Joy and Peace

As I'm sitting here at my desk at work 3 days before we celebrate the birth of our Savior, I am overwhelmed with a sense of Peace and immense love.  As many of you know, I have been struggling with PPD, Post Pardum Depression.  It has been a really rough year, despite how many blessings we have in our lives, its been hands down the hardest year.  Just yesterday I woke up and I felt....Free.  I felt like the weight of darkness had lifted off of my shoulders and I can honestly say that I am filled with Joy and Peace.  

As true to the title of this blog, Heart on my Sleeve, I want to express to you a few things.  Becoming a new mom, as many of you know, it is tough.  There are things you aren't told and aren't shown or known that will change in your life.  I know everyone is different and everyone deals with things differently, but this is my experience.  This is what was true for me.  I have changed. I have been changed, by this tiny human.  Forever.  

Part of what I wasn't accepting was myself.  I couldn't comprehend that I could change who I was so drastically.  From becoming a complete extrovert to more of an introvert.  To being very social, to being a home body and finding security and refuge in my home, my husband and my son.  I have accepted that who I am is not perfect. Who I am IS perfect in God's eyes.  And He is okay with who I am, so why can't I?  How do I get this joy and peace that i want so desperately, I can feel it in my bones?  How can I find that?  ONLY through the power of Jesus.  Only through accepting myself and loving myself.  Telling myself, Amber, you are OK.  There is so much more to this than I think I can ever express, but what I want to say to myself when I'm faced with this again, is, It's okay.  You are okay. You are loved.  

I think for so many, you can hear it until you want to rip your ears off, but until you grasp it and accept it, it will not be your  reality.  It won't be your truth.  

My saddest part about all of this, are some of the relationships I have failed and lost because of what depression is.  I take responsibility for my choices and my actions, but it is serious business.  If you know someone who is depressed, be kind.  Have patience.  Your relationship will be different and it will be isolating.  Just know it's not you, its the person dealing with the depression.  Some days is enough to get out of bed. 

My reality, there were days when I wouldn't even make it into work.  My boss is amazing and so flexible. I had talked with him about what I was dealing with and he understood.  Talk about grace.  

I'm not who I was before I had Luke. In so many ways. My body is different.  It process things differently.  I have a few jiggly bits that I didn't have before.  My world is consumed with my son.  His well being and his safety and mostly I want him to know what LOVE is.  And to know that he is loved.  

I'm not the same girl who Justin married.  I was desperately afraid he wouldn't like me.  This new me.  I'm finding out what unconditional love really is.  Something that I never truly understood before.  

Unconditional love. 

We are taught about it, and we know that our parents love us with this love and so does God.  Until you really fully understand it and experience it giving away from yourself with it, its a hard love to grasp.  

I am a very literal person.  I have to truly understand what something is in order to understand how i feel about it or how to show it.

So, 2016, here is to the new me.  Here is to the different girl that I am and who I am okay with.  This year will be spent getting healthy so I can be the best I can be for my husband, my son and any other children God decides to bless us with.  And yes, I am open to more kids now.  I even told Justin I would be open to having more than 2.......GASP! the world is TRULY changing......

Joy and Peace to you this Season of Noel, God with Us.  

Let's have a little chat.........

Good Morning! 

I know it has literally been forever since I've been on here, let alone, even wanted to write anything for that matter.  

Luke is doing awesome.  He is growing like a weed and he will be 5 months old on the 21st of this month! Can you believe it? He is 28 inches long and is weighing 18 lbs...I think...lol.   We started rice cereal and sweet potatoes this month....He is a very good eater! He still gets up about 2 times at night to eat and he takes between 2-3 naps a day.  He sleeps in 6-8 hour stents at night, which is awesome! He's a really good boy.  

Now for the good stuff.....JK.   The main reason I wanted to write today, is because I want to talk about something that isn't often talked about with new moms and the joys of parenthood.  It is more along the lines of the darker side of what sometimes happens to new moms in the midst of the exhaustion and pure and utter joy they feel.  Something that I was so scared would happen to me and has.  

PPD

For those of you who have  no clue what that is, it is Post Partum Depression.  Now let me say for the record this is not a pitty party post, or I want you to feel bad for me post.  No, this is an awareness post.  I do want to tell you about what I've been dealing with and for those who are wondering where the heck I've been, you might understand why.  

For some time I was in denial, that I wasn't feeling the way I was and that I totally have this going back to work, leaving my newborn baby at home thing.  Then I couldn't fight and hold up the walls anymore.  Realizing that as grateful I am that Justin can raise Luke, in my mind, my husband knows my son better than I do.  Aren't I supposed to be the one who knows my son the best?  Isn't it me who is supposed to be the closest one to him and we are supposed to have this amazing bond?  Don't get me wrong, I know Luke and I have a special bond.  He will always look for me when someone else is holding him, and he always snuggles into me even when he's not tired.  

Every day is a struggle to get out of bed.  Every day I am beyond exhausted. Everyday I don't feel good.  Every day to basically function, I have to put every ounce of energy I have.  The anxiety that comes along with it is something that feels like I've drank 2 monsters, the big ones.  Heart pounding, sweating, deep breaths.  I hate that feeling.  I want to be the best I can for my husband and son. But I just don't know how.  It's like a leech that you can't get rid of.  

I can't give enough credit to working mom's.  They have to be apart from their babies for a God awful amount of hours, which is most of the day, then come home, make dinner, get the kids their food, bath, and bed.  By all that time, you have only had about 2 hours all day with your kids.  Not really spending quality time with them.  Then you proceed to do it for the next 5 days.  Weekends....oh glorious weekends. I don't want to do anything, but snuggle with my sweet boy on the couch.  But he has other plans and so do you.  The world can't stop just because you want to capture the moment.  He needs wiggle time, and has to eat and play and sleep.  And you have promises that you have made to be somewhere, thinking in the moment you made them, it would be fine.  Panic sets in at the thought of other people and things taking time away from those precious moments you have with your baby.  Not to mention your time with your husband.  A husband who is utterly exhausted from taking care of your baby boy all day, all while fighting what could possibly be pneumonia. Yup, you have a super hero for a hubby.  

Stay at home mom's I give you so much credit, but I envy you. I know how tired you are, I know the daily battles you face are real.  But I envy that you get to have those battles.  I want the melt downs, and the sweet feeding times that interrupt your cleaning the house.  The diaper changes that make you want to puke your guts up, because your baby is on special formula that smells like death. I envy you.   

Don't get me wrong, I'm beyond thankful that I have a job, and don't have to pay child care.  I am beyond grateful that I have an easy place of employment, with a boss and coworkers who are actually nice and talk to you. A boss who, his wife and himself come down to the hospital and pray with you when your brand new baby is readmitted into the hospital for a fatal issue.  For coworkers that are dudes, but also friends that I have known for a very long time. 

To know that you have to be on meds that help with your depression, that don't actually do anything....trying to figure out what does work for you.  Your husband says that it has calmed you down, but you aren't too sure about that.  You wonder if it really is helping.  

Another side for all of this for me is the fact that, as you all know, I was pretty sick right along with Luke.  I am still having the residual effects of that.  I wasn't able to breastfeed, which is the biggest part of all of this that I am mourning.   I mourn for the hours that I can't be home with Luke, I mourn for the lack of Joy I feel in my life, I mourn for the desperation I feel to want Joy in my life and give myself fully and wholly to my maker.  I mourn for the lack of a wife that Justin has at the moment, and what I really should be for him.  I mourn that I can barely put anything before myself and I'm in a continual state of self help or for better terms, resisting self help.  

I know it won't always be like this.  I know I will have the darkness unveiled. For now, I pray, I plead, and I ask God for favor. I thank him for every moment I have with Justin and Luke. I pray for peace as I constantly live in fear of....EVERYTHING.  

One day, I will find that peace.  For now, I deal. 

What I ask of you, my friends, is that you give and extend grace. I'm not asking it for myself (although it would be much appreciated) but for all those other mommies who disappear after they have a baby.  If you wonder why they don't make plans, don't call, don't have the time......It's because having a baby is hard enough.  Adding Depression on top of it, is debilitating.  Just think twice before you are quick to think that we have just disappeared.   

PPD doesn't effect everyone.  I was probably more susceptible to it because I have had depression/anxiety issues in the past.  It was a fear of mine before I had Luke and here we are.  Very very real.  Like a slap in the face.  It's not something many women like to talk about or admit.  It is an uncomfortable place to be in.  Just cling to the HOPE of who Christ is and who He is inside of you.  He will not let you fall.  You are loved, and you are doing the best you can.  

One day at a time.