Coming Up For Air

Finally, at nine months postpartum I can feel the fog of depression lifting and I am able to better enjoy life as a mom. We are definitely not through it entirely- just through what will hopefully be the thickest of it all and I can see the vague shape of this happy and fulfilling motherhood I keep hearing about.

There are still plenty of bad days. It is like we are drowning and lately we have been let up for air more often- maybe even long enough to start to feel a little comfortable and begin to settle in. Then whoshhh, there we go back under again, beneath the waves of endless fussing, hours of crying and hopeless emotional exhaustion.

When we plunge back below it feels as if the fresh breaths of air never happened at all. It could have been a fantastic morning of sunshine, or even days in a row of easy, comfortable breathing when suddenly we are drowning again. Breathing at all seems a distant memory- did we even experience it, or was it just our imagination? My lungs feel two dimensional and incapable of the reprieve we experienced.

"They walked as it were in a black vapour wrought of veritable darkness itself that, as it was breathed, brought blindness not only to the eyes but to the mind, so that even the memory of colours and forms and of any light faded out of thought. Night always had been, and always would be, and night was all." -Tolkien, The Two Towers

I say "we" as if my baby is experiencing everything as I do. I have to remind myself that her fussing and crying now are monumentally less in intensity and duration. In fact she smiles and laughs and babbles so much these days that I can look at her and be convinced that she is okay and not feeling the same drowning that I have been.

Now that things are getting better- and yes, I constantly reassure myself, things are getting better- I am struck with a new knife to the heart. She is already so tall and strong and capable and seems to be almost a toddler already. She is no longer a little baby, and I missed it. I feel like I missed it all. The newborn bliss I was so looking forward to- gone. Disappeared behind a haze of terror and pain. The wonderful hours of oxytocin cuddles- sucked dry by the pain of feeding her or lost completely to hours of pumping for her. All those precious moments of first little smiles and coos, rendered in black and white because of PTSD and postpartum depression. Now that I am finally starting to enjoy this baby phase I see that it is already almost over. What grief.

Olivia the Pig for Halloween!

I am so happy to have her happier. I am soaking up every bathtub splashing session, every giggly meal and every laugh attack she has over ordinary everyday occurrences, such as sneezing. I am savoring what I have left, even as I mourn what I feel I have lost.

I love you so much my silly little angel. Don't grow up too fast.