First off thank you for the PMs and concern I truly love this community. Yes, I did quietly fall off the face of the planet. The truth is the transition into motherhood was harder than I anticipated and I needed to be away.

My labor was hard – the physical recovery was quick but the mental recovery took a large toll on me. When I came home I was trying to do it all. I was still trying to maintain a house and now care for a tiny human who sleeps like a baby – as in, he wakes up a lot… And needs me… Only me. Because I’m choosing to breastfeed exclusively. I can honestly say since birthing this child I have not slept a longer stretch than 3 hours before I’m woken. Seriously, most nights my child wakes every 2 hours. I’m drained. I’m hurting.

I realize that I was naive to think I knew what I was doing going into this. I’m sure many women would read my tweets and think “Oh she’ll see” and I do see –I see that this is hard. I was judgy. I thought all women should be SAHMs that this was the one and only path for true femininity. But I was being just as short-sighted as feminists. This life is not for everyone and I’m not even sure it’s for me – because it’s fucking hard.

I was struggling. I felt clueless. I was clueless. And I felt absolutely horrible because of that. This is what I had wanted – my whole life all I have wanted was children. Now I have one and I have NO IDEA what I’m doing. I was very scared.

I tried to do it all – I tried to maintain the life we had before the child once the child showed up out of some dumb pride. It took my husband forcibly removing dishes from my hands while I sobbed to break that. To accept the help I needed. To accept that I was not in a good place mentally. Motherhood has humbled me.

The thing is – I was scared to ask for help because I didn’t want to come off as weak, or looking for a pity party. And I definitely didn’t want people to know I was bad at this. One 2am nursing session I posted an emotionally, hormonally charged tearful plea in my bump group's Facebook group. I confessed all the terrible thought I had going on in my head and how I hated my child. How I hated myself more for even thinking such a thing. How I would lie awake at night between nursing sessions with an anxious stomach ache because as soon as I fell asleep he'd cry for me. - Not only was my post met with love and compassion I received tangible advice on how to work through this. How other women had asked for help. How they leaned on their husband or others in their lives. the advice I could put into practice immediately.

Society screams at women to BE INDEPENDENT. But in doing so we're hurting because we have no idea how to ask for help in a healthy way. I certainly needed to learn to ask for help. And I'm getting the help I need, now.

Anyway – I wanted to say hi! And ramble. And let you all know I’m not dead Just attempting to practice some serious self-care. As well as keep a tiny human alive :)

Two articles I’ve read recently that have helped me a lot so I figured I would share.

https://sophiemessager.com/motherhood-fking-hard-not-meant-on-our-own/

https://grubbymummyblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/accepting-the-reality-of-infant-and-toddler-sleep/