The start of my motherhood journey was me and my husband meeting. We’re high school sweethearts. We’ve been together for almost twelve years. And it’s just been really special to see us grow together and be husband and wife and now we’re parents.
We got pregnant unexpectedly. We were kind of trying / not trying. And then when we decided it wasn’t happening, we’re like, you know what, “let’s let’s go to Greece. Let’s go just do something crazy.” Two days after we had that conversation, we found out we were pregnant. So no Greece for us.
I was sick all the time. Finally had that third trimester glow a little bit and then settled into everything. And I really thought I was going to make it to 40 weeks because nothing had gone wrong at that point. Everything was just so fine. Well, we had a 36 week ultrasound. And we were just so excited to see the baby and see her moving and everything. We get into the ultrasound and the tech asked me “how’s everything been going?” And very confidently I said, “oh, textbook. It’s been perfect.”
And she goes, “have you been drinking water?” And I was like, “oh yeah, I drink water all the time.” She just kept asking me if I was hydrating. At that point, my husband knew something was up. And they ushered us to another room and they said, “well, the doctor is going to come talk to you.” And I was still oblivious. I just thought everything was fine. Two doctors come in and they said, “hey, we have to induce you today.” And I asked “why?” And they said, “you have no amniotic fluid. Normally we’ll see it all around the baby, but you don’t even have a sac halfway full.”
And I said okay, and I just accepted it. I did ask the doctor, I said, “if this was you, what would you do?” And they said, “I would induce.”
So I literally went straight from the ultrasound room to the emergency labor and delivery ward and got induced. After the induction happened, I went into labor. For 12 hours I was without pain meds. I don’t know why I made it that long. The second they came in and checked and they said, “you’re 2 [cm]” I said, “juice me up, I don’t care, go find the doctor.” And once I got the juice, I was quite happy.
My sweet husband, he is not good with needles. He is not good with anything medical. And he stood by my side. He stayed there. He was very happy to leave when they came in with the epidural because they’re like, “oh, it’s a sterile environment.” He goes, “oh, no!” and just kind of left the room.
I think 20 hours after that, I finally gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. We were so happy. Then they put her on my chest. Everything was fine. It was about an hour after and then she started grunting. I was obviously doped up, confused, exhausted, and I just knew something was wrong.
My husband ran to go get a nurse and said, “hey, our baby is breathing weird.” And the nurse is like, “oh, no, I’m sure it’s fine.” He goes, “no, she really is breathing weird.” And the nurse comes in and just all I hear [is] “oh my God.” And she just picks my baby up.
I didn’t see my baby for 8 hours. They took her straight to NICU. She was having some breathing difficulties because since I had no amniotic fluid, her lungs were underdeveloped, so she didn’t have that practice.
That was kind of where the hard part began. I just fought through trying to breastfeed. I’m going through a hormone crash. My baby’s in the NICU and don’t know when she’s going to get out. They kept telling me, “oh, she’s going to be here for 48 hours.”
Well, she kept having incidents and the clock starts over and now it’s not 48 hours, she has to make it five days. So the first four days of that, she’s just incident after incident and every single time she eats, her breathing crashes, or if she’s sleeping, her heartbeat crashes. It just felt like it was this never ending cycle.
I got released three days after birth because she was only five pounds when she came out and so I didn’t have a big tear. It wasn’t like a hard recovery in terms of that. It was all the emotional stuff I wasn’t prepared for.
I just kind of had this picture in my mind, that- oh, I’m going to just give birth and it’s going to be awesome. And it just wasn’t that at all. Totally thank the medical system for saving my daughter’s life, for catching that in time, and I’ll forever be thankful for that. But it was not the birth I imagined at all when I got discharged and she didn’t, that’s kind of when it hit home for me. Like, I went home without my baby.
That’s kind of when my postpartum anxiety started really flaring up, dealing with that and then dealing with this mom guilt, like- my baby’s in the hospital, what can I do? I was pumping around the clock. I was going up there three times a day to try to establish breastfeeding, and I even had a NICU nurse say, “I’ve never seen a parent come up this frequently.” And so that was kind of shocking to me because I’m like what mom wouldn’t?
I was setting this impossible standard for myself, and I stuck with it. I was so afraid of failing her and failing in my new role, and I didn’t even really give my[self] time to process what was going on.
When she finally did come home, I thought, okay, it’s over. We’re done, she’s fine. And it just wasn’t the case. Four weeks- it doesn’t sound like a long time- but you think, ‘oh, I have another four weeks till I give birth.’ We had to cancel our baby moon and all these other things. It just was a shock for both of us, emotionally, mentally.
I think that’s when it really began, the postpartum depression, the postpartum anxiety, because people tell you it’s hard. I’ve had all these sisters who’ve given birth before, and we were all pregnant together at one point the past year. They tell you the sleep deprivation, they tell you all that, but until you experience it, it’s a totally different beast.
I thought breastfeeding would be this magical, bonding, awesome moment, and it was hard. With my history of anxiety, I’m like, ‘was she getting enough? Is she feeding frequently? Like, always being worried every single time she cried. I’ve switched to formula. I am an ounce-age person. I like knowing exactly how much she’s getting, and that helped me a lot.
I think the really hard part of it was the first few months I felt so alone. I love my husband dearly. He’s a great dad. He’s stepped up to the plate now. But I think we were both emotionally going through our own things, and it’s such a lifestyle change, just suddenly to care for a child. I’m their number one person. And that transition into your matrescense and becoming a mother, and I didn’t realize how much it would break me down and how much I would have to do the rebuilding myself.
My husband, trying to find his way into fatherhood, and we had never experienced something like that. And you would think, like, oh, we’ve been together for all this time. Nothing’s going to break us. But it almost broke us, the difficulty of it. I’m proud to say we’ve come out on the other side stronger.
Breastfeeding was hard because I would stare at him in the middle of the night in his perfect little face, just sleeping through it all. I’m awake three or four times a night. Working through the resentment was hard because I was the baby’s number one person. As a breastfeeding mom, you do take that on, and that’s your burden and your privilege. But at the same time, like, gosh, their useless nipples! I cannot stand it. Men need to lactate. Science needs to step up.
I transitioned to being a stay at home mom. I’ve always had school. I’ve always had work. Suddenly not having either to anchor me was difficult. Navigating this whole new job, not being paid for it, that’s hard. Being paid in love and cuddles. It was a job with no breaks. It doesn’t end just because 5:00 P.M. hit.
That was something me and my husband struggled with because he was like, “oh, well, I just got done with work. I’m tired.” I’m like, “but I’m tired all the time.” Coming to an understanding and being open with my experience and him being open with his experience- postpartum depression in males is a thing. We didn’t know that. To discover your partner can be going through it, too, is enlightening. Trying to be that support for him and him being a support for me, it just got to the point where you’re struggling.
How are you going to help someone else stay above water? We both learned that we just need to seek our own help. I’m on medication now, and it’s totally changed my motherhood journey. I’m happier. I’m more present. I’m able to be there for my daughter in the way I want to be.
We got into a screaming match with each other. I was just like, “well, you never help. You never do this.” And he’s like, “well, how can I help? I’m working. Isn’t that good enough?” And suddenly we’re just screaming at each other, and we just were going, “oh, my God, how did we get here?” And we just stopped.
We’re like, this is not who we are. And we just had a really frank conversation. I was like, “look, this is what I’m struggling with. This is what I need help with. From the moment I get up to the moment I go to sleep, middle of the night wake ups, too. I’m on baby duty, and it just never ends. And I feel like I never get a break. And then you come home and you want to chill, and I understand that- I need some give, too.”
Once we were finally just honest with each other and he told me his struggles- pressure at work to provide for you all, [and] like, a deal falls through. It’s not just, ‘oh, I’m not doing my job well.’ It’s, ‘oh, my gosh, I’m failing my family.’ And that pressure is enormous, too.
I think it’s just like honesty and communication. Now we make it a practice. We check in with each other like, hey, what do you need? Hey, how are you doing? I just thought we’d be like this dynamic parenting duo and we would just conquer the world. And at first it wasn’t like that. It was just a total breakdown.
He would retreat into work like, oh, I’m going to jiujitsu. And I’m like, but I’ve been alone with the baby all day. You need to help me. Finally finding a schedule that works for us- it’s been amazing. I’ve moved into the professional tutoring space and so I tutor twice a week. That’s like my thing. He teaches a jujitsu class once a week. Thursday nights we do something as a family.
[We] found that him having two nights with the baby, he gets to do the whole nighttime routine. He gets to spend time with her. Evie now likes french fries because of her dad. I just knew I needed to get back into a couple of hours a week where I can do something that I feel passionate about.
{Can you say more about what specifically was traumatic about your birth?}
One thing that’s really stuck with me is my water wasn’t breaking, so I had to have it manually broken. That was very painful. I thought I handled it quite well in retrospect, but my husband said I was like screaming down that room and I didn’t know I did that. So just like having that information- I knew it was bad.
When I did finally get some pain medication, it actually caused me to hallucinate. So I was terrified for about 6 hours of my labor. What I told my husband was that Tinker Toys were filling the room and if they filled the room, the world was going to end. It was terrifying. [It] makes no sense now.
They finally put her on my chest and I think everything is going to be fine. I’m like, okay, wow, we made it. We got to the other side of it. And then when they took her away, I just kept going where’s my baby? My husband had to make a choice. I think this is the scariest part. He had to make a choice to stay with me or go with the baby. And I said, I’m fine. You need to go. And so for a moment, I was just completely alone in the room and I just didn’t know what to do. I was very freshly postpartum. They had to basically give me an Ambien because I just wasn’t sleeping. I was just crying my eyes out. Processing through all of that.
It just didn’t go the way I thought it would. I didn’t have this magical connection. And dealing with that, especially the first three months, I kind of hated my baby, and I think that’s scary for some moms to admit. It was just such a lifestyle change and such a day to day life change. I just thought, oh, my God, what have I done? My body had changed, and I’d always loved the way my body looked. Like, never going to be the skinniest girl on the block. I don’t need to be. But suddenly my stomach is inflated, my skin is saggy, my boobs are leaking. It was just like, oh, my God, it ruined my body. It ruined my life.
And I went through this horrible, hard thing and what is it all for?
Now that I’m on the other side of it and I’m medicated and I’m understanding what’s going on, I have more help now. I’m like, okay, well, it’s all worth it. Every single time my daughter smiles, it’s worth it. Every single time she laughs, and she’s so silly. [I] thought I was going to get my beautiful brown eyed girl, and she’s just blue eyed and blonde hair and pale skin, and I’m like, ‘whose child are you?’
It’s caused me to be more sensitive to other moms who have had babies. When my twin got pregnant and had her baby, I was like, I’m here for you. I know what to do. I think before I had a baby, I just wasn’t very sensitive. It’s like every single time one of my friends or someone I know has a baby, I’m like, okay, I can’t do much for you, but let me send you some Chick-fil-a. Let me come over and clean your house. Let me do some dishes. I’ll do something.
I think people assume that pregnancy is like this health neutral event and it’s like every single time you have a baby, something could happen, and it’s scary. It’s a major medical event. Part of the trauma, too, is the medical system. So much taking care of you up until you give birth, and then you have one checkup at six weeks.
Whatever politician says, hey, we need to have more postpartum care, I will vote for them at this point because I think it should happen in as many medical appointments as we have leading up to the birth. The reverse should happen postpartum, because once the baby’s here, it’s like the mom just kind of gets thrown to the side and it’s kind of upsetting, especially being adopted.
My mom, she was not very sympathetic to my postpartum experience because she has never experienced birth. I try to have sympathy for that, but it was really difficult because my mom was like, “oh, you’re fine, you’re good.” And I’m like, “but no, I’m not.”
She did adopt all her kids. She’s never had a postpartum experience. She just kind of got handed the babies, and we’re like, off you go. And her body didn’t change, her mind didn’t change, her hormones didn’t change. Not to say that taking care of babies is any easier when you don’t go through that, but it definitely is an added layer of difficulty.
I remember during my pregnancy, when I was sick, my mom just was like, “oh, you’ll be fine. It’s such a blessing. It’s such a blessing.” And I’m like, “it is a blessing, but both things can be true. I can think it’s a blessing, but I can also feel like shit.” It’s okay that your pregnancy isn’t magical. I just need you to say I’m sorry, and I’m here for you.
The reason I was adopted is my birth mother passed away when I was seven. Prior to my adoption and prior to her own death, she struggled with a drug addiction. It’s hard for me now, in retrospect. I used to be very kind about it and understanding, but [now] I’m like, “well, how could you leave your kids?”
I look at Evie now and I’m just like, “I could never leave your face. Nothing is more important than you.” That just brings up a whole other layer- bipolar disorder, that’s what her struggle was. And struggling with addiction- sometimes those things do become more important to you.
I’m struggling with understanding how with my motherhood journey, it’s a little bit of a pressure to fix the wrongs of the past and to be there for Evie the way maybe both my moms haven’t been there for me. That’s not to say my adopted mom isn’t wonderful. She’s great. It’s just there’s an experience I’ve had that she’ll never understand, and that’s hard to relate to. And even my sisters, all of their birth experiences have been different.
Me and my husband are very big mental health advocates, and I grew up in a family where it’s kind of like, pray about it first. And as great as prayer is, and as great as God is, he also invented people who made those happy pills.
{Tell us more about your early years with your bioligical mother.}
For the first six years of my life, I lived in New Orleans. That was my original home, and I lived with my mom. About a year before she passed away, I had moved away to go live with my grandparents, and that had always kind of confused me. Then when I was living with them, she passed away. And I was told, “we can’t care for you. You’re going to be put up for adoption,” which has been the best thing. I mean, I’ve met my husband that way. I love my life in Texas. I would never trade it for anything in the world.
But it was very hard to process growing up because sometimes, even if you’re adopted and someone wants you, being put up for adoption makes you feel unwanted sometimes. When I was ten, my parents sat me down because we had been asking, “we don’t understand, why didn’t they want us?” Because we thought, hey- my birth dad, why didn’t he want us?
Well, the guy who raised us and who we thought was our dad wasn’t our dad. And that was some very difficult information to find out. My mom not being faithful to that father figure was [a very] hard truth. So I do have some biological siblings. I’m actually still very close with them. They’re my half siblings. We all are very much in the know about it now. Realizing, okay, well, that’s one of the reasons I was adopted was difficult. It’s still hard.
What’s kind of crazy about me and my sister’s adoption story is [that] there are seven of us in total, but only six of us here on Earth. Before I was adopted, one of the identical twins passed away. They were at our family’s ranch and there was a four wheeler accident. One of the twins is without a twin and I can’t imagine difficult for her to navigate and for my mom to navigate.
We have all these different motherhood journeys in my family, like mom’s dealing with child loss, birth trauma. I know my sister who lost her twin, she always talks about [how] she can just see so much of [her twin] in her daughter, and I think that’s really special for her. It’s just been a very interesting experience exploring motherhood through their eyes, through my eyes.
Now that I understand it more, it is just the most selfless thing you will ever do. I think I underestimated how selfless I was prior to giving birth and being a mom. Gosh, there’s just some days you wish they had an off button and you could just chill out and have some Netflix with no worries, but you don’t get to it. And you know what? It’s not forever either.
Just seeing my own daughter’s transformation from this five pound little nugget. She weighs over 20 pounds now at eight months old. Like, she’s chunky. It’s been just amazing and she’s so healthy and I’m so thankful and it’s just been a wild ride.
{What do you think has had the biggest impact on improving your motherhood journey?}
This might be a little controversial, but quitting breastfeeding has been my thing, so I exclusively breastfed for the first three months. And it just got to the point where my baby was crying all the time. I just didn’t know why. I just thought she was a miserable baby. And my husband said, “that’s enough, we’re supplementing.”
I had so much mom guilt. I just thought, “oh my God, I’m the worst mom in the world.” It’s so silly because so many moms formula feed. Formula is not an enemy. It’s a helpful thing.
When I finally started supplementing, it’s like, “oh my God, I can take a breath.” The bigger they get, the more they need to eat, right? And my supply just couldn’t keep up. I was going through a number of stressful things and finally I just said, “okay, enough is enough.” And I switched to pumping for a little bit. Even then, I wasn’t producing much. I’m like, what am I doing this for? And when I finally gave myself permission to switch to full formula and just know she is happy, she is healthy, she is fed, she is loved, and she’s clean.
I felt like I kind of started living again. So much anxiety about nursing in public. I felt really trapped in the house. So when I started formula feeding, I was like, oh, my God, I can leave. And it’s amazing. I can put on an outfit and not have to worry- “oh, does it go up or down like, this bra work?”
For me personally, that was such a huge mental relief, because I didn’t realize how much I was holding that in and how much I was having anxiety about it. My PPA just went down significantly once I quit. I know moms who exclusively breastfeed for, like, two plus years, and that’s wonderful. And if that’s your journey, great. But if you’re struggling with breastfeeding and you just can’t take one more day of it, just give the kid the formula. They will thank you. Your brain will thank you. Your body will thank you. It’s really transformed my journey. So I feel like that’s the one thing I’ve done right, and it’s been really healthy for all of us.
The Mayo Clinic has more information on low amniotic fluid during pregnancy.
The definition of the word matrescense can be found here.
Postpartum support for dads can be found at PSI International. 1 in 10 dads gets Postpartum Depression and up to 18% develop a clinically significant anxiety disorder according to their website.
To learn more about how birth trauma can affect your health, the March of Dimes has information.
The Lactation Network has a short article on signs it’s time to stop breastfeeding. For more support in your breastfeeding journey, La Leche League has many articles including This One which explains how to wean.
All content and information on this blog is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your doctor for advice on your particular medical situation.