Help a Mama Out

My second daughter is now seven months old and I finally am feeling like my old self again. It has taken me a few months to write this blog because it is a difficult thing to write about. Hell asking for help is a difficult thing for me to do in general. I mean we all want to be super mom, right? When I had our first daughter everyone was coming by and asking how they could help out and were always visiting. It was stressful to try and look presentable all the time but it really did help me feel not cut off from the world. With the second one everyone assumed I knew the ropes so there was no need to check in. This assumption could not have been further from the truth. All our parents took off right after she was born and that was that. Here is where I admit I have never needed more help in my life and got so little.

Second children are twice as hard when they arrive because suddenly there are two children to care for. Not only are you completely energy drained and taking care of a newborn and in my case there was also an energy bound needy toddler. My husband took the first two months off of work to help out which was great. It really did help and I really was doing great. When he went back to work things were still pretty good for awhile and then at about four months it became obvious I had developed postpartum thyroidtis.

I felt like I was on a roller coaster with whiplash. I started gaining back some of the weight I had lost. I was tired and cold all the time. I had trouble functioning with simple tasks and memory. To make matters worse my hair was coming out by the handfuls. My milk supply dropped so the baby was eating twice as often and getting frustrated. My husband would come home and I would be rocking two crying children while I too was crying too from complete exhaustion. At one point I got sick and I knew I needed help and my family lives up on the Olympic Peninsula so that was out. I begged my husband to take one day off to help me until the fever and body aches went away. After taking two months off already he could not afford to take off anymore. He was reluctant to ask his folks in fear of them thinking we couldn't handle our own children. My mother suggested I hire someone to help with the cleaning. Great in theory until you factor in the the size of the hospital bills we were paying off. I finally got my husband to ask his mother to help and she could only help one day a week once in awhile during the toddler's nap time or sometimes after my husband got home from work. Not ideal but it was better than nothing.

Finally at about six months my energy came back my hair started growing back! I felt like I was back in the world of the living. It was probably two of the longest darkest months of my life. The first six months with any newborn whether it is your first or fifth is always the hardest. My advice to friends and family who are close to those with newborns is to check in frequently during those first six months. Take the toddler out and let mom get a nap! Things may appear fine and dandy on the outside but chances are there is a lot going on just below the surface. A female body just made a whole new human! It takes some time to truly recover from something like that. I write about this because even though I felt completely alone at the time, I know that I was not alone. There are mothers out there having similar experiences.  

Lyra (24m) and Etta (3m)