5 Days. It’s been 5 days since we’ve welcomed our sweet baby girl into this world! It’s new for her, it’s new for us. Yet, this isn’t our first rodeo. She’s baby #3.
We are getting to learn what it’s like to be a family of 5…learning a new schedule, learning a new person. Re-learning the newborn season.
Ahhh- the newborn season. It’s tough. It ain’t for the faint of hearts.
There are parts of the newborn season that I love! All the snuggles. The cute baby smiles. Kissing her sweet little cheeks. Watching her figure out her body, do new things, and later- when she’s getting used to this new world- watching her grow and hit milestones. All of these and more are what I love about the newborn stage.
And.
And then, there are the hard parts.
Like…crying for no reason. No. Not her. Me. I know, I know. It’s the hormones. And, it’s the staying up all. night. long. Sometimes feeding once in an hour. Sometimes feeding every 5- 10 minutes for 4 hrs straight. It’s complete exhaustion. It’s worry about my two boys and how they are adjusting. Are they getting enough of us? It’s their meltdowns. Their needs, their feeling like they are still loved too. If I’m not careful. If I don’t take care of myself- “it’s the hormones” can turn into something more. PPD. Postpartum depression.
Often times I read or hear- “you may not know this about me” or “I didn’t tell you, but..” and then the person will go on to say how during this certain length of time they struggled with baby blues, or postpartum depression. And I’m glad they are sharing. But, here’s the thing… we need to be doing more.
With my second child, I had high anxiety. I was depressed. It was an extended survival mode. It was panic attacks. It was hard. I learned how to talk to people about what I was going through to people around me. My friends. My family. There were a small handful of people who got me through this time. And although I don’t believe that we should have to tell every.single.person. about.every.aspect.of.our.lives. I do believe that PPD is something we, not only need to talk about- we need to do something about.
We need to stop waiting until we’ve made it through to the other side to talk about it. We need to lift up the other women around us. Supporting them. Helping them in their times of need. We can’t be perfect. We can’t help every woman. But we can help the ones we’re called to help, and that will make a difference.
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