I’m not here to change your minds or to sway you to one side or the other. You do not have to implement or take away a single thing from my ramblings.
I am here to tell my story. In the past it seemed to help. Of course, in the past, it was happier stories.
There are people out there with far worse stories
than mine sharing and I think it is important to continue mental
health awareness. Continue encouraging people to not only express their true
selves and feelings but to know they are not alone in doing so.
It is especially crucial to be open for
all the future mommies.
In my time of crisis, I feared reaching
out. So many people in and around my life were procreating like rabbits. All this new life was blossoming and everyone was all smiles so how could I
talk about the tremendous amount of heartache and loneliness I felt as a new
mom?
I read all the shit… The blogs. The
how-tos. The step-by-steps. All of it. I wasn’t really concerned with postpartum depression being
a possibility. Pregnancy was a breeze. I was never sick. Birth was also no big
deal for me. I got the epidural, napped off and on for like six hours and then
four pushes later was baby.
Publishing my story and launching my “mommy”
blog are happening a bit quicker than I intended, but with everything going on in the
world it seemed like a good time. With hopes that it may shed light on postpartum from a
less shadowed and hushed perspective.
If you do not know me personally, I should
disclaim this entire post and any to follow. ***I've got a foul mouth, outlandish ideas and a lot of unpopular opinions. I’ve got a confused
jumble of "far left thinking" and "far right thinking" playing pinball in my brain
all day. My thoughts are not a safe place for the closed-minded. *** You have been
warned.
So here’s my story…
I’d been self-medicating anxiety with my
girl Mary Jane for so long it was no longer recreational...
So in March of 2019, I go see my doctor. He gives me a test and diagnoses me with ADD, then prescribes me Adderall. I’d gone my entire school life and years of existence without any focus or
performance issues. I had a degree and a career. According to my doctor,
anxiety is a large factor for adult ADD and due to the fact I had little control in my daily
life now it was causing too much interference with my brain for focus. Or some
shit like that…
Two months later, I found out I was
pregnant. The Adderall was short lived, but the anxiety was certainly not
dwindling, especially since pregnancy was on the table.
Since I couldn’t resort to self-medicating
during the pregnancy, I explained my recent anxiety situation to the OB. She
prescribed me Lexapro.
According to Google, Lexapro may
improve your energy levels and feelings of well-being, while decreasing nervousness.
Nope, not me. I think I took it for a month, maybe six weeks. I made me a zombie. I
mean stupefied auto pilot zombie. At this point my anxiety was minimal and I
was glowing about the little boy coming our way. So, I just set that prescription
to the side...
December 30, 2019 my son was born. I was
born that day, too. It was most certainly a harsher world we were born into
this time. I wasn’t ready for the future that was about to happen because it wasn’t
supposed to happen the way it did.
The world was blissful at home just breastfeeding
and snuggling with my newborn every day and all day. Not sleeping. Just
existing in a tiny bubble of baby loves and smells.
But March 2020 came and I had to go back
to work.
There was some weird shit going on in
the world at that time.
I went to work and picked right back up
where I left off except this time I’m pumping breastmilk in between phone calls.
My boss and work family were tremendous welcoming me back. I was good at my job,
so it was right to be there, and I was glad to be back at it.
Three weeks later we all went home for
the weekend but none of us knew then that we wouldn’t be returning the
following Monday…
There she was – COVID-19! The pandemic
of our fucking lifetime.
My husband and I packed up our newborn and
a couple months’ worth of supplies and went to quarantine at my parent’s house
on the lake in the middle of nowhere.
We are spiraling out of control at this
point. I am following his lead and I am feeling like a crazy person when I go
to my boss and tell him I need a week to hole up with the family. My jaw dropped
when this man said, “Yeah, you should be with your family… It’s getting serious...”
My old boss was no bitch. He would
laugh a conspiracy theory out of the room so WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!?!
Anyway, I’m fine in our bubble with my
family over the next week as we watch the world lose its shit on every single news
channel all day long and everyone fights on social media about being locked up
like Rapunzel in their towers and whether or not the virus is real despite the
rising death toll across the globe. As we watched the world turn, I ordered a
laptop and started preparing myself to work remote.
At some point my bubble is busted when my
manager called and said that the 3 supervisors, head paralegal and the boss man
would be coming to the office Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00 as usual effective
tomorrow. The five of us. We were essential. The others would work remote.
I lost it…
You guys remember when this pandemic
first popped off and we were “locked" in? Your mind was going 90 to nothing
and spiraling out about crazy conspiracies. But like mostly I kept picturing
the M. Night Shyamalan movie “The Happening,” with my boy Marky Mark where the
virus is airborne and if the wind blows just right you’re going to catch that
shit and go nuts… That’s what was happening in my mind. Laugh all you want
cause I am now but I wasn’t trying to walk from my front door to the car then.
At this point my husband has lost his
job because of the pandemic and I was going to have to go to work since my job
depended on it and now my family depended on it. Because, although the world was
shut down, bills were still coming. The baby still needed diapers and all the
other shit babies need. We decided I’d work and my husband would stay with baby
so we didn’t risk any additional exposure.
We went back home and the next day I
went into work. It was weird. Empty. But it was the busiest we have ever been.
Other law firms were closing down and staying hidden so they were sending tons
of business to us. Mail was still coming and going. We were taking clipboards out to
clients cars on the curb to sign documents. There really weren’t any lunch breaks. We
killed it, of course but it was tough. The others didn’t come back for
about six weeks.
In the midst of all this, I am going in early and
coming home late. I am up at 4:00 a.m. with baby and down at midnight with
baby. I am trying to get in bath time and dinner time. While also trying to remember to
shower and maybe feed myself. My husband and I were drifting, no details
necessary if you’ve ever had a newborn. It’s exhausting. It’s a competition. It’s
a drain. It’s beautiful. It’s crazy. It’s everything good. Its everything bad.
We couldn’t communicate. I was drowning.
Sometime in June of 2020 I could no
longer balance being Amie, being a wife, being an essential employee and mostly…
I could no longer balance any of that with being a mother.
I tossed back that bottle of Lexapro I’d
previously set aside. Then I tried to puke but couldn’t. Then I woke up fucked
out of my mind and a cold shower wasn’t doing anything so my husband took me to
the ER.
(SIDEBAR: Huge shoutout to the family
friend I called to come watch baby because she is open about her mental health
and I knew she would come no questions, simply understanding. This is why it is
important to be open, so people know who to reach out to in their moments of
need.)
Well I lost that battle…
or won it depending on your perspective.
Three days in rehab
without your newborn is a lifetime to consider the place you are at in life.
Cold-hearted truth:
rehab was the best three days of sleep I’d had in six months, though. I got
some rest. Started back over. Dusted that shit off and tried again.
I was a complete and total emotional
piece of shit. I have no shame about it either. I am human. I made and birthed
a human. I will never again be as weak as I was in those moments because I
know I survive. Now I know my body is a portal for the soul that is my son and
that is worth every moment of suffering I may have when I am alive. THAT
feeling is MY burden. MY sin. MY choice. MY story to tell. MY story to share.
Now originally I was
going to tie in my open confession of post-partum with the transition of motherhood
into the workforce and such but that will have to wait for another blog because
there is some backward ass politicking going on these days.
On September 1, 2021, the Supreme Court
neglected to stop the “Heartbeat Act,” courtesy of Texas, from going into
effect.
The “Heartbeat Act” forbids abortions after six weeks (whenever an ultrasound can detect a fetal “heartbeat.”)
Even though a fetus doesn’t have a heartbeat at that developmental stage…
And as many of us know heartbeats can be detected but not always viable…
It takes four weeks to even know you’ve missed your period.
I was 9 weeks before I peed on a stick. 10 weeks when I saw my primary doctor for a blood test and 15 or 16 weeks before I had my first appointment with an OB for an ultrasound.
My child was unplanned but not unwanted and any tests always came back clear so there was never a moment needed to make a harsh decision like abortion.
My story of depression and post-partum as a result of a wanted child is hardly a speck of dust for what a woman could endure were she to give birth to an unwanted child.
The “Heartbeat Act” has no exceptions for women pregnant from rape or incest.
The big kicker is the “Heartbeat Act” leaves enforcement up to us citizens and is enforced civilly instead of criminally. The act allows citizens to sue those who perform or assist with the abortion, not the woman seeking the abortion.
Who the fuck are we that we try to control that as a collective? That you would sue a medical professional for committing to their patients the duties and oaths they swore to uphold.
I’m sorry folks but I just can’t get on board with this bullshit.
I have always been pro-choice. When I was younger, before I ever had a kid, I always thought I would never be able to go through with an abortion myself because one day I may want kids and maybe because I had an abortion once, my body would punish me and not let me have one when I was ready. I believe in karma. That was just my thought process. And that was then…
Abortion is not always
a decision made with hast. It is a decision that will haunt for life. I imagine
the haunting exists whether you go through with the abortion or decide to go through
with the pregnancy. Those what ifs always hang over our heads. What if I had
done it? What if I hadn’t? That thought and that decision is to live with them for
the rest of their lives.
Children make
mistakes. So do adults. We are constantly evolving. Who we are today is never
who we will be tomorrow or 20 years from today. It is not the collectives
decision to decide my choices or mistakes for me.
Fanatical pro-lifers think they are saving lives by banning
and limiting abortion access. Which
life, though? The mother’s life who has to raise a child conceived of rape? The
life of the mother raising a child from incestuous conception?
The ultimate father reaction to rape is to murder the rapist. But are we not murdering the mother when we force her to carry and raise her rapist’s child?
Are we not murdering a mother when we force her to endure a pregnancy only to give birth to a dead baby?
Are we not murdering a human when we make them give birth to a child when they don’t even identify as a woman. (I had to sit on that one for awhile, too.)
The CDC says 3.7 million babies are born in America each year. Of those 3.7 million how many do we think are born into privileged homes?
Instead of meeting mothers with unwanted
pregnancies with protest and hate why don’t you put yourself in their shoes? Or
maybe you’d like to meet them with a $500,000 check and a life supply of
formula, diapers and wipes. That should ensure the child has fantastic
healthcare, a grade A education, and a roof over their head. For some of their
life, anyway.
Oh, we can’t do that? I guess those poor helpless moms need to figure it out on their own, huh?
These men out here planting seeds everywhere but who has to grow them?
If all I can do with my privilege is admit that it is there and share my story and let you all know this law is against every fucking woman in the country then that’s all I can do.
This is going to spiral out of control. Many states are already following suit to further prohibit and limit abortion access. South Dakota passed a protective order banning abortion medicine distribution via telemedicine not even a week after the Texas “Heartbeat Act” went into effect.
If I turned up pregnant today I am 98.9999% sure I couldn’t go through with it. Not without a substantial amount of therapy to even consider it. I cannot risk being that unstable again at an age my son would understand.
There are points during post-partum when you cannot see the light. There are women who may never find the light.
Today my light is having a choice.
I’m just going to close with this really classless thought now but read it a few times before you jump to how appalling it sounds.
If I want to throw myself down a flight of stairs tomorrow that is my mother fucking right! Call it murder but you’d just be murdering me and robbing my son of a mother if you forced an unwanted pregnancy. This is the shit y’all can’t see past and the shit some people won’t say out loud because society has too many opinions.
And I remind you that if I were
to throw myself down a flight of stairs that that is MY sin. MY choice. MY burden. MY
story to tell. MY story to share.
And today I’m sharing my story with you so you
know that we all have moments of weakness. Of loneliness. Of disbelief. Of despair.
Of hopelessness. Of unsureness.
And more importantly I share it to politely ask
you to mind your fucking business. You have NO idea how some one feels about
anything. I know my limits and my body now more than ever. I will never ever
let another being tell me how I feel.
It has been 100 years since women earned the right to vote and started entering the workforce and taking it over. We are educated now. We are powerful now. We need to remember that we are educated and powerful now. No fucking man who has never, nor could ever, birth a human dare tell me what the fuck I’m going to do with my body. Know that!!!
Below are all the articles I thought most informative throughout my writing of this blog post. :)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/03/world/how-texas-abortion-law-compares-to-world-intl-cmd/index.html
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/31/texas-abortion-law-supreme-court/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/health/texas-abortion-law-facts.html
