Pregnancy is a lot like life. It hardly ever goes EXACTLY how you plan it. So, rather, you learn to readjust and embrace things as they come. You attempt to understand that control doesn’t always mean security and what matters most is how you deal with disappointment or obsticales.

Listen to me! I sound so mature! I am done with life. I’ve reached my pinnacle *snort*

Addison will be here Tuesday or Wednesday via induction. This is why:

I have been on anti-anxiety meds for a good part of my life due to Generalized Anxiety Disorder and various other things (See previous post about post-partum psychosis). When I became pregnant I talked with my primary care physician about going off my meds (because they are not the BEST for baby), and he advised that during the last two months I could transition off them. I did transition off them successfully…. until last week. Last week I started having panic attacks. My body was getting very tired from the continually uneven contractions and emotionally I was just done being pregnant. Any women who has carried a child to term understands the intense anxiety that comes when you are at the final stage. By nature, I am not a patient person (when it comes to myself) and I am just generally anxious. So when the panic attacks began to hit at random times (like driving home from Target, when I was startled by a bird…) Garrett and I began to re-evaluate the whole home birth choice.

I had a visit with my OB and he talked me through some options. He said, and I agreed, the best thing (ultimately) was to get back on my meds so I would regain composure over my anxiety and to have the baby. Since my body is still contracting (still unevenly and and random times) and my cervix is way more than ready he asked if I felt ok with attempting natural induction (stripping my membranes) and then if that didn’t work medical induction the next day. The date is set for Tuesday (strip membranes), and if that doesn’t fire things up Pitocin induction on Wednesday.

In my journey to obtain a birth experience that was solely mine I have learned several things: The business of babies coming into the world is miraculous, regardless of the process.  Each mother needs a different experiences, even a different experience from her previous pregnancies. Be informed about your body, your rights, and your needs. Take charge of your health! Advocate a process, for yourself, that will set the stage to being a healthy and balanced mother for your children. That last lesson was what made me change my mind about a home birth. The reality is, if I had a panic attack in the middle of labor at home, my husband, midwife, and I would be ill-equipped to handle it. As opposed to some popular opinions severe panic attacks can’t just be “breathed” through my some individuals. Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a medical condition caused by several factors and should be treated with the utmost respect. All that to say, it can’t be conquered with some Lavender oil and chanting (trust me, I’ve tried).

My utmost concern is creating a stable experience that will 1. not push me into the whole psychosis experience and 2. not create more anxiety for myself so I can enjoy  the arrival of my daughter. This brought Garrett and I to the difficult choice of deciding to go to the hospital (with out labor support team) to be just and IV drip away from medication that would help manage a panic attack.

All of the Brokins’ readers have been so supportive about my journey with Addison. I can’t thank you enough. I keep reminding myself, as one of my very best friends told me, that “either way I will have a new life in my arms. Sometimes it matters less HOW they were born, but just that they were BORN.” The end result both directions is the hope of a beautiful baby girl. Do I have reservations that the anxiety of a hospital birth will push me toward the same post-partum depression experience? Hell yes! Am I afraid that I won’t have a panic attack and the birth will be perfect and I will wish I stayed home. Double hell yes! 

What I do know is that I am more educated this time around, better supported, and fully equipped to face this experience. I feel that if I don’t hedge myself in and control my anxiety that it will most certainly negatively impact my chances of developing post-partum depression and taint the arrival of our daughter.

 Listen to me? I sound like I am flying to the moon.

I think this is a blessing. It has uncomplicated the process for me and brought me back to the understanding that life isn’t controllable (though I will be damned if I stop trying to control it!). Facing your giants, in any form, is important. Taking charge and taking care of our bodies is a vital.

Wish me luck folks, I will check in again on Tuesday.

I cannot count the times I have plopped down on Jasmine’s couch, usually with coffee in hand, to tell her of my latest parenting mishap. “You will not believe what happened to us the other day” I’ll say, as Jasmine gears up for a story. “Norah and I were at TJ Maxx, I was trying on dresses and when I looked down Norah had a piece of CHEWED UP GUM IN HER MOUTH!” I’ll yell, “CHEWED UP GUM FROM SOMEONE ELSE’S MOUTH! GAH!”

Jasmine will laugh and settle back further into the couch. “Ha!” she’ll say, “I have a better one. No seriously, it made Garrett gag which…you know. I’d had this cup, this cup that I was using to spit in because I had that awful phlegmy cough and it was sitting on the counter. I keep forgetting that Isaiah can reach up to the counters and well…he did. He reached up and grabbed it and. ANNNDDDDDD…HE DRANK IT!!!!!” she’ll yell. “HE DRANK THE WHOLE THING AND IT WAS ALL OVER HIM! AND THEN HE LOOKED AT ME AND SMILED!”

“BLEHHHH!!” we’ll both yell, laughing and making puking sounds. And then we’ll move on to other topics like Did You Watch Daisy of Love Last Night? OMG! or I Gave My Baby Dr Pepper and She Loved It. Does That Make Me a Bad Parent? or maybe Um Hi. If You Make Me Watch Yo Gabba Gabba Again I Will Kill You.

This is, in short, our friendship. We are made up of laughing and gossip and coffee, sarcasm and serious talks about faith and grace. We are made up of adventures in parenting, messes and mistakes. We are made up of trying to love our husbands, our babies and one another.

I do not know how to fully express how important this friendship is to me. Maybe its because I was the new mom who was bent on being exceptional, determined to be a great mom and never have a need for help. “I can do it” was my mantra, and I repeated it over and over again, diapers and breast milk and blankets barely covering how tired I was, how desperately I needed a break. And then one day, 4 months into the Perfect Mommy Marathon I came to visit Jasmine and Garrett and Isaiah. And as I watched them play with Norah while she lay on a blanket on the floor, I heard them tell me “Its ok. We love you and we love Norah and we will help you. We will keep her safe”. And they did. They smiled and talked with her and protected her from Isaiah’s exploring hands and feet. As I sank deeper into the couch, I began to realize that it was ok to ask for help. It was ok to recognize my limitations, and in fact, recognizing those limitations makes me a better mother.

I still struggle with this, the crazy desire for self-sufficiency when it comes to motherhood, but I’m working on it. I am working on remembering, when I feel the pressure of going it alone, that I am not a one woman army. I have my husband and my parents and my friends. Motherhood was not designed to be a solo-sport. It’s too hard, too demanding, too involved.

And I suppose, for me, that’s what this is all about. I am clearly not a perfect mother (in fact, as I am typing this I’ve watched Norah get her head stuck between the couch and the wall, eat a half chewed Wheat Thin from the floor, and chew on a shoe), but I don’t know where I would be if I was still trying to do this all alone. I’ve seen glimpses of that place, and it is not pretty. So if this project can help other mamas (or daddies!) feel a little more bonded, a little less like the crazy lady who checks her baby’s poop (I admit, I am a poop checker), then I’ll consider it a success. If we can help others, whether through tales of teaching our babies to make us nachos or our overestimated construction skills, whether through our humor or our tears, our achievements or our failures, then that will be great.

This motherhood–it is one tough and beautiful business.

Sadie

As I read Sadie’s blog, I started to tear up. I looked up from her writing and asked, “Sadie! Did you cry when you were writing this?” She laughed and I laughed because we both knew the answer- of course!! There is something about motherhood that makes cry. There is something about motherhood that makes you say to yourself, “Oh holy hell! I am in this alone, I am going to screw this kid up and everyone is going to blame me…” Or at least that is what I said to myself. After I had my son, I had a severe case of Postpartum Depression. It, at one point, turned into psychosis. I began seeing spiders crawling all over my son. I began slapping my three month old baby to get the spiders off of him. I realized, at that point, I needed help. I can’t say that the pressure to be a perfect mom created the Postpartum Depression/Psychosis. What I can say is that is certainly aided in the burden and anxiety that I felt. It, in essence, made the depression worse. From the moment I found out I was pregnant I realized that someone had put me in this invisible competition. I tried my best not to engage, but at times the pressure to have the “perfect pregnancy” overthrew all my efforts. When Isaiah was born, the competition just got worse. There was this overwhelming pressure to “measure up”.  It wasn’t till after the depression had subsided and I was heavily medicated that I realized that maybe motherhood looks waaaaay different then what I ever thought it did. Maybe motherhood was about working your way through it. It isn’t a destination. It is an ever changing crazy ride that really doesn’t end. You never stop mothering.  As Sadie wrote, our relationship has been a nurturing driving force in keeping me (and her) sane. As are many of the friendships I have with other moms. When the walls are torn down and we are able to be authentic with one another so much can change. We have to encourage one another and remind ourselves and each other that Postpartum Depression doesn’t make you a bad mother; a screaming baby doesn’t make you a bad mother. Doing it different than everyone else doesn’t make you a bad mother. So what! My two year old enjoys a sip or two of coffee… I am not a bad mother!

All that said: We created this site, because we hope to impact others with our stories. As Lauren Winner once commented, I too believe memoirs are a powerful form of connection that lends itself to transforming the lives of others.  I know that I made it through that awful Postpartum experience because of my husband, my family, and other mothers who, well, mothered me.

So please join us for the ride. We might not always say it in the most grammatically appropriate or eloquent way, but we are who we are and we hope, in the meantime, you’ll find something that inspires you, makes you think, entertains you, reminds you that motherhood is a beautiful wreck, or all of the above.

Stay Tuned!

Jasmine