point for carrying children would be a likely unsuccessful reversal of the proceedure, or invitro fertilzation – both of which are extremely expensive.

For good reason, I received a lot of backlash from the medical community. Several of the nurses and other doctors in the clinic continuously asked me, “you’re really done?” and, “are you sure?” Even though I was being questioned, I didn’t once bat an eye. I was set on it, and all I needed to do was listen to my doctor. I trusted that if she believed it wasn’t the right path for me to take, she would tell me. I also knew that she was the most in-tune with the emotional and physical toll that my pregnancy had taken on me. After an approximately 45 minute discussion and counselling session with her, she agreed that this was indeed the best option. This did not prevent others (family, friends, and even complete strangers) from letting me have a piece of their mind when it came to having my tubes tied.

On the morning of the surgery, I was thrilled to be headed to the hospital. Aside from the day I came out in 2022, I have never been more at peace with any decision I have ever made. This overwhelming calm came over me as I stepped into the waiting room, and I cannot explain the amount of excitement I felt. Like any form of birth control, the proceedure is not “100%” effective, but it is just about as close as you can get. My recovery was fast and [almost] painless, and I resumed near-normal activity within the first few days. The emotional aspect post-op has been amazing. I have this feeling of freedom and bliss about everything. I have yet to regret any aspect of this choice in the slightest of forms. Some people have asked why Nate didn’t just get a vasectomy. The truth is, we don’t know what’s going to happen in our lives. God forbid that we are not together for some reason or another in the future (fast-forward to this edit in October 2022, we are not), the last thing I would want is to have taken away his ability to have children simply because I didn’t want to do so myself. We came to this decision together, and I believe we are closer than ever because of it.

If you have any more questions about my experience with this, I would love to hear from you! Feel free to leave a comment or reach out via my contact page.

In the Here and Now

That day. I will always remember that day. Concern. Excitement. Worry. Adrenaline. Pain. Anticipation. Exhaustion. Hope. Determination. Joy.

In a nutshell, this was the order in which that day’s emotions compiled within me. Going into labor a month early is typically not planned, so it definitely caught me by surprise. Being so anxiety-prone, this was not how I would have chosen the arrival of Jameson to pan out, but it was meant to be. From my water breaking early in the morning, to being put on oxygen to keep Jameson’s heart rate functional during birth, stressful is an understatement.

Born at 6 lbs and 13 oz, I was told that if he had not been born when he was, a c-section would have been required. I am too small to birth a baby any larger than that, and I barely succeeded doing so with him. During labor and delivery, I pushed for 4+ hours before the use of a vacuum was implemented. When all I could think was, “After all of my hard work, I need to undergo a c-section”, my doctor told me to push as hard as I could while she tried the vacuum one more time.

In that moment, I was handed the culmination of 8 grueling months of pregnancy in the form of a beautiful and resilient baby boy. I was in awe. This little person came from my body. My husband and I had worked hard to prepare for this day. This human life was now our responsibility. My husband beamed as he cut the umbilical chord, and tears welled in his eyes.

These first few weeks have been tough. The physical toll that childbirth takes on your body is immense, but the emotional and mental one is far more difficult to overcome. I find myself questioning a lot of things. I’m sure it’s all normal, but it’s still a mental battle.

“Am I prepared to be a mother? Can I really be enough for this little boy? What if I mess something up? What if he doesn’t like me? Will he be happy? Is my husband still going to love me and find me attractive with a body that’s not quite the same?”

These are the thoughts that plague me when I’m trying to just make it through the day. Then I look at my sweet boy. I have noticed his cheeks filling out. His eyes are able to focus on something close to his face. He is alert and active for longer periods of time. This stage of life feels like it will never end, but it’s flying by more quickly than I realize.

Instead of questioning myself and my ability to be the “best” mom, I’ve realized that the most important thing I can do for Jameson is to be present in the moment with him, by being here and now and fully engaged. The cuddles and hugs and cute facial expressions won’t continue forever, but by loving on him, tuning into his needs, and not fretting the small stuff – like whether or not I dusted the coffee table today – I can make these moments last a lifetime. All too soon I’ll be singing the following lines from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”, because they are quite true in life, and I can’t think of a better way to describe parenthood. Jameson, please don’t grow up too fast…

“How does a moment last forever?

How can a story never die?

It is love we must hold onto

Never easy, but we try

Sometimes our happiness is captured

Somehow, our time and place stand still

Love lives on inside our hearts and always will

Minutes turn to hours, days to years and gone

But when all else has been forgotten

Still our song lives on”

The Struggle Is Real

Generic title, I know, but bear with me for a moment. I have something to say that I haven’t told many people, and I think it’s time for those I care about most to see me at my most transparent state. None of this is news to me, but it might come as a shock to some of you.

Many of you may know me as a happy, laid-back, perhaps even “bold” (as my grandfather would say) young woman. I am definitely not going to say that these attributes aren’t true of myself. I have a very determined mindset, I like to think of myself as a happy-go-lucky person, and I genuinely love the adventures life brings my way. What I don’t love sometimes is life itself. For the past several years I have been struggling with depression, anxiety, PTSD, reactive attachment disorder, and OCD. I won’t go into all of the specifics of these diseases, but I will tell you that it’s very common for them to be intertwined. Many of these years I was unaware of these issues, but I always knew something was “off”.

This is not an easy thing to share, as there is such a stigma around these terms – especially in the church. My diagnoses were not all given to me at once, for peeling back the layers of mental illness is no easy task, even to the most trained psychiatrists. I ended up spending 7 weeks in an intensive outpatient facility after a brief visit to a psychiatric hospital. It took over 3 years’ time to truly identify everything I am living with, and I am still coming to terms with the fact that I have real medically diagnosed issues that are not physically noticeable. The key word there is real.

Before my personal diagnoses, I did not understand that the chemistry of the brain and biological makeup of your thought patterns from before birth could actually be deemed “diseased”. Never once did it cross my mind that the way my brain worked was something that I don’t have complete control over. Being raised in church, you’re taught that negative and depressive thoughts are sinful, and that you have to rid yourself of them. Don’t get me wrong, we have control over our thoughts, for the most part, but when you struggle with mental illnesses such as I do, you can’t just flip a switch or “turn off” the negative and debilitating processes that are ingrained into your specific biological form. If you are blessed to not have mental illnesses affecting how your thoughts flow, this is easier for you to do. I am simply not able to do this, and that’s okay.

My mental illnesses have manifested themselves in a number of ways: Excusing myself from social situations, fear of going places where I will have to interact with people, avoidance of conversation, always looking for the exit to a building, panic attacks (to the point I will lock myself in a closet), hyperventilating from anxiety attacks, suicidal thought patterns, ritualistic thought processes and cleaning behaviors that interfere with my daily schedules and sleep patterns, hesitancy for physical touch, fear of abandonment, and several others.

Just as someone who has high blood pressure or diabetes may need to take medication to control the symptoms of their ailments, so I have to take medication to control the symptoms of mine. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. – they are all medical issues and must be treated as such. Telling someone to just “get over” their broken leg, or voluntarily “stop” their head from hurting when they suffer from chronic migraines would be silly, yet I am guilty of assuming this was how easy it was to cope with mental illness. While there are some coping mechanisms and lifestyle changes that can help lessen the burden of certain aspects of these diseases, the risk of a recurrence of symptoms will never fully go away.

All of this being said – please don’t treat me any differently. I do have good days, and thanks to my medications I can say that most of my days are really good. I am still Jess. I have a passion for all types of food. I enjoy spending time in the sun. I adore traveling and seeing new places. I look forward to meeting my son. This is simply my struggle, as we all have our own, and they are real.

Spaghettitude

Stove. Pot. Water. Pasta. Tomatoes. Herbs. Spices. Pepperoni.

The necessary items to prepare my favorite meal – spaghetti. While they seem simple in essence, they are elaborate in their depth of sentimentality in my life.

I enjoy a delicious meal just as much as Joe who sits next to me at the Thai restaurant each time I’m there; spaghetti, however, is different. Spaghetti is easy to prepare, a staple in Italian cuisine, and holds a special place in my heart.

“You want pasta again?” or “It’s 7:30 AM. You can’t have spaghetti for breakfast.” These were repeated words of my youth…

As a child, I dreamed of one day being able to eat my favorite meal at any time of day, but with no judgement as I spun the pasta around my fork or went for my third helping before 9 in the morning. While this seems like an innocent thought, it wasn’t the spaghetti I wanted – I wanted control. Up until recently, I didn’t realize just how much control I didn’t have over my life.

Headaches. Fatigue. 4-Hour Naps. Nausea. Rashes. Cramps.

Just a few of the painful symptoms I began to experience about a year ago. Attempting to self-diagnose, I began to stay away from gluten.

More headaches. Greater fatigue. Longer naps. Increased nausea. Less-intense rashes. Fewer cramps.

It wasn’t just gluten, and that was becoming clear.

“What could the issue be?”

I have always been quick to rush to the doctor at the first sign of something abnormal; however, being a newlywed, I wanted to save some money before assuming there was something terribly wrong.

“Maybe it’s the lactose. That has to be it.”

Another 2 months of trying everything to manage my symptoms. Nothing was completely relieving the daily struggle I was having with my own body. Finally, I went in to see a GI.

“You don’t have a disease,” my doctor said after the colonoscopy and endoscopy. “But we did have to perform some biopsies. You have inflammation and irritation in your esophagus and intestines.”

So I didn’t have a disease. That was good news, right? I wouldn’t have to worry about my symptoms anymore – this was all just a phase. Wrong.

Diagnosis – IBS, excessive stomach acid, and gluten, dairy, and soy allergies. No more spaghetti the way I had eaten it my whole life. I can no longer eat queso with my corn chips. Eating at Asian restaurants – pretty much out of the question. Sure, there are other options, but my ability to eat at most of my favorite restaurants was now over. I would be confined to a limited list of edible goods for the foreseeable future.

“It can’t be that hard,” I thought. “Everyone is going gluten-free these days.”

I was as far from the truth as I could have been. Becoming fully gluten-, dairy-, and soy-free is not easy (or cheap). The control I thought I had over my food choices manifested itself in a visible lack of self-control. I continued to indulge in meals containing gluten, dairy, and soy, and the allergic reactions and symptoms returned once more. I clearly needed to make a complete overhaul to my diet.

I have finally found products and recipes that I am starting to enjoy, but it is no quick process. Reading labels is a daily occurrence, and gluten-free spaghetti has become my new staple.

This isn’t the experience I expected when relocating to Dallas, Texas. There are so many delicious restaurants to try in the DFW area, and I looked forward to trying every one of them. But there’s a reason for this struggle, and I’ve learned to embrace it.

To anyone else who feels out of control of any given aspect of your life – it’s okay. You are not alone. To anyone who feels disappointed by your individual reality – it’s okay. You will find many more things to become thrilled by in life. Embrace the now, and love you for you.

It may seem like this first blog post is just about spaghetti, but it’s so much more than that – it’s about my ability to deal with disappointment and to be happy, content, and even excited about whatever life throws my way. It’s about having a positive attitude… a “spaghettitude”.