My Baby Is Turning Five

My baby is turning five.  My BABY.  My younger daughter.  My youngEST child - as there will be no more to follow.  This is the last year that one of my children only needs one hand to count her age.  That's kind of monumental.  A milestone.  A reason to celebrate and reflect.  And a reason to mourn the passing of youth.  A few more years and she will be an insolent, angst-and-acne-riddled teen who is totally embarrassed by my existence.

I have a journal I've been keeping for five years now.  I'm slow at updating it, so I'm still working out of the same notebook, but the purpose of it is to share with my girls what is was like to be their mother in the early years.  They are likely to be a mother one day themselves and I wanted them to know that it's more than just baby showers and sweet, posed pictures.  There is fear; there is anxiety. There is the knowledge that you have no idea what you are doing.  There is self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy.  All of these are normal.  There is also elation.  Joy.  Love in it's simplest and purest form.  Fierce protectiveness.  Pride.  Total selflessness.  Oh, and guilt.  Lots of guilt.  It even has a name - "Mommy Guilt".  But, mostly there's joy. 

The reason I started keeping a journal (as opposed to "journaling" which is not a word but is actually a noun that we as a society seem to have found acceptable  turning into a verb) was because after my Meglet was born, I went through a period of profound post-partum depression.  I've been vocal about it with those who know me and have reached out to a couple of people who don't know me at all to try and help them through what for me was the worst time in my life.

I'm vocal about my experience with post-partum depression for a couple of reasons.  One, I think far more women experience it than you'd think.  Two, I still suffer from it.  I'll explain what I mean by that in just a minute.  Plus, so many people helped me and were there for me that I feel like it's my job now to return the favor.  If I can help someone in the way I was helped through it, then that's absolutely what I need to do.  When I first realized that I was suffering, I knew I needed to get past it, so I talked about it with people.  I was shocked by the number of people who admitted that they "probably" had dealt with it too but never sought help.  Some of those people I met in therapy when they were trying to get sober after years of drinking away their depression.

When I say I still suffer from it, what I mean is that I am still very aware of what I went through.  I think about it every singe day.  The therapist I saw when I was going through all of it told me she thought I had post-traumatic stress disorder - with the trauma for me being the PPD I went through.   I have a lot of guilt that the first several months of Meg's life were, for me, not filled with joy.  Sure, there was a deep love that I knew was there, but it was buried deep under other feelings.  Feelings of wanting to run away.  Feelings of regret that I'd "given up my life" in order to have kids.  In my moments of clarity (that sadly, were rare during those lonely months), I knew I loved my babies.  But I was terrified.  Terrified that my life was only going to be a series of doctor's appointments and birthday parties.  I could not have imagined what I would feel five years later.

After copius amounts of research on post- partum depression, therapy, anti-depressants and most importantly, time, I evolved into the mother I am today.  (If that terrifies you, just know I used to be much worse than I am now!)  And I go back though my journal periodically and can see the sun slowly begin peeking through the clouds.  I see the weight being lifted over the period of several months through several entries.  I see myself as I come back to life.  It's an interesting thing to read to see how motherhood, and I, have evolved over time.  Here is an excerpt from my last journal entry dated 9/30/2012.  I share it now in hopes that perhaps you can relate to it in some way.

Tonight on the eve of Meg's 5th birthday, I want to reflect on her for a bit.  Her birth is, of course, the reason this journal exists.  That time was fraught with stress, anxiety, fear, guilt and yes, love.  The love was always there of course, but the post-partum depression was just in the foreground for a while.  My how things have changed...

I've said (and written) several times what an enormous impact PPD had on my life.  It does to this day because, as a mother, you don't easily forget how awful it is to know that you once had thoughts that you didn't want your babies.  I hope I'll be able to explain it to them in such a way that they know that those feelings weren't real and they weren't me.  It was real, of course - it happened and there's no denying that.  But those feelings were not what was truly in my heart and soul and what remains there today.

I look at little Meg and she is pure joy.  She is joy in the sense that she is full of joy herself, and bounces and hops everywhere she goes.  She also brings joy to others - to Mike, Kate and me for sure.  She cracks us up every single day!  How can you not smile when you look at that happy little round, freckled face?   Tomorrow will mark five years that she has been in our lives.  I can't believe my baby is FIVE!  And her precious sister is approaching SEVEN.  That sounds so much older somehow than six.  Time is passing so quickly.  Too quickly.

When I was first dealing with PPD after Meg's birth, time couldn't pass quickly enough.  Mike couldn't return from work fast enough.  I couldn't get back to work and off of maternity leave fast enough.  I lived for their nap time and any other time I didn't feel smothered by them.  It was such a sad and debilitating time.  What's really sad about it is that it is supposed to be such a joyous time.  And yet, I felt stuck.  In the five years that passed since the start of my journal, I went from praying that they would hurry and grow up to acknowledging that "time is passing too quickly".  The excerpt continues:

I want to find a way to bottle their joy and innocence.  Their energy and curiosity.  Their purity and imagination - because we all know how disappointing it can be as you learn and come to understand the realities of the world we live in.  There is suffering and loss.  Sadness and anger.  Helplessness and evil. Self-absorption and loneliness.  There is squandered potential and tragedy.  Both girls are already aware that things "aren't fair".   Of course, it's "not fair" to Kate that Meg has a birthday tomorrow.  Just as it won't be "fair" to Meg when Kate's birthday rolls around in January.  It's "not fair" that Kate has to go to school five days a week and Meg only goes three.  It's totally "not fair" that Meg went to a birthday party and got a cupcake while Kate got to spend the night with her beloved Nonny and have homemade ice cream and hot fudge.  UGH.  No, I suppose it's not fair.  But when they say things aren't fair, they have no idea how right they are.  Life isn't fair.  My heart wants to shield them from that forever and yet we all know this is not possible.  You cannot be on this earth and not experience some of what makes life unfair. 

And yet, they are growing up and these are lessons that they will learn.  Gently, I hope. It will build their character to learn these things.  But with that knowledge will come the loss of something that they will not ever get back.  What they'll lose - that innocence; that "spark" - they have it now.  I need to enjoy it today and nurture it so that it doesn't go away completely as they age.  I look at them now - their little personalities - and I am so proud of how happy they are.  Meg is about to explode because of her birthday.  She cannot WAIT she is so excited!  I can't believe I was able to get her to sleep tonight.  And Kate is dancing and doing her gymnastics all over the place.  They are always smiling.  Always laughing.  That will help them through the tougher times in life.

And on this night five years ago, I remember that I went into the den and cried my eyes out for an hour wondering what on earth I was going to do with two children.  I was already suffering from PPD at that time, I just didn't know it yet.  All I knew was that I was scared to death and could not imagine how I would handle it all.  I felt like I had made a huge mistake by disrupting my life and having children.  And I knew it was a mistake I could not correct.  It was done.  I had one child and was on the eve of having another one.  And that night and for far too many nights afterward, I didn't want any of it.  Which I should have recognized as being strange feelings at the time since I had so enjoyed Kate in the 20 months I had had her.  But that was temporarily erased by my hormones and chemistry during the months that followed Meg's birth.

But this post is not about depression. And neither is my journal. It is about life and living. You can read it in the pages of my strange journey. It starts out sounding like hopelessness. It's bleak. But as the story goes on there are little victories. The first outing with two children to the grocery store, for example. Until finally, the entries at most make a passing reference to it.  It became about what I was thinking and feeling as my girls grew. One day I hope they will treasure it.  I hope they won't need to read it because they are going through what I went through after childbirth.  But perhaps if they do, they will see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for them.  Just as there has been for me.  The conclusion:

But here I sit.  Five years later.  With a very happy home, two very secure, very happy girls and a beautiful great, great life.  We are so blessed.  Kate and Meg are so loved.  Our lives are nothing fancy, but we have happiness.  We have fun.  There is nothing I need other than the three other people in this house.  The person who started this journal bears only a faint resemblance to the person who writes in it now.  But I am glad for the experience that person had.  Because she has helped this person truly appreciate her children and the joys of their childhood.