Kennedy Chapter 1

I became a Mama in 2017 when I had my first daughter Kennedy. My pregnancy was textbook and like most first time Mama's had everything planned to down to when my last nail and eye lash extension appointment would be so my hospital pictures would be IG ready. My water broke 16 days early followed by a 36-hour labor resulting in an emergency c-section at hour 37. I had( have) the most INCREDIBLE OB, nurses and hospital staff ever not to mention my aunt Deb hooked us up with the mac-daddy of hospital rooms (one the perks of being the HBIC on the Mom and Baby floor!) After a long and wonderful stay in the hospital we were ready to take our baby girl home and begin our journey as a family of 3.

When we came home later that day, we introduced Kennedy to her dog brother Bear who would forever be known as Bobo. I remember starting to cry because he didn’t want to come near me, and those tears didn’t stop for the next two weeks. My Mom says she remembers me sitting on the couch and telling her “I don’t like the way I feel.” That was the statement of the century. I had My Mom with us for the first two weeks and my sweet Husband was home during that time too, so I had TONS of help. Dinners were delivered daily from family and friends and the coffee was always on. But somehow each day got a little harder and darker until I found myself crying hysterically all day long. When someone would ask what’s wrong, I would reply with I don’t know I just don’t feel right, and I just couldn’t get my shit together. As anyone with anxiety knows, in situations like these we are hyper-aware of our feelings and once we get into our heads a bit we start to spiral, and every thought becomes scarier than the previous and the need for relief becomes emergent. I would find myself staring off into space telling myself, you are never going to bond with your baby if you’re crying like this…this house is a fucking mess….how do I know how much milk she is getting….is the flake of skin coming off normal….did we make the right choice…am I going to totally mess this up and how am I going to make it to tomorrow? A major anxiety trigger for me is change and I just wanted things to go back to ‘normal’ asap, which to me probably mean the way things were before when I had total and complete control over my life, my space and my emotions. Where responsibility over someone else’s life wasn’t a thing and I could run off to Target or Cherry Creek Mall whenever I felt like it, I felt trapped in my own house with this tiny little girl that I was going to royally mind f*** and by the time she is old enough she will realize what I fraud I am and will hate me or I would accidentally drop her and paralyze her for life.. All of this usually ran through my head by 7am.

Usually around the first or second pediatrician appt they have you fill out the survey that asses the mothers mental health- the name escapes me and I couldn’t find it after asking Google a million different ways, but you know the one on the aggressive green paper that asks you a bunch of questions and then you are to score it down below? I remember filling that out and getting all 4’s and preparing them to call social services on my ass because of how mentally unstable I was at the moment. But much to my surprise, no one said a word, no phone call later either. In retrospect, I am shocked they even let me leave with her that day, and seriously disappointed in them for not addressing that with me. Why ask the question if you can’t give some answers, but that is a rant for another day.

It was about a week in and I was talking to my aunt Deb (the bad ass from my hospital) about my frustrations with nursing-which we will get to later and while I was trying to explain to her I was worried about how much milk I was making and whether or not I was starving my child I could barley get my words out and she said “honey, you need to do what’s best for you and your baby and to me it sounds like you need to call Dr. M.” Like I have said before, I have the most incredible OB on the plant and everyone that knows me know how much I love and respect her and her word is GOD to me. So, I took my daily walk to the mailbox and called her office. The girls at the front desk answered and I hysterically mumbled….” I am a patient of Dr. McCullough and I …. can’t…stop crying… " I had an appointment an hour later.

Sitting in that waiting room in my pj’s and flip flops picking off my acrylics was a walk of shame like I have never seen. I kept telling myself ..Who has to go to the Dr. because they can’t stop crying? You JUST had a baby, and this should be the happiest time in your life and you just SUCK so many women out there cant conceive and you just want your life to go back to the way it was you suck you suck you SUCK!" The door knocks and she walked in and I lost it. She held my hand and said “Laura I see 12 of you a day, there is nothing wrong with you this is your hormones and your anxiety talking.” Then we dug into the baby blues…PPD and PPA and together we made a plan. I had been on 10 mg of Lexapro for abut 5 years at that point and her suggestion was bump it up to 20mg and that would start to provide some relief and I would start feeling better in about a week. Then the discussion of breastfeeding came in, like the giant freaking elephant in the room no one wants to talk about because its so FREAKING hard and it makes us Mams want to loose our damn minds. She asked how it was going and I told her that I wasn't making anything, and both Kennedy and I sucked at it ( or didn't suck and that was the issues.) She explained that my body is in full milk production mode which makes your hormones RAMP up like next level and if I wanted to I could stop and just formula feed. At the very moment I felt all the air leave my lungs and a giant wave of relief wash over me all at the same time. It was like taking a giant sip of that rose you have been waiting all summer for. She said "Laura I need a fed baby and a happy Mama."- and to me there was no further discussion needed. I knew that the breastfeeding and pumping to get 3 drops of milk wasn't going to sustain a human life and my mental health needed to come first so I could take proper care of myself AND my baby so...Jeff and I stopped at Target on the way home and stocked up on Similac. As crazy as this might sounds, I mourned my milk drying up. Putting the tight sports bras on and icing felt like I was stealing life from my child. I think we as mothers, we are ingrained with the innate need to feed our babies, its in our DNA and when we cant do that the way nature intended, we feel like failures. BUT as my Aunt Deb kept telling me: you have to do whats best for you and your family and kept reminding me my uncle Doug was formula fed and he is the smartest person she knows!

TBC...