Under the Dome [Part 2]: Fear itself

Trigger warning: The following blog posts are heavy with describing details of Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Anxiety and Postpartum OCD, also including suicidal ideation, intrusive thoughts and various medical procedures/complications during pregnancy and delivery. Please use caution while reading Under the Dome posts if they might trigger you. 

It wasn't until my 28th week that I was finally cleared from all testing following my baby's thickened nuchal fold. They wanted to be prepared when my baby arrived if she ended up needing special care and still warned me that the "reason" may present once she was here.
By the end of the 29th week I went into an anxiety induced preterm labor in which I began to dilate and was taken to Froedtert by ambulance to prepare for a preterm baby who would need a lot of care.

In all the times I had been hospitalized over the years during my pregnancies (which was a few times for each child), no one ever asked me what I was doing prior to my contractions. No one asked me how I was feeling emotionally on any level. Would it had made a difference? I'm not sure... but I would hope it could have.

I eventually got to go home on strict bed rest with the exception of doctor appointments I had to attend 3x weekly. I went from actively working 3 jobs (one full time, two part time) to not even being able to take care of any household chores myself.
It was that time that my anxiety grew from a nagging worry to a full blown constant panic. I spent my days researching how to prevent all things that could kill my baby. I obsessively researched SIDS, sleep accidents, car accidents/car seat safety, common illnesses that could kill newborn and infants, babies being left in a car, postpartum depression and various other things that I would catch from a story or show. I know everyone may do this... but the extent to which I delved into these topics was beyond what I wanted to. My anxiety reared it's ugly head and made me suddenly completely too anxious to have anyone over. A few people offered company or help but I couldn't allow it. I couldn't pinpoint why, but I felt like I was going to internally combust.
It wasn’t who I was. I was normally social with a small group of longtime friends and should have wanted some company in my long hours of sitting in one spot but my mind and body told me otherwise.

7 weeks later, after a sometimes stressful and scary delivery, my daughter was here.
I was IN LOVE. I felt all of those beautiful things people try to describe about how loving your child supersedes any love you’ve ever experienced. 

My anxiety stayed true and strong even in the hospital. One minor fever in my baby and the doctors had me overly paranoid about keeping her as germ free and healthy as I could. Every person who came to visit us made me more and more anxious. I wanted them to lock us in a quarantine. I didn’t even want my own family there. I just wanted to be left alone with my new baby. Love and fear battled inside of me. 

When I went home it was more of the same. My daughter was jaundice and required a UV blanket. Feeding her was a battle that I felt like I was failing and no one was there to tell me otherwise.
I felt immense sadness watching my husband bond with and take care of her. I felt like he was keeping her from me. I felt like he might take her from me. I knew that felt like a irrational thought process but I felt like he hated me and just wanted our baby. 

The days and nights were long. I didn’t cherish the newborn days like people had repeatedly told me to. Instead I wished and prayed for time to fast forward a year or two so she wasn’t so helpless and dependent on me. Maybe if she was older then less could go wrong. Instead of celebrating milestones as she grew, I instead only felt relief that I was closer to her growing up - lessening the chances of things like SIDS. My baby being so helpless and dependent on me was overwhelming.

As the months went on I researched postpartum depression more and more. First once or twice a week and then on a daily basis. I went to doctor appointments with the mindset of answering the postpartum questions honestly, hoping to prompt a discussion from my doctor. I stared at the questionnaire but nothing it asked ever fit me and even when I lied (to prompt discussion), no one ever mentioned my answers or asked about my mood. 

I wasn’t depressed.
I was happy.
I was happy and fear was swallowing me whole.I hardly slept. 

When I did sleep, I woke up several times in a panic to check on the baby. Fear was keeping me up at night... not my baby who had started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks. I put her to bed and then made sure her things were in pristine condition. If I felt like her bottles on the drying rack may have been contaminated, I rewashed them. If I washed them and still felt anxious then I sterilized them. I washed her clothes and dried them and folded them. If I folded them and set them on something that I then thought might be dirty then I would rewash them and wash a sheet or towel with them that I could then set on the ground to set them on. 

One night, when my daughter was 4 months old, I laid down in bed at 2am to hopefully get some sleep and as I shut my eyes and tried to will my fearful thoughts away I thought "This will never ever stop. I'm always going to be this afraid of losing her."
That thought swallowed me whole.
"I will be fearful my whole life... until I am dead. If I died, I wouldn't have to be afraid anymore."
And with that thought, came peace. And for the first time since I got pregnant, my body relaxed and I fell asleep. 

Under the Dome [Part 1]: 1614 days

Trigger warning: The following blog posts are heavy with describing details of Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Anxiety and Postpartum OCD, also including suicidal ideation, intrusive thoughts and various medical procedures/complications during pregnancy and delivery. Please use caution while reading Under the Dome posts if they might trigger you. 

I thought long and hard about how to describe what it feels like to be stuck in the battle of maternal mental health and it wasn't until I was freed that I could come up with that analogy.
You know how some people believe that there is good and evil in all of us? How we make daily choices that make us either good or bad?
Maternal mental health struggles are like that. You get split into two different people. Imagine that the "good" part... the part that helps you flourish in joy, that is made up of a million tiny things that make you "you", gets locked into one of those old style outdoor cellars with the two wooden doors. The wooden doors are old enough to see the world in slots of light and dark. To watch the broken parts of yourself carrying on with a life you had dreamed about since you were young.

One thousand six hundred fourteen days I was trapped in that cellar.
I feel like I owe it to every other mother who suffers any form of maternal mental health struggle to share my story - in it's entirety - with every shameful, heart wrenching, fearful truth that I never wanted to share. I didn't want to, but I have to. With my third baby came this new wave of struggles... to admit to a happy, blissful, and (nearly) perfect postpartum experience and be even closer to knowing why my story needed to be told. If version #3 was how everyone else experienced postpartum and motherhood then they really didn't understand what the rest of us had been going through.

Truth: 40% of women experience maternal mental health struggles starting in pregnancy.
I wish I had known that. It actually wasn't something I came to know until I was pregnant with my 3rd, believe it or not.
The first 12 weeks of my first pregnancy were filled with a lot of obsessive reading about everything and anything that could go wrong. While this is probably what happens with  lot of people, with me it was a bit different since I suffered from PTSD. PTSD never allowed me to truly envision a future - especially not one where I could be a mother - so I was pretty certain that something was going to happen to crush any dreams of normalcy that I had.

In the beginning I called my new OB/GYN and asked her nurse about medications I was currently taking for my PTSD that I had been on for over 10 years. "Stop them immediately" she told me. I asked if she was sure. I told her that I feared that the stress of not being medicated was going to be far more harmful than the medications were. She told me that wasn't correct. I asked her to ask the doctor if I needed to wean off of any of them, she said no.

I sat and stared at a wall before then calling back and requesting to be switched to a midwife.
My midwife listened to everything I had to say and said she would call me back. When she did call back she agreed with my feelings about stress>medication harm and told me that she would support my staying on them. She also suggested that I inform my mental health prescriber before my first doctor appointment.

My mental health prescriber was an AODA specialist since I was taking a low dose of an AODA medication for my PTSD. My reasons for taking the medication had nothing to do with drugs or alcohol but my doctor was unable to ever get out of that mode of thinking.
"You can stay on the drugs if you can research them and prove they are safe. You also need to bring the father in and I need his permission to prescribe to you since this is his child too" he told me.
So, I went home and researched and actually found out that the medication had been used in various other countries as a fertility drug and that the people who took it had stayed on it after conceiving with a lesser outcome of miscarriage while taking it. My husband (then boyfriend) came with me to the next appointment where I made my case and then listened to my doctor explain that he was unaware of what the medications would do to me and needed his permission to prescribe them.

"I trust her" Kevin said with a unwavering stare.
Everyone seems to be in charge of my life except for me.

My worry kept me up at night.
My worry paralyzed me.
My worry had me obsessively scouring the internet.
My worry made my body hum with anxiety so vicious that once, during an argument with my husband, I told him I wished we hadn't gotten pregnant so we could instead get to the point of complete understanding of each other before bringing another life into the world.

I worried about miscarriage...
and sometimes I wished it would just happen already so I could be put out of my worried misery. So I could start over and do things the right way.

My worry caused me to over analyze every pregnancy symptom I had which led to many worried calls to my midwife and then scans and tests to make sure that the symptoms were not a result of a real, sometimes life threatening, problem.
At week 11 I got a call back from the doctor regarding a scan I had to make sure bleeding hadn't been a result of a bigger issue. Thankfully, it wasn't but unfortunately they had found something else. They had seen that the nuchal fold was thicker than it should be and wanted me to see a specialist who would be able to measure properly to confirm. They made me an appointment right away and I hung up to then search what nuchal fold measurements had meant.

Down syndrome.

I talked it over with my husband and did all the research I could before my next appointment. We were going to love a baby no matter what challenges it brought us. I wrote entries about my appointments in more detail but here's the truths I left out:

My doctor never told me that there was an option of "everything is fine". In every option there was going to be a high risk of a mental disability, shortened life, or no life beyond the womb at all. In order to find out "which one" I was going to be doomed with my doctor told me I could either have a blood test done (which would take weeks for the results and not be as specific) or I could have a CVS done (which was going to be done immediately, a sample taken from the placenta via needle through my stomach going in and out of it over a dozen times to collect the needed amount).

"If you take the blood test route you will be further into your pregnancy and by then if we abort due to possible complications we would have to take your baby out in pieces since it will be larger."

I excused myself to the bathroom to sob in private.
That is the moment that my fear went silent. That all of my previous worries had lost their voice and instead caused a constant hum throughout my body that simply said "run".

I will try to fix you.

This photo is of my son Emmett curled up next to my dad today.

What neither of them knows is that the ugly cancerous tumor that is taking my dad's life is the reason that Emmett exists. And what everyone else doesn't know is that Emmett is the reason that I exist on the (somewhat) sane level that I currently do. The trials and tribulations of the last year plus have been that of which I wish I could have just said "forget it" and drown my reality in some sort of mind altering substance.

But I didn't. 

Why?

Because I know better.
The real reason?
I have a child to protect.
I have a child to nourish.

And that child is here because my dad's cancer exists. 

And I won't let that not matter. 

I will fight. Always. 

Emmett is here because a few months after his diagnosis, with a dozen unanswered questions, more uncertainty than not, and a grim outlook even in the best case scenario, I knew we were on borrowed time. It was with that knowledge that I slowly convinced myself and then my husband that sooner was better than later for child #2. Don't get me wrong, I took my time deciding. I asked all the right questions and had valid reasons. They were all reasons and questions I just hadn't had before the cancer. 

I wanted my dad to meet my baby.

And what if...
What if that baby would be a son, the first grandson?
What if my dad beat the cancer and got years to live afterwards then all would be happy and well? Then he could watch him grow.

There were periods of time during my pregnancy when I feared the life inside me wasn't growing. Concurrently my dad was fearing that the life inside of him was growing. There were moments where my doctor appointment wouldn't go well but his would and then times when mine would be looking up and his would be some sort of unexpected bad news.
I wanted both of us to come out winners in this battle.
But that isn't what happened. Instead I watch my dad's face fall into sorrow and sometimes tears when he looks at my son... not because he knows why he exists, but because he knows he won't get to watch him grow.

Cancer.
I could dwell on how much I hate it. I could go on forever about the up and down emotions of watching someone die. How one minute you're grateful for the time you do have and the next minute you're cursing and throwing something across the room at the wall out of a rage that rumbles so low within you that you're not sure you'll ever be rid of it.
Instead I will say that I will first thank my dad for everything he contributed to my life, for working hard and providing for our family, for teaching us right from wrong and work ethic.

And then I will thank him for harboring the (cancerous) life that sequentially gave me Emmett.

Shadow self.

I understand why she did it. 

That is the only thought running through my head in the shower tonight as I tried to force what was left in my travel size body wash onto my loofah.

I understand why she did it.

This is often the only thought I can clearly identify on a near nightly basis for the last month.
When my mind has reached that point I can usually follow up with an explanation and it's normally the same answer: because she lost who she was.

Maybe she lost who she was. Maybe it was just a matter of no one telling her that she had just simply morphed into someone else... but it really isn't that easy to accept.
Motherhood strips you of who you are. At least for a little while it does. You double the amount of people you're responsible for and somehow you are at the bottom of the list.
Sometimes it's harder for some people... and with that comes shame and fear. Fear that if I tell you that I have a postpartum mental health disorder you might think I'm an unfit mom. I might make you uncomfortable. You might not know what to say.

We need to learn to celebrate and acknowledge the people we become when motherhood is added to the ever-growing list of things we juggle.

When I first heard of Sasha's passing I told myself that would never be me. I cried for her babies. I wanted to pretend that I didn't understand. The more I learned about Sasha, the more she sounded exactly like the things that people would say to describe me. That scared me even more.

I could be her.
That could be me. No, that could never be me.
And then, within a week, I had a moment of clarity in which I understood her.

That's what I'm thinking about as I'm showering at 7:30pm as my daughter lays outside of my bedroom door crying for me. That's what I'm thinking at 9pm when my husband and daughter are asleep and I realize that my son has blown out of his diaper onto the pjs I just dressed him in and on my own freshly changed clothes. That's what I am thinking when I type this next to a kicking, cooing, wide awake baby.

Is motherhood shameful?
Because that's what it feels like.
Sometimes it feels like punishment.
I happily live sleep and breathe my children but at the end of the day I'm not entirely sure what it is that leads me to identify and sympathize with Sasha Hettich.

Maybe like me, she felt really lost.
And felt really alone.
And overwhelmed.
And under-appreciated.
And she felt like no one noticed all the things that mattered.
Like she didn't matter.
Like being here was far more frightening than feeling like this for the rest of her life.
Of being afraid for her children.
For what the world would do to them.
For what she would contribute to who they become.
Failing them.

Two under two has very quickly forced me into the realization that any type of career or work outside the home is nearly impossible unless I am ok with giving my entire paycheck over to a daycare provider and essentially pay them to raise and make memories with my babies. At the end of any day I knew that I wouldn't want to take my last breath and think to myself "Why couldn't I have worked more and spent less time watching my children grow up?"

So, I succumbed to the fact that I would need to temporarily be at home with the kids instead of continuing to follow my own path.
My own path... or maybe the path I was on that led me here.
Maybe they are my path?
Maybe I'm here for them?
Maybe my purpose in life was create them and allow them to grow into the people the world needs them to be.

I used to be human.
I used to be someone who contributed to society in a way that society is willing to recognize.
I used to be able to answer the allusive question of What do you do? with an answer that I was proud of because it gave some illusion that I "was somebody". The truth is that I'm now more important than I had ever been.
What do I do?
I work 24/7.
I nourish my baby with my own body.
I do everything humanly possible to make sure my kids are happy and healthy and thriving.
Learning and growing and safe.

But on the other hand my children dictate everything I do or don't do even down to the clothes I can wear. Taking care of them 24/7 leaves me in a struggle with my travel size soap at 7:30pm trying to figure out how to become someone recognizable.

That's how I end up here every night.
Sitting in my own head.
Sometimes honestly wondering if I am still alive or if I'm in some strange purgatory where I only think I'm alive and contributing to the world. Maybe when we die, life just goes on and we think we are part of it.

I'm overwhelmed.
But tomorrow is a new day and in the morning I will sing song good morning to my daughter with my son tucked underneath my arm as I let light through her window. And she will smile and say "momma!" in the sweetest voice I've ever heard.

It's not my children I'm afraid of.
It's the rest of the world.

Sasha, I'm sorry if you felt like you weren't human.
You weren't.
You were fucking super human. And you deserved to feel that way.

This is not an elephant.

I wanted to show the world my new prized possession but I didn't know how.
Look, I have a new elephant painting! 
Look at my new elephant painting by Danny O'Connor. 
Look at my new elephant painting by Danny O'Connor gifted to me by Sandy.

No. Those statements mean nothing.
This elephant print deserves the justice and explanation that it's worth. So, I will tell you.

And of course, like most things that are important to me, it all started with a book.

A few years ago I picked up the book Hopeless by Colleen Hoover at Target. It was in a section of "If you loved this, then try this!" and I forget what it was a suggestion off of, but it caught my eye.

That book changed my life in so many positive ways.

It wasn't long before I found other fans of Colleen Hoover and became part of an amazing community. Then in no time at all I caught up on all of her books and joined everyone else in impatiently waiting for her brain to purge more words onto paper. Her brain is so, so beautiful.

Authors can do wonders. They can change people's lives in so many ways.
Colleen Hoover isn't just an author with a beautiful brain but she is also this real, down to Earth human being with an impeccable sense of humor and a huge heart. The people that gathered in this Colleen community were also amazing people with huge hearts.

Colleen wrote a book called Confess that came out earlier this year. I read the story, which centered around an artist who painted beautiful works of art based on anonymous confessions that he receives.

Oh good, you read a book.
No, there is never simplicity in reading a book. 1st because I have PTSD and books help me escape my mind and 2nd because this particular book was read at a particularly hard time in my life. I was newly pregnant with my 2nd child and we had a 6 week scan the day before we left for a road trip family vacation. That 6 week scan did not show what we had hoped it would show but instead it showed an underdeveloped embryo. The baby's growth along with blood work made there be a pretty good chance that I had developed a blighted ovum - meaning the baby would not continue to develop.

I would have to wait a week to go back and have another scan. I would go on vacation for a week and spend my days not knowing if the child inside me was thriving or dying.

Getting lost in Confess was one of the only ways I could stop my brain from obsessively wondering what my baby's fate would be. I won't get into all the reasons why I loved this book because I want to keep it spoiler free, but that book kept me sane in moments that I couldn't stand to be awake.

Colleen paired up with a real artist to depict the paintings that she talked about in the book. He brought the character of Owen to life. Throughout the book are beautiful images of Danny's work (as Owen).

I never ordered any of the art from the book - but I did continuously check on an elephant painting print that Danny had in his store because elephants mean so much to me.
Elephants have PTSD like I do... elephants appear big and powerful on the outside even though they are broken and sad on the inside from loss and trauma.

The way Danny captured the elephant in his painting actually shows that - in that one eye that is shown. I can see that elephant's pain and the truth in that one eye.

A few months ago when I was having a particularly hard time with my PTSD I started to focus on getting ready for my son to enter into our family. The blighted ovum was a false alarm and he started to grow beautifully after our vacation. I started to have to decide to part with some of my previously most prized possessions.
Instead of selling the things I loved, I decided to just make sure they went to good homes. So I jumped on my Colleen Hoover community and posted these things only asking for a reimbursement of shipping and handling since I was increasingly low on money (especially with my mental health going downward and losing the ability to work as much as I used to).

That's how I met Sandy. She has the most beautiful soul and a gorgeous smile. We started to chat back and forth and it didn't take long before I knew that she was my person. The person who would be gifted my many prized possessions of special John Green signed items that I had and adored and wasn't even really sure that I could part with.

When I found her, I knew she needed them more than I did. She needed to admire their beauty. I knew she appreciated them the same way I did. So I sent them to her, sometimes sending a bonus print or item. I was happy they had a new home and that I had a new friend that I could chat with until the late hours of the night about books and how they healed our hearts and busied our minds.

Sandy is a big fan of Danny's work and has many amazing Danny art pieces hanging in her special corner of her house that is filled with things that bring her joy. One time when we were talking about how amazing Colleen and Danny were - I think I very briefly mentioned about the elephant print I wanted when she asked if I had any of his art.

Weeks later, she purchased that print for me and sent it to me as a thank you. A thank you that wasn't needed in any way, but appreciated in every way. A thank you that represented a bond that stretched over states and generations. A friendship indirectly created by Colleen.

So, now the elephant hangs in that one special spot, next to my bed - above my night stand. There had only ever been one other print that had hung there for the last 12  years and there was no doubt in my mind that it needed to be replaced once that elephant showed up on my doorstep.

It's not an elephant.
It's a representation of all that is good and whole in this world.
It's Colleen and her heart, it's Danny and his depiction of the world - pouring his heart on to a canvas, it's Sandy and our bond and friendship that came out of nowhere and everywhere all at once.

It's my place in the world.

Visit Danny's website and his Facebook page
If you weren't convinced that Colleen is awesome already, check out her amazing charity The Bookworm Box
Order a copy of Confess
Check out all of Colleen's other amazing books!

I love you Bliches!

Fun fact: My blog is named after a line in Colleen Hoover's novel Ugly Love :)

This is all for you, don't wanna hide the truth.

When I was younger and didn't quite yet know that I suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) I used to lay awake in bed at night and dream up ways of showing people what was happening in my mind. I would replay my day and I would go up to the people who had misunderstood me or gotten angry at me and I would touch my finger tips to the side of their head and I would make them see what I saw, feel what I felt.

I would watch their face twist with horror and I would watch them fall to the ground wrapping themselves in a ball and begging me to take it away.

And then they would know.
And then they would stop being frustrated with me for being different.
And then I wouldn't feel so alone.
Maybe then it wouldn't be so scary to live in my head like I did because people would understand a small bit of what I was constantly going through.
Maybe they would be more kind and gentle with me.
Maybe they would speak softer.
Maybe they would ask if I needed a hug if I looked afraid.

I spent years going through this nightly routine of thinking of ways to show people.
It's been almost an entire lifetime wishing I had that special secret power. The routine eventually stopped but the wishing hadn't. I still spend entire days thinking of how I can show it. Of gathering resources and feverishly writing my thoughts out to be read and reread and understood.

I don't think it matters.
Not to the people who it's intended for.
It's intended for the ones who don't understand but I'm not sure how far it reaches.
It's not understood. Something is missing.

It's not lack of resources. I sometimes spend my days sharing them with those closest to me.
It's not lack of explanation. I will talk and explain until I'm literally blue in the face.
It's not lack of accessibility. I make my blogs public.

I am but one person.
I can't make a difference, why am I even trying.
Nothing changes.
My mental health problems turn into (or already are) disabilities. People don't leave their houses. They don't explain themselves. Why would they? This world is full of people with their faces pointed towards the sky. Not very many bad things happen up there besides occasional bad weather.

My dad has cancer.
Cholangiocarcinoma. It's a cancer of the bile duct and it typically presents and resides in the liver.
It's really rare and the cause was unknown. It wasn't anything he did. He didn't cause it.
Well, I mean, he exists, so I guess he is partially to blame for it.
When he got diagnosed my mom was overwhelmed so I started to go along to all of his appointments. Besides listening to doctors explain his case and the cancer and all of the treatment options and drugs, I did research. Any time I needed to understand something further, I asked a question or I looked things up. When I couldn't find an answer or needed validation I would ask his doctor. "Let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly,..." and then I would say what needed to be said for clarification. When I got home, I would write it all out in both ways that any medical people would understand and in complete layman's terms and then directly state whether it was good or bad and how it affects him. People helped in any way they could. No one really knew what it was like to have cancer, but they knew it wasn't easy. They knew it was life threatening and required treatment and care and kindness and prayers. People were gentle and helpful and encouraging and sympathetic.

What I did, wasn't that hard. He is my dad, it was affecting him and the entire family and anyone that loves him was concerned and wanted more information on what he was going through and how to understand it and what they could do for them.

Why, are we as a society, completely unable to view mental health in the same way?
My PTSD brain, is completely physically different and altered. I didn't do that. You can't blame me.
And my postpartum problems... would you blame my kids? My choice to have kids? Did I do it to myself? Is it a choice?
I'm not asking anyone to be an expert on it. On me. Not in the same way I became well versed in Cholangiocarcinoma and the various treatments that my dad went through.
Do I hope for that level of effort and understanding? I used to. I used to want a "person". After much debate and years of trying, I think I'm giving up on that one for now. It always ends in distance and frustration. Why sit with your ear to the ground when you can easily go back to pointing your face at the sky?
I'm also not asking for people to feel sorry for me in the same way they felt sorry for my dad and his cancer. I'm simply asking for a small ounce of kindness and gentleness and care. Maybe it will try to counter balance all of the shame and guilt and self hate.

I know, I know. "This is ridiculous, people DIE from cancer. How can you compare the two?!"
As of 2013 suicide is the second leading cause of postpartum death.
Google search postpartum suicide. It's not a selfish way out, it's a side effect of this maternal mental health problem that people don't think is important enough to properly voice.

Do I want to die?
I want to raise my kids. I want to know they are safe and loved and that no one else is replacing me in a mother type roll that could really never compare to the extent in which I love my kids.
I do understand the ones who don't want to live anymore. I sometimes whisper it within my own head. "I get it..."

And that makes me feel more alone than I have ever been.
Why am I even wasting my time on this? I am only one voice.

I might only have one match, but I can make an explosion. 

I broke my legs.

I broke both of my legs.
Fibulas to be specific... just the lower portion, below my knee.
This is all very new to me. I have perfected the art of living with a broken arm after having to do so several times over the last decade but this feat is new. I've never been without the use of my legs before and even though it's the same (a broken bone in my limb), it's still very different.

I'm confined to my house unless someone can put ramps on the steps to help me with my wheelchair. Some days if I feel like I am in dire need to get something from outside the house I might spend all day trying to figure out how to get both me and my daughter out of the house. It takes a long amount of time and patience. The smallest setback feels devastating.
Sometimes my husband is home and able to help out with this task. He sets up the ramps for me to wheel down and he easily carries my daughter to the car. Everything is far less trying and I breeze through a trip to the store without much effort.

Sometimes I am able to get out of the house to at least allow my daughter to run and play. Everything looks and feels so much more frightening from my new chair. I can't yet easily navigate the hills and bumps of the road as I previously did with my own legs.

My workplace has a long flight of stairs leading to the top. There is no way for someone to easily get both me and my chair up to my office so most days I have to stay at home. My checkbook dwindles.

As the trips to the store become less and less and the money becomes less and less, I find it necessary to always stock up on things that are essential. I fear running out of things and not being able to go to the store because of my broken legs. If I don't have these things I start to panic.

My husband talks to me throughout the day. The days drag long on him because I am constantly in need of his help. I can see it wearing on him. He asks me how I am doing throughout the day but doesn't seem to want my answers to coincide with my new found struggles of being in my chair or in physical pain. I struggle but I can tell he is just too tired. He can see I'm in pain and that I'm trying but I don't think he will really know the challenges of not having the use of his legs unless it happened to him. He doesn't understand the constant pain and how it affects you in a bigger way than can be described in words.

I forgot that I never mentioned how I even broke my legs.
I'm not going to say it was my daughter's fault, because it really wasn't. I will tell you that it did happen as a direct result of her. All of the right things had to fall exactly in to place for me to get hit the way I did. I was protecting her.

She will always be worth anything and everything.

It's for her that I will get out of my wheelchair when I can't get through doorways or areas in the house and it's for her that I will gladly crawl on my hands and knees. It's for her that I do whatever I can to learn about how to be in less pain and be more mobile. To heal. Unfortunately there aren't many interventions that can be done for pain because of my current pregnancy. I just have to learn how to deal with it. How to get through every day pretending it's not as bad as it really is. To pretend I can sleep just fine when I know for sure I toss and turn and wake up quite often because of it.

I cried out in pain a few days ago and I was asked to please keep my pain to myself unless it was caused by that person. Even if I explained afterwards that it wasn't their fault. Every day people either stare at me or expect me to be better if I look like I might be in better spirits.

"She lifted herself from her wheelchair to the couch so she must be getting better."
"She is smiling, not grimacing, so she mustn't be in pain."

No one knows what really goes on in my head. How I struggle to be normal even though it's clear that I'm unable to function normally. Not many people can tell when I feel as broken as I am. I have to ask people to help me. I don't like to do that.

I hear some people say I'm over reacting.
I'm not sure how you can over react a broken limb. Maybe they think it doesn't hurt? Do they think I'm faking? Do they think they could do better or control it or prevent it had it been them?

I go to see a doctor on a weekly basis to talk about my progress and to help me find new ways of doing with things and coping with my current disability. It won't be there forever but I do need to learn new ways of life to make it through. I focus on things that I am able to do. The mundane ones. It's all I can really do.

I don't really feel right telling my support people how I feel day to day. When people ask how I'm doing they just want a mere "fine" instead of the loaded truth.

I feel empty.
I feel alone.
I feel misunderstood.
I feel like no one really actually wants to deal with what this actually is.

What's easiest of all - is to pretend like mental health is any different from the physical problems you might stumble upon. Like it doesn't need special treatment. Like you don't have to make any changes to how you treat someone when you can't physically see their wound. Like invisible wounds aren't important, aren't real.

I didn't break my legs.
But I just explained how it feels for me having PPA/PPOCD in the comparison to something you might easier understand.

Maternal mental health needs a voice.
Mine may not be very loud and sturdy, but I will surely be chanting along side my warrior moms and making sure I am, if nothing else, part of something more.