misplaced mama

I’ve heard so many many woman sigh and say wow that was bad. Looking back, it was worse than I thought it was.  And it lasted a year.  2 years.  It still hits me like a mac truck and I gave birth almost three years ago.

I’m too careful of a person to sigh my sigh now, and shake my head back and forth and say  my wow in the past tense.  The heavy sheet of all things not pretty seems to be gone, but whose to say what’s around that corner.  I’ll give half a sigh and readily admitt it has been hard and I never expected to feel like such shit.

Why do we rarely talk about it?  Prepare ourselves and our families for it?  We spend oodles of time reading about pregnancy and birth before the fact, but what initiates us to handle the state of potential depression?  Or is the depression the final initiator, the last test before we get our Mother of The Moment trophy?

I can hide it well.  Which makes me doubt I am even worthy of the title; Post Partum Depressed.  I wipe my face clean and hide the amount of effort it takes me to pick up each foot and put it in front of the other.  I spend time with my family and pretend I am hadnling it all, exhausted, but centered and strong. Who wants to hear, as I hold my perfect daughter in my arms, that I feel bleak? Weak? Nothing? Fear? With moods that swing as fast as my daughter does at the playground? I am a beautiful new mother of my third daughter and I hold it all together and like my sister said when I called trying to subtly hint that I may be living in my own personal collapsable world

You’re not the only who has three kids.  Think of it that way. You’re not alone.

And yeah, that’s not really what I meant.  Three kids or 20, I am very alone. This is the epitome of alone.

And I suppose if while we discussed the pregnancy and all the protein we have been eating and the sex of the baby or whether or not a waterbirth would be in the plan, someone could have thrown in there: Prepare, you might feel like you’ll wanna curl up and die sometime after the birth.  Have support in place.  Have herbs all ready.  Hire help.  Call and make a tenative appointment for marriage counseling and probably throw one in there for child psychology, because with all the yelling and moping and emotional messiness, everyone around you will need professional help, too. Maybe I could have spared me girls my ugliest moments.  Maybe my husband would not be so bruised.  Maybe I would think all this is normal and not feel defeated.

But I never thought.  Not me.  Not with the homebirth and the yoga and the herbs and meditation.  Not me, I paid my depression dues back when I was 21.  Now I’m a Birth Warrior, A Mama in Charge.  I laugh in my face, as if I am protected from this pain, this realness, this life. Reason: unknown.  Source; the mind, the heart, the seed.  Remedy; acceptance (and rest, food, drink, time alone).

 It’s been a long time, Mama.  A long time since I knew you in Arizona.

I didn’t ask her what she meant but in my heart I knew.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been my old self.  This one, the one who mothered like that.  Not the one I have been these days. These days I’ve been the sharky thought.

But like I said, it lifts.  It’s lifting.  I am not ready to call it done, because I know it can creep up like the night upon dusk and in a split moment I am gone.  But as I step up and out, feel life at some surface, I am  beginning to think this depression I came face to face with may be the greatest teacher I’ve ever had.  Ever.  And isn’t that kind of beautiful?

Hard to believe, my littliest love.  You are two whole months old.  It was just about this time in the dark of night, 31 days ago, that i tossed and turned in bed wondering how long I could ‘rest’ through those contractions.  I lasted about half hour more and then I allowed the wildness of the storm that was pounding down outside come in, taking over my body-house, my heart-home. And like a force of nature, destructing everything that stood in our way, we birthed, we rebirthed, and we birthed some more.  Birth is in the spring air tonight and I can feel so much life bloom back into me after a long period of allowing myself to die.  I think back. Black, obsidian, lava, tidal, hard earth, gigantic pellets of hail, tiger uncaged, unleasing, blood red expression, spiral, snakes, wet.  Just words that come to mind about what your birth was like.  Your story is not completely told; your father and I work on it together each night we feel creative and aware, and soon we may share it with the world.  Until then, let’s just bask in your beauty:

You are smiley.  Empress Smiley.  The smiliest of the Coven.

You have very long eyelashes.  I wish I knew how to use m camera and focus in on them more.  I also wish I could capture the color of your eyes.  Some days they are green.  Some days they are sea grey.  The have a spiral of flaxen brown, bursting from the center.  I wonder if they will change, yet another daughter with my dark eyes.  Or will the jump into lightness and mirror your daddy?  Either way we all get lost in them.

Sometimes you can be very serious.  As in you seriously like to be adored and loved, admired and showered with attention.  You don’t play games.  You tell me what you want and when you want with just a simple look; no loud sounds, just a stare.

You truly become disgruntled with clothing.  Especially anything with attached feet.  You like your long toes and arched feet to wiggle in the cool air, unhindered by cotton.  You are still little enough that your lower half and upper half seem like two seperate entities and not completely whole.  You like to air swim (move your arms around and around) and you love to run, run, run….JUMP (moving your feet and legs and the kicking them up, like you are trying to jump).

You love just hangin’ with your big sis.  She makes you coooo, and ooooooh, and aaaaahhhhhh.  You also love to be hummed to, which Sula is very good at doing.

You get the most sleep in the house.  Mama has some bags.  Mia has serious bags, poor thing, she gets the least amount of sleep and carries the ‘grump’ for all of us.  You on the other hand sleep all day, all night.  You’d sleep tons if it weren’t for those crazy sisters always waking you up with tickles and kisses (I am not just saying this: your sisters ADORE you and are constantly wanting you to be awake so they can play with you.) You are a Sleepy-poo.  For now.  I know there will many sleepless, teething, stuck on my nipple nights, but for now you like to dream, curled next to me and your dad, and that is fine by us.   We are all so busy lovin’ you up, we mostly forget to brush our hair and teeth and some days we never leave the bedroom until the sun screams at us to go play outside somewhere and have a picnic consisting of chocolate chips and apples.

You come from the Elf family, just like your mama (notice her right ear) which is great and tricky and silly and fairy friendly.  I adore you; your ears, your eyes, your gums, your radiating heart.  I mean, there is no other way to say it but: thank you.  Thank you for coming here, to this home, this crazy, loud, wild home and accepting us, wanting to be with us.  I think it’s an understatment to say that we feel blessed.  Blessed.  Little Dove, we love you.