Postpartum Depression ain’t got nothing on me now!

For a little over a year, I suffered terribly with postpartum depression.  My poor husband was stuck with a crazier-than-usual version of myself, and my dear son got to know life with a depressed and nearly useless mother.

I can’t yet bring myself to discuss the way ppd makes you feel, or not feel as may be the case.  I can’t tell you all about the emotions, the exhaustion, the just not caring.  But I will.  Eventually.

Right now I feel the need to celebrate.  A few weeks ago, I found out that I’m expecting again, and I was in tears.  I was terrified that I would have ppd again.  It seemed that I had just begun to get over it.

I had just a couple of weeks before begun to feel better.  I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t hate every minute of the day and night.  I actually slept past 4am several days in a row.  Also, I had finally reached my goal weight and bought a few things to wear.

Then the news of another baby came when I wasn’t quite ready.  I almost panicked.  How could I do this to myself? To my son? To my patient but exhausted husband?  I had finally found a small amount of relief and I just wanted to get better!

I was pregnant, Duh.

I don’t know if this is true for other women who have had postpartum depression, but at least for me, it’s not possible to be pregnant AND have ppd at the same time.  The hormones are just different.  So feeling better, feeling less depressed, did not come just before I got pregnant, but as soon as I got pregnant.

The shock began to wear off and over the next week I felt a bit better everyday.  I have another baby to look forward to knowing.  I have so much to look forward to.  AND SO MUCH TO DO!

I didn’t plan this pregnancy.  Thanks to the ppd, I even thought, for just a second, that I didn’t want to have another baby.  Ever.  But then I fell in love with my baby.  I feared for her well-being.  I worried about the beers I’d had the week before, and the acrylic nails I smelled at the spa and the seared tuna I’d made a while back.  Just like a normal mom.

Just like a real mom.

Just like a mom without ppd.

A few months back, I said that I would do anything to get over the depression.  I thought about going to the doctor, even though I’m still breastfeeding, and I know that any medication would end up in my son’s food supply.  I’m glad I didn’t, since none of those medications are safe during pregnancy.

Life is hard enough without being depressed and feeling like a crap mom.  Now, thank God, I have a few months before the baby comes and at least that long without feeling depressed.  I’m concentrating on bonding with my son by being a fun mommy and not a sad one.

Also, I have a ton of things to do!  I really don’t have time to be depressed, and I’m so glad that I’m not. …for now.

“Surprise, Stupid!”

I’ve been really flaky lately. I’ve also been tired and astonishingly hungry. I tend to be a tad anxious anyway, but one day about 2 weeks ago I woke up feeling like someone had somehow slipped me some bad, speedy acid in my sleep. I couldn’t see straight (even more than usual) and I felt like something was different. I was nervous, paranoid, “cracked-out”.

In spite of feeling altogether strange, I was actually feeling much better. After the birth of our son, I found myself with postpartum depression. Suddenly it was gone. I didn’t feel depressed anymore. I hoped that my hormones might have finally, thankfully, been regulated. I hoped, but I knew better. (More on why later.)

The next day, things just got worse. I’m breastfeeding and I was hungrier. “The kid must be nursing more, and increased demand is sapping me,” I decided. Then after a week, with me being and feeling stranger everyday, I decided I’d better take a pregnancy test. I didn’t need one to confirm that I was pregnant to myself, but to others. I knew.

I know that babies are a blessing. I know that this is all a part of the grand design of the universe. I know that THIS, love and babies, is what it’s all about; babies are life, and are what makes the whole world keep going.

That didn’t stop the tears.

I cried for about a day. I cried for my 14-month old son, who needs my full attention still. He’s still in diapers and still breastfeeding and still co-sleeping with us.

I cried for my family members, who are already under a ton of stress due to physical disability and other issues, including addiction to prescription drugs.

I cried for my husband, who is our sole provider and worries about me constantly.

Mostly though I cried for myself. I haven’t felt like I’ve been a particularly great mother in the first year of my son’s life. Having another child now seems like insanity. How could I let this happen? My chances of having ppd a second time are high. What if it gets worse? What if it goes into full-blown postpartum psychosis? In addition to the ppd I’ve experienced other physical problems that seem to be neurological, and I’m absolutely terrified. I don’t know what I have, and what I will pass down to my children.

I suffered for so long with the depression. I don’t want to spend the next 8 months fearing a relapse. My family can’t take more stress, and thanks to my stupidity they have no choice.

I know where babies come from. I even knew when I ovulated. It took 5 years for us to conceive our son, and we just didn’t think it would happen for us again.

Surprise, Stupid!

Cleanlessness Is Next To Godlessness.

Chaos has reigned at my house for too long.  My home used to be clean and bright and it always smelled like food.  Now, we have too much stuff, and too many pets, and you can really tell.  The house was a little messy occasionally, as homes tend to be, but now, it’s shameful. I’m pretty sure things got out of hand when we changed the guest bedroom into a nursery.  Also, I’m amazed at how many Earthly possessions two people can gather in a period of just eight years. Too. Much. Stuff.

When we bought the house in 2002, we had nothing. Ok, we had a futon. I remember saying “How are WE ever going to fill this house?”  Two thousand square feet seemed like SO much more than the 475 square feet of the efficiency apartment we’d shared.  “SEEMED LIKE.”

Within a month the house was furnished.  A lot of our ill-gotten loot came from family who upgraded their own stuff and gave us the old.  So, over the years, the hand-me-downs were replaced, but guess what?  I still have most of the original stuff that furnished this house.

With so much stuff around, and all of the closets and cabinets crammed full, cleaning is a challenge.  Usually, when I do a major cleaning, I put things away and then clean surfaces and disinfect.  Now, however, there simply is no available space to put things away.  I have to gut the house, from the inside out, and there’s little space, so it’s proving to be a challenge.

I actually have woman’s clothing in about 10 different sizes, including

BEFORE

maternity clothes.  I even have vintage designer church clothes that belonged to my grandmother. Unlike most households, my husband has as much clothing as I do, and a lot more hair products.  I’ve been begging him to donate his pleated pants for ages.  He even keeps up with me in his shoe collection, and he wears exactly 2 of his 40 pairs.

I am going to sell, gift, or donate half of what I own.  I have a lot of vintage items from the 1960s, because when my grandparents sold their lake house, I ended up with a lot of the odds and ends from there.  Much more recently, I acquired a lot of what my grandparents had in their residence. I have a sectional sofa that needs to be re-upholstered, but I’m saving for a friend.  (Jesse, if you’re reading this, COME GET THE DANG COUCH, or I’m giving it to Victor, who re-upholsters stuff for a living, unless Daisy wants it…)  I even have my late step-father’s bachelor pad randoms.  Anyone interested in a chest of drawers with a small pot leaf carved into the top? It’s not my artwork, for the record.

My Plan: this weekend, I have to sort and sort and sort until ALL of the things we’re not keeping can fit into the garage and are actually in there.  Then, I need to find homes for all of it.  I have some ideas, and I’ll let you know what happens to the stuff, if it’s interesting.

First things first though, and that will require several hours in the garage, making space!  Too bad I waited until it’s 95 degrees and 95% humidity.

I vow to NEVER have more belongings than I have space for, no matter how sentimental or valuable.  If cleanliness is next to Godliness, it’s time for me to get closer to God.

Great-Great-Grandmother’s Cornbread

One Happy Boy

Over 125 years ago, my great-grandmother’s mother taught her how to bake cornbread shortly before dying in childbirth. My mother learned how to make it, but not from her mother, who thought bread was fattening and didn’t eat much of it, but from her grandmother. Then years later, she saw my father’s grandmother making HER cornbread, and it was exactly the same. This recipe means a lot to me, and I thought it would be the right one to share first. This is an antique way of making cornbread, and the secret is in the pre-heating of the oil and the pan. Trust me.

Classic Southern Buttermilk Cornbread

Classic Southern Buttermilk Cornbread

Prep Time, 10 minutes, Baking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups yellow corn meal
1 cup all purpose flour
5 teaspoons double acting baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, well beaten (I use jumbo eggs)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Pour the oil into an oven-proof skillet, preferably cast iron, and place in the hot oven.
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: cornmeal, flour, baking soda, and salt.
In a large heat-proof bowl, combine the wet ingredients well. (Here, heat-proof just means not plastic. Glass is ok, as long as it’s tempered.)

Add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix just a bit. It should be lumpy. CAREFULLY pour the hot oil into the batter, and quickly mix until it’s integrated. If it’s still a little lumpy, that’s fine. Quickly (while the pan is still hot) pour the batter into the pan.

Bake for 25 minutes or until it’s done, when you can stick a toothpick into it and not see batter.

Serve warm with butter, and maybe honey. With pinto beans, you have an old Texas staple and a complete protein.

Slice of Heaven, with Butter

*An alternative is to mix the batter and then pre-heat the oil and pan, which I recommend if you’re likely to be distracted. It’s important to not over-heat the oil; I keep it in the oven for no more than 5 minutes.

Gambling for Babies?!?!

I do not claim to be a mothering expert.  I will admit to being a n00b without hesitation. I don’t even want to be an authority on “how to raise a child”. That being said, I think I may be better qualified to judge a kid toy than the companies that make them.

Since getting pregnant and having a son, I have been gifted, purchased, or otherwise acquired a plethora of multicolored plastic junk, some of which had lead paint or tiny magnets or dangerously sharp pointy parts.  These things annoy me to no end.  I’m starting to think that either I’m paranoid, or China really is out to get me.

Recently, my son was given a bouncy ball full of mystery liquid, glitter, and a strobe light.  Migraines, thought to be a form of seizure, run in my family, and as soon as I bounced that ball, activating the strobe light inside, I got what migraineurs call an aura, and the headache soon followed.  What if I was likely to have a grand-mal style seizure? Or what if my son had epilepsy.  There was no warning on the ball that it would strobe, no warning about seizures, nothing.  In theory, it’s a cool product, but the light is blinding and painful to look at, especially in a darkened room.

Lately, with all of my attempts to clean and organize, I’ve been relying on toys to distract my toddler.  Maybe I should come up with a new plan.  Last Christmas, my mother-in-law gave to my son a Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Learning Workbench. It’s a cute and interactive toy, seemingly perfect for a toddler.  The workbench comes with a hammer, which is theoretically used to pound down some clear plastic “nails” that light up.  A sorta-cute mostly annoying little voice sings and counts it has music and several settings for volume and types of learning.

None of the settings will take care of the problem that I have with this toy.  On the right side of the “workbench,” is a pull-lever that is a replica of the handle on a slot machine.  Pulling down on the “drill press” handle give that satisfying click-click-click of a slot machine.  There’s even a jackpot; rarely, it will play a full-length version of the ABCs.

Notice the drill press slot machine arm on the right.

The child even knows that he’s being rewarded occasionally with this extra-long, but tinny and difficult to understand, song.  He gets excited when he “wins,” even if D sounds just like B, G, and E.

I’m not saying that my son will become a gambling addict because of this toy. But really, do we want to risk that kind of thing? What if the toy mimicked the use of drug paraphernalia? Or a sex act?

About 10 years ago, a Harry Potter Broomstick that VIBRATED was on the market for a short while. The little girls especially loved their vibrating brooms.  What a shock.  I’m sure the company that made the brooms had no intention of helping a generation to lose its innocence, but they came too close for comfort.

From now on, I think I’ll be paying much closer attention to the toys that enter my home.

And I’ll be keeping my son out of Vegas, just in case.

A Project a Day Keeps Insanity at Bay

I always wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom. Really. Now that I am one, I hardly know what to do with myself.

Not that there isn’t plenty to do.  Every nook and cranny should be re-organized.  I need to sort ALL of my Earthly possessions and lose about half of them.  I’m behind on EVERYTHING.  And every time I make a To Do List, and lay out my grandiose plans to reclaim my living space, my KID tears up the list.  I take this as his way of saying “Nice try, Mom, but we have other plans.” And his plans win.

For my sanity, and the health of my son and my home, I need to undertake at least one MAJOR project a day until the house is clean and organized.  One project a day seems easy enough, but this has been my plan for going on three weeks now and I’ve YET to finish a SINGLE project, except for getting the clothes washed and folded. (But alas, they have not been put away, so I’m still failing to some extent.)

Today: Put away all of my clothes that fit and that I may actually wear someday, and pack up the remaining maternity clothes and stuff I wore in college and anything that bears a midriff, because I’m too old for that look.

Another goal for today, and each day, is to bake bread.

honeyed whole wheat with ground flax seeds

Tomorrow: Hopefully not finishing the project from today.

(Brain) Washing.

Five days after my last post, I have finally finished washing clothes, at least until I have enough for another inevitable load, and I’ve been through more than a few loads of emotional laundry as well.  I had an argument with my mother (who is a disabled widow and very bitter as well as addicted to prescription pain killers, more on this later) and the days since have been a difficult time for me.  After years of trying to help my mother, I’m finally accepting that my help isn’t really doing her any good, so I have to walk away.  After all, I have a son, and I have to put him first, and helping her stops me from doing that at times.

I’m hoping that some time apart, and some “tough love” will improve her life and chances of survival, but honestly I’m afraid she will die and not know that I did this because I love her.  She has done and said things recently that I know my mother wouldn’t have said or done.  This woman is not my mother, and I have to walk away.

As I am washing, drying, and folding the last of the towels and sheets, I’m doing the same with my thoughts of my mother.  I’m trying to remember the version of her that put her children first, the mother who worked tirelessly to support her family, the strong woman who taught me to never take poor treatment from anyone, even family.  I’m recalling the good times, and folding them up neatly to keep for later, and hoping all of the soiling comes out in the wash, in the end.   I want to keep with me the best of her, and let the rest go.

While doing the laundry, I also sorted out all of the clothes that I know I’ll never wear again.  My dresser and closet are now clean and empty, ready to receive the best of what I have, which is all that’s left.  I’m giving away my maternity clothes and my fat clothes and my grandmother’s designer labels that I won’t wear because a housewife has no use for a red and black coat-dress from Saks.  Now I have room for stylish jeans and practical-but-cute tops and decent pajamas and sundresses for this summer.

Sometimes you have to get rid of things that are just in the way, so you can enjoy what you have, and sometimes you can make more room for better things.   I want to apply this in my entire life: Working hard to keep what’s good, and letting go of what’s not.

OK, I’m keeping the dress from Saks. You never know.

Giving Up and Letting Go

My “To Do” list is eight miles long.  My house has been messy for a long time because I have postpartum depression and I’m lazy and a crappy housewife.  (Really, I’m a pretty darn good housewife, or at least I used to be…)  So when I found out that my 89 year old grandfather was moving out of his house, and that I would end up inheriting a lot of his possessions, I nearly became ill.

I’m not sad about getting stuff…. far from it.  Some of these things remind me of some of the few happy moments I had as a child.  I’m actually sad because I don’t know where to put a lot of it, and because I’m out of room and we’re having to let a lot of things go.  Now, I sit on my sofa, surrounded by so many beautiful things that I can’t enjoy any of them, and I realize that it’s time to let go of more.

Letting go is hard if you’re either a pack rat or particularly sentimental, and I’m both.  But how many sets of china does one family need? Not four.  How many sofa tables? Tea carts? And in “this economy” no one is paying much for things. What do we do with Grandma’s china?  I have no place for it and I have no buyers.  I can’t even give it away, because no one else has room for it either.

Besides, giving it up seems like giving up.  It makes me sad.

But it doesn’t have to be about “giving it up”.  Instead, it can be “letting it go”.  There are PLENTY of things I can let go of.  Like maternity clothes that I promised my mother I’d keep, just in case I get pregnant again and it’s winter and I might regret not having that green sweater!  But these things are taking up the space I need for the clothes that fit the body I have NOW.  Baby clothes that I promised my mother I would keep, just in case we have another boy.   ACK! ANOTHER ONE?!?!   Fabric that I have “just in case I can use it someday” is taking over my dining room, so I have no place to put my grandmother’s china!  Why am I doing this to myself?  WHY CAN’T I JUST LET GO?

I’m having a hard time letting go of a lot of things that aren’t just objects.  I think the “stuff” is symbolic.  My mother and brother have health problems, and I’m afraid of losing them, and I think that may be why I’m grasping at things and not wanting to let go.  I can’t help them, and I can’t let go of that pain, and that guilt, and that worry.

So today I’m going to look at all of my “stuff” and see what needs to be done.  Today is also laundry day, because we’re behind on that too.  Tomorrow I’ll begin the process of letting go of what I can, to better preserve and enjoy the best of what I have, both literally and in metaphor.  Time to take stock and prepare a plan.

Letting go doesn’t have to be painful, right?  Plus, I’m positive I can find yet another green maternity sweater, if I’m pregnant during the winter.  Totally sure.

And if you want some china, you know where to reach me.

Give us this day….

“…Our Daily Bread.”  To me this saying means much more than having bread every day.  When I was a child my mother sometimes baked bread, and the aroma of fresh bread would lead me down the street and home, and carry away my worries.  The positive feelings weren’t only about food.  Having fresh baked bread means that all is well in the home.  It means that things are getting done and loved ones are being taken care of.  Homemade or bought, fresh bread is more than just a staple.  For me, daily bread signifies all needs being met.

Lately at my house, things are in a constant state of chaos.  (Disarray doesn’t begin to cover it.)  I have one son, who is a little over a year old, and who is far more demanding than I ever imagined a child could be.  I have a husband who works WAY too hard.  I’ve fallen short of my dreams and fantasies about how I would care for my family, partly because I’ve had postpartum depression, and partly because my time is divided in trying to take care of too many people in too many places.  I used to be a gourmet cook; now we eat way too much take-out.  I used to keep a clean house; now it’s just embarrassing.

I miss the days of baking fresh bread and cooking everything from scratch, in a clean and organized and happy home.  I miss feeling like my life, body mind and soul, is balanced.  I miss the smell of fresh bread.

I have come to the conclusion that for my own sanity, and that of my son, I must improve.  I am going on a metaphorical search for health happiness and well-being, for Our Daily Bread.