Anxiety and Post Partum Depression

Up until today, while watching my sister muscle through pain, sleep deprivation, and a newborn that is hard to nurse, I remembered what it was like during the newborn stage. Just from seeing her almost defeated look of frustration and still determination, it all came flooding back to me. I realize, looking back, that I dealt with some ppd after my first child. A lot of it I blamed on the birth control. I didn't know any better. I now realize it for what it was. After my second child, it was 10x worse. I couldn't hear a baby cry, no matter who it belonged too, without feeling like it was up to me to meet its needs. I was having worse than normal memory loss, and trouble focusing. I didn't have uncontrollable crying, or the other symptoms you associate with depression, like sleeping all the time, being withdrawn, but I had more subtle symptoms. I waited six months before going to my OBGYN and getting checked out. I truly wish I would have gone sooner, but you live and learn. I realized today that a lot of that anxiety still lingers. I've been a nervous wreck all day. I want to take that frustration away from my sister. I want to be able to shoulder some of that burden for her. I also want to run far away and never experience those things again. In that moment, when everything was happening at once, I decided that more children will not be a decision I will be making any time soon, if ever again. I'm not sure I could survive all of that for a third time. You hear people say, you'll never regret having children, but you will regret not having them. What if I do? What if I get twenty or thirty years down the road and wish I would have had one more? What if I miss my chance to experience that with my love? What if we never have that bond that's created by meshing our dna together to give life to something precious? Will I still be ok? Or will I have regrets? This has consumed my thoughts today. Tomorrow is a new day, full of fresh new challenges. I will put this away for now, but I'm sure it will come up again.

Twins!

My amazing super hero sister carried her twins to 36 weeks 2 days and her water broke this morning. Maddox and Marley were welcomed into the world just after 3:30 am. I am so proud of her, and enamored with the babies. There are a lot of life moments where you need to soak in the smallest things, and today just helps to remind me of that.