The baby blues

I wanted to write this post to draw attention to a subject that few want to talk about. 

The baby blues. 

 

Now that Walker is almost 3 months old, I can definitely look back and see that I suffered from the baby blues. It was the loneliest I had every felt in my life, those first few weeks. I loved my son with everything I had in me, but I felt completely isolated from those around me. I only wanted to be around Walker. I had terrible night time anxiety. Just the thought of having to go to bed made me nauseous. Everything and I do mean everything made me cry. Ben could look at me wrong and I would bawl. These are all normal things, however these aren't what I want to write about. 

The problem isn't that I had a minor case of the baby blues, it's that when I was asked by my husband on multiple occasion if I was feeling a little down I would lie. 

I lied because in my head I couldn't be that woman. I refused to be her. I had failed at having a natural birth, I wasn't going to fail as a mother and admitting to the baby blues was admitting that I couldn't do this. 

In society, we have this perfect idea of what a mom should be. She should cook gourmet meals, have a spotless home, look spectacular (and thin of course), be about to care for her children's every need, never have a bad day and still have energy to have sex with her husband. 

Well I'm calling bullshit. 

It took me week to realize that feel lonely didn't make me a bad mother. My marriage suffered because I wanted Ben to fix something that I couldn't even tell him was broken because I wanted to fit into the mold of a perfect mom. I needed to fit into that mold after my failed natural birth. I didn't want to admit that I was struggling because I didn't want to be judged. My friend's are great examples for the "token mom" and I couldn't tell them that I was no where near meeting those expectations. 

Time healed my baby blues. Routine, scheduling, getting to know my baby, and falling into my role as a mom really helped. I'm still not super mom. My house is rarely clean (because I refuse to miss a second of my child growing up on me). There are nights we have PB&Js for dinner. I know that my child feels loved though. To me, that makes battling the baby blues worth it.