12 Weeks Postpartum

I’ve been slacking, as expected, just hoped it wouldn’t be another 6 weeks later…

Well, I’m just going to dive right in.

These past 6 weeks have been pretty terrible.

My thoughts are pretty scattered right now, so I’m sure this post will be too. I apologize in advance.

I am most definitely going through postpartum depression again. The realization hit me over the past weekend. I seriously hate this feeling more than anything. Currently, at this moment, I am not in a good place at all.

Picking up where I left off at my last post….

I was not getting any sleep.

I discovered that Briar probably was allergic to dairy.

I was going back to work.

I was going to start back at the gym.

Briar is not allergic to dairy, just sensitive to dairy.  

I am now dairy free, soy free, and egg free. She got a blood test at her 2 month appointment that tested for the milk protein allergy and it was negative. I have decided to stay dairy free since she had an obvious reaction to dairy. For the most part, it’s not that terrible. I have days where I get really pissed off that I literally have to fix every single one of my meals.

There is no “grab and go” when you are dairy/soy/egg free. I was dairy/soy free for around 2-3 weeks and her face was breaking out still. I decided to cut eggs and it seemed to make her face better. I’m still somewhat unsure if she really had a reaction to eggs or not. I plan to reintroduce eggs first to see if she really had a reaction. I won’t reintroduce dairy until she is at least 5 or 6 months old. Hoping she has grown out of her sensitivity by then.

Going back to work and the gym have both been a good thing for me.

I thrive on on schedule and routine. Currently, I only have one more week of working part time. I’m so ready to be back to work full time. I’m thankful I was able to slowly ease back into work, but there is too much shit to do and I’m a workaholic, so I’m ready to be back full time.

The most positive thing that has happened in the past 6 weeks is being able to go back to CrossFit. In the beginning, I was so ready to jump back in full force.

My body was like, “Hell nah, girl. You just pushed a baby out 6 weeks ago.”

I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal, but it was. I have NO CORE. Core is everything for all of the movements I do. I thought I would just be able to jump back in and be able to hit all of my maxes…wrong. I’ve been back in for about 6 weeks and I’m slowly getting stronger.

I started out pretty slow, 2-3 days for the first couple of weeks. Then I started 4-5 days a week. Plus, I have a squat rack, barbell, and weights at home, so I’m able to do some strength training at home which has been very key for my recovery.

It was very surprising to me, but I could do more in my 9th month of pregnancy than I could at 6, 7, even 8 weeks postpartum. But, again, slowly recovering. Very happy to be back.

So, addressing the postpartum depression…

Still…not getting any sleep. For almost 3 months, I’ve not got more than 4 hours of sleep at a time.

No sleep has, in my opinion, been the number one factor. I only know what I’ve been through with Raelynn, so all I do is compare. I don’t remember anything about Raelynn’s first 4 months of life except she just cried non stop and hated her life. I don’t remember too much about her sleep patterns. I just know she slept in the bed with us for the first 4 months.

We have tried everything with Briar. We have found some success, but we still have room to improve. She finally started to take to the swaddle. Technically, it’s a Halo Sleep Sack that we got from the hospital, but essentially comparable to a swaddle. Every night at 7pm, I feed her, then swaddle her, then take her to her room, put on white noise, and rock her to sleep in the rocking chair….

Yes, we tried the infamous put the baby down drowsy and let baby soothe herself to sleep. NOPE.

We even got so desperate for sleep that we tried, cry it out. I’m not a fan of this, but I was desperate for sleep. We tried it for 2 nights. The first night she cried for 2 hours. The second night she cried for 2 1/2 hours. Never stopped. We went in and got her eventually.

The rocking her to sleep works for us now. I’ll take it. Once she is asleep, which takes about an hour, I am able to lay her down in her crib. At first she would sleep until 11:00 – 11:30, she gradually made it to midnight, and now she is sleeping until about 1:00 a.m. in her crib. Two nights, she has slept until 2:00 a.m.

Sounds good right?

The problem is when she wakes up.

She wakes up, I feed her, and sometimes she goes back to sleep, and sometimes she does not. I tried for about 2 weeks to keep her in her crib all night and I was losing so much sleep. I decided after her first stretch of sleep, I was going to put her in the bed with us. In my mind, I could at least lay there while she did whatever and I could rest a little bit. For the most part it worked.

However, it was not comfortable for myself, Scott, and Briar to all be in bed together.

For the moment, Scott and I do not sleep together which is a whole other issue.

We take turns, one of us in the bed, and one of us on the couch. We are able to safely use the couch for Briar to sleep on because we have a huge couch and she’s not rolling, yet, so I feel comfortable with this.

When she wakes up, sometimes she able to settle herself, and sometimes she is not. On the nights that she is not able to, it’s terrible. We had a terrible night last night, which prompted me to finish this post because I needed an outlet. I have such a love/hate relationship with the pacifier. When she actually takes it, it soothes and she is able to go to sleep; HOW-FUCKING-EVER….she will not keep that damn thing in her mouth. She will suck a little and then spit it out and then cry. We have tried every pacifier known to mankind and pretty much the only one she likes are MAM pacifier.

She goes through this vicious cycle in the middle of the night and she ends up working herself up because she can’t go back to sleep, therefore, is wide awake. It’s so fucking annoying. Like, I’m ready to get rid of the pacifier.

I’m just at a loss.

I need her to sleep. I know that will come with time, which is why I’m wishing these newborn months away. I really didn’t want to do that with Briar because I did it with Raelynn. However, I didn’t regret it, and I don’t regret wishing it away now. I need to be sane for myself first, and my family second.

It is so hard for me to find a good balance in life right now. I honestly felt like Briar was going to be different. I hoped that I wasn’t going to have to walk down this postpartum depression path again. Yet, here I am, with the exact same feelings that I had approximately 2 years ago.

Besides sleep, I am not enjoying much of anything.

I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to leave the house, and I don’t want to have anyone over. This was my realization that I was balls deep in postpartum depression already.

Last weekend, Scott asked if I wanted to have some people over for dinner. Without hesitiation, I instantly said no.

Here’s my thought process:

  • First of all, I was not going to cook dinner at my house and then not be able to eat it. Let’s face it; most normal people on the weekend do not want to eat chicken and vegetables, which is essentially my diet being dairy/soy/egg free.
  • I was already anticipating the chain of events that would happen through the night.
  • Come 7:00p.m. I was going to have to be the one that went back to Briar’s room and secluded myself for the hour – hour and a half that it took to feed her.
  • I was not going to want to entertain anyone after I put Briar to sleep because I was going to want to get ready for bed.
  • I was going to have to be the one that woke up with her at 1:00 a.m. and deal with her antics, whatever they may be for the night.

What part of that sounds like fun?

I instantly realized that I was not enjoying things like I should be. That was my epiphany that I was balls deep in postpartum depression already. It was not a welcome feeling. I became extremely emotional after this. I just did not want to be in this dark hole again. I had made so much progress, only to take leaps backwards.

There are several social events that are coming up and I’m probably going to stay at home for all of them. I literally just don’t have it in me to participate. I just feeling like I’m losing control of my life right now.

Another issue…my relationship.

Things are not terrible; but they are not great either. I don’t really know what I expected this time around. I mean, introducing a newborn into your life is a big deal. I totally get how couples do not make it through kids. It puts major pressure on your relationship. And, Scott is having a really hard time with Briar in general.

We have several different situations right now that we both do not like:

  • Our sleeping situation is that we don’t sleep together right now. I hate this more than anything.
  • I am the only person getting up with Briar each night. Hence, Scott gets a full nights of uninterrupted sleep every single night. I hate this. He seriously does not even hear Briar cry. I am nothing less than amazed by this.
  • Scott only has to worry about Briar from 5:00pm – 7:00pm; which is her extreme fussy time. He has expressed to me that he does not feel connected with her at all right now.
  • Scott gets to not have a care in the world. I feel as though I carry all the burden.
  • Scott gets to enjoy himself and go out with friends. He does not have a hard time detaching from Briar, Raelynn, or myself at all. For me, I’m more so envious and jealous of this. Not mad about it.
  • I feel like he does not acknowledge any of the hard work that I’m putting into this.
  • Scott gets all the time with Raelynn and I practically get zero time with her.

Whenever I realized I was experiencing PPD, I took some time to gather my thoughts and then I had a conversation with Scott afterwards.

It was a good, civil conversation. I told him that I didn’t want a pat on the back because I’m doing what any mom would do, but shit, give me a break every once in a while.

I’m not the one that has to put Briar to sleep every night.

I’m not the one that has to wake up with her every single night.

That’s when he told me that he didn’t feel connected with Briar. It made me sad when he said that, but I get it.

We both equally agreed that we weren’t enjoying our lives right now.

That made me even more sad. We both knew this, but just to vocalize it is a different story.

Here are the positives with Scott and I. We don’t hold anything back. So, whenever we have an issue with each other or just in general, we talk about it. We love each other too much to just let things keep building until we blow up on each other. We love each other too much to just let things go. We love each other so much that we realize we will have many bumps in the road that will test our relationship, but that doesn’t mean we give up. We fight harder. We overcome. And we always do. Which is exactly why Scott and I are perfect for each other.

Hoping for a more positive post the next time around…