Post Partum Hell Part 2: Where Were You All?

Before giving birth I sent out an email to people I thought cared about me, or people who had gone up to me and said, "OMG!  You are having a baby?  So excited!  I want to baby sit!  I'll do it for free!  OMGOMGOMG!!!" Or something similar to that.  The email said basically, "Holy shit, I'm having a baby and I am a little freaked out about how I will cope with this.  As you all remember, I'm a bit insane and have only been off psyche meds for a couple years.  So um, please help me this summer, I'm going to need help.  HELP!"

And barely anyone replied.  Seriously, barely ANY of you sent anything back like, "YES!  I will help!  I can come over every Tuesday afternoon from 3-5 pm for the first few weeks."  Actually, NO ONE gave any specific times or days.  A few people said, "uh... yeah, call me sometimes or whatever...  I'm really busy."  I was trying to rally my community, and found little community to rally.  But I figured people would come after the BABY was here, after all... "OMG!  BABY!  OMG!!"  Babies are miracles and stuff like that and mine was actually quite cute as a newborn, he did not suffer from ugly newborn syndrome, and I had several people confirm this for me, so it wasn't just my mommy goggles. 

Then I had the baby, and I called my parents and my grandparents and told them to spread the news and told them I was at the nurse midwife unit at HCMC and that, yes, I was OK with visitors from my family.  I told co-workers to wait a day, I wasn't quite sure about my presentability as far as people I work with was concerned, but close friends and relatives, were told to come on down!

...

You did not come on down.  And come on, my son was born in the morning of Memorial Day, it's not like you had to get to work.  My mom stoped by, one of my step-sisters stopped by, my supervisor from work came the second day, and my friend Manda who had been with me during early labor came to see the finished product.  And that's it.

I was so confused, y'all.  No one else even called.  My experience with people having babies in my family is that you go to the hospital to meet the brand new baby.  Granted the last baby to be born in my family was a good 10 years previous, and none of my close friends had had a baby, but I figured it was still the customary thing to do.  Apparently I was wrong.

I even talked to nurses about it, "where are they?"  I would ask.  They told me that they would probably come to my home later.

So we went home.  Expecting phone calls from people wanting to come over.  I even posted on facebook that we were up for visitors, come visit!

You didn't.

You didn't call and you didn't visit.

OK, a few of you did.  Brent's mom came into town for a few days, my mom came by several times and one of my aunts came around a few times.  I also had one other friend peek in for about 45 minutes, and another bring over some Chinese food.  Our moms cleaned up and my aunt brought groceries and some DVDs.  No one else offered to help with anything.  I am super grateful to those who did help out, but I have to admit, I was expecting way more phone calls and offers of help than we got.  I cried about it a lot.  I was so upset that none of you called.

I felt like none of you cared that I had a baby.  I was so confused and on top of it I figured that I must have been an awful person who actually didn't have any friends.  I cried about how I am a freak and how no one likes me and how alone I will always be.  I was seriously bummed.

I even tried to reach out a few times to others who I knew had children or who loved children and basically nothing came out of it.  I give a total pass to those of you who had babies around the same time as me, I suspect you were going through similar things.  No one would set up a specific date with me.  Some of you still have yet to meet this baby.

I guess I felt that I must have thought I was more important to some of you than I actually turned out to be.  This was a HUGE let down while in the post partum hell.  And I still can feel it's reverberations.  People care way less about babies being born that I thought they would, it's just a reality shift I've had to accept.  Having a baby is isolating as fucking hell and don't let anyone tell you it's not.  And on top of it, you have WAY too much time on your hands.

Do you know how much time it takes to take care of a newborn?  Not enough.  Newborns sleep a bunch.  So baby is either sleeping, eating, or getting it's diaper changed, for like a good month.  This leaves you with ample time to think about how BORED you are and also about how NO ONE is calling you, EVER.  Plus your body hurts so you can't do things like, go for a walk to get fresh air, or even walk around the mall or Target, you can't walk, you can sit.  And you feel nuts so other entertaining activities are forgotten about.  We watched a lot of TV and movies, mostly for distraction from our crazy reality.  Brent put in a new sidewalk in our back yard, and tended to a few other projects on his month of paternity leave.  Yes, he had time to put in a new sidewalk in our backyard.  This is how much time newborns give you.

I also got so sick of Brent.  I love Brent like crazy and he's an amazing person who I feel incredibly lucky to be married to and who is an amazing father, but a solid month of being with him and I was starting to feel excited about his return to work.  I am 100% sure that Brent feels the same way about me.  We really NEEDED friends to break up our time together, but we just didn't have any come around.  Luckily we didn't get into fights or anything, just an annoyance of having only one person to amuse ourselves with.

At 6 days post partum I went to a baby shower (because I was so bored and had to go SOMEWHERE or I would lose my mind) of someone who has been a friend of the family since before she was born (if that makes sense).  And I remember, vaguely, sitting on a chair in the back yard and people were talking about the community this person has around them and how they have friends living in their same house and how her brother is near by and how awesome it is, and I started sobbing.  I sobbed.  And they didn't know what to do.  And I continued to sob and someone came over to me eventually and I don't remember who it was but I basically told them that I don't have this wonderful, freaking community and that I'm horribly jealous and alone. 

This sobbing didn't change anything.  I guess I shouldn't have expected it, but I guess I was hoping that someone would get the clue and like, welcome me to the community, but it didn't happen.  No community was brought to me.

I cursed you all for the entirety of my maternity leave, sorry!  I totally bashed all of you to my husband.  Then would bash myself, because after realizing that you all had failed to provide me with support, I figured that the common denominator was me, I'm the crazy freak no one wants to help.

Then things started to get better.  I went back to work, which is a community, but after a month I had to quit because it just wasn't working to work full time.  Then I had a month of unemployment and I started to look for my own community.  I was finally done wallowing about how no one loves me and decided to go find love for myself.  I knew that others like me had to exist and I was done trying to engage the people I already knew (OK I still try to engage you sometimes, but fail often, but now it doesn't bother me as much). 

The first thing I did was join the Twin Cities Attachment Parenting Internationl.  I totally agree with their parenting style and figured I would find people like me, it took me a bit, but I started going to a play group on Thursdays and now I actually know the names of some people and they know me.  I also took an elimination communication class from Baby Love to help me not feel so alone with that aspect of my parenting and a few months later finally started showing up to their nursing moms support group called the Baby Cafe.  Some of the moms in that group also do EC.  In both of these places I've also found great support for home birth and other crunchy things I'm now very much into.

I also started going to an ECFE class and have tried to get to a few political things with Socialist Alternative. 

Working part time also is amazing, I see my baby enough, but I also get away and meet other people and have grown to like the people I work with at my new job.  I highly recommend working part time, even if you don't need the money.  If you lack community, like me, it can be a great way to get out and meet others.  I'm know there are toxic work places out there, but there are good ones too. 

And I'm slowly forgiving you all for totally ignoring the fact that I grew and birthed an amazing baby boy.  And also realizing how little I have seen of everyone else's babies too.

But, next time I have a newborn. I'M going to make the phone calls, and I'm going to be calling you all way more often, asking for things.  Something I didn't feel comfortable doing this time around.  I expected offers or people calling me asking how they could help (a few of you did offer, and you rock!).  I'm sure some of you didn't feel comfortable calling me, so really, aren't we both kind of silly!

I'm also realizing that some of you were VERY busy, and maybe we actually weren't that close and I can accept that.  I can accept this because I'm forging new paths with new people who can better serve me during my motherhood.  When you really get down to it, I can be a very brave and proactive person who fights to get what she wants and needs until she succeeds.  "Impossible" is not in my vocabulary very often.  Sometimes it leads me to do foolish things, but sometimes great things happen.

Coming out as an Athiest

It's only been recently that I have really realized how unique it is to be without religion in the US.  I'm not one of those people who was forced to go to Catholic school and slowly began questioning things and decided that I was no longer a believer.  I've never been a believer.  I wasn't raised around religion.  I went to church a handful of times, mostly for weddings and funerals and major Christian holidays.  I never read or studied the bible or any other holy text.  It was a given my whole life that there were no super natural forces in the universe.  This is a unique environment to grow up in.

As I went through my political "awakening" and became a materialist and a socialist it was further solidified in my mind that I am pretty much 100% sure that there is no God.  Though I agree that one cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God.  I also agree that many people find lots of joy and comfort in religion. 

This does not mean I am not spiritual, in a sense.  I strongly lean toward Buddhism.  I believe that we can find inner peace within ourselves even when we are in very difficult situations.  In fact I believe that we cannot avoid suffering and pain in life.  Life is full of pain and suffering and unfulfilled desires.  All we can really do is accept what we cannot change and try to change the things we can.  And I've come to learn that pretty much the only thing we can change is our own actions; we only have control over ourselves, and sometimes only a fraction of ourselves.  This has deep implications for my parenting.  This belief helps me a lot.  I realize I have no control over my baby, I can only change what I do.  It's very relaxing and empowering.  I imagine it is similar to those who say thing like, "it's in God's hands now."  I actually don't think I am that different from a highly religious person, I just have no belief in super natural activity; I need to see it to believe it. 

I feel alone at times, however.  I have many atheist friends, or at least agnostic, non-religious friends.  We tend to find each other.  But Christianity is everywhere.  I decided about 10 years ago that I thought it would better to not pray at all then to pretend to pray, so when I'm at weddings or funerals and they say, "let us pray," I keep my head up and look for others who decided to not pray.  I don't see it as an act of defiance, I see it as a respectful bowing out, "this is for you, but I will pass."  Much like I would never take communion at a service. 

I dated someone who was a believer and we would get into fights about religion.  Mostly I would get annoyed at how it seemed that EVERY politician and everyone on TV and every sporting event would have some kind of reference to God.  As an atheist, sometimes you feel like God is shoved down your throat a bit, because it is so ingrained in our culture.  And it's uncomfortable sometimes because you don't know what to say and you wonder what anyone's reaction will be if you tell them, "I don't actually believe this stuff."  So he would get me to admit that I felt superior, which I do sometimes, because I find it so hard to understand how the majority of people can believe in supernatural things that they've never witnessed with their own two eyes.  Then he would tell me that I was awful for feeling like I was better than others and that I was the reason things were so messed up.  Which, amazingly, made me feel the opposite.  More like, "you are ridiculous, you are proving my point that I am superior."  One of many reasons our relationship didn't work out.

I also once got into a HUGE fight with a religious person once because I was trying to get him to admit that he couldn't prove the existence of God, so therefore, he had to admit that there was a chance He didn't exist.  He basically told me that I was going to hell for not believing.  I told him that I didn't believe in hell and well... you can see where that would go. 

So, I've had some bad run ins with religious people who don't seem to want to understand my point of view. 

When I told my husband that I was annoyed at missionaries and people who try to recruit people to their church he came up with an interesting argument, "I'm annoyed when they don't recruit me.  I mean, if they really believe that my soul is going to hell, they should do everything in their power to try to save my soul."  He was kind of kidding, but it made me look at missionaries differently.  I also started to view missionaries more sympathetically when I started my own political work and was trying to recruit people to a socialist organization (OMG hard work!).  I imagine some of my stress was similar to theirs. 

I do wonder how people judge me.  I don't hide that fact that I'm an atheist.  I don't announce it, but if people ask me questions about religion, I admit that I am not religious.  Do people really fear for my soul?  Do people imagine me to be unhappy and lost?  Do they respect my decision to raise my own children without monotheistic religion?  Do they go home and say, "WTF? Andrea didn't baptise her son? How does her life work? Does she sacrifice goats and dance naked too?"  Are they confused?  Do they think I'm doing immoral things because I don't have God in my life?  These questions honestly freak me out sometimes because I am someone who is overly worried about what people think of me, even though I often act the opposite of that feeling.  I act the opposite because more than anything I want to up hold my integrity.  I'm an awful liar and rarely do it, which is why I admit to being a socialist, an atheist, a breast feeder, a person who is overcoming mental illness, and many more things.  My hope is to help stop the stigma associated with some of these things and to not feel so alone.  If I don't admit to them, I will never find others like me out there. 

And yes, I respect your religion and sometimes look at it with envy and curiosity, but it's not something I will ever be a part of.  I will find and am currently finding community elsewhere, which I do believe is important to find.  And you can rest assured that my soul is not dammed for hell and that I'm not out doing immoral things, in fact I'm in a monogamous, happy marriage and I'm fighting for system-wide societal change for the better of the entire world when I have time away from trying to raise my children the absolute best I can. 

I'm Already Planning a Home Birth

I've thought about this for a long time.  I wasn't unhappy with my first birth, but it wasn't quite what I wanted.  I really wanted a home birth, but was afraid and had little support for it and knew very few people who had had them.  I also had never witnessed a birth and went into the whole thing not completely informed (sometimes very confused during the actual labor).  Though I think I was perhaps more informed than average.  I had a natural hospital birth, which is what we planned.  But I'm not going to plan my next one to be in a hospital. 

Plans can change.  I know that.  Even with my first birth I told people, "we are planning a water birth with the midwives at HCMC for now."  Because I knew that my pregnancy could turn high risk and I'd have to switch to an OB, I also knew that I could go into labor early, I also knew that I basically had to have NOTHING go wrong to be allowed in the tub, and I also knew that if HCMC was full they would send me somewhere else.  In the end I never saw an OB and I had a natural birth at HCMC, but I didn't get to use the water tub. 

I don't want to go back to the hospital to give birth.  It's been solidified in my mind now.  I will if I have to, but it will not be the initial plan.  I didn't really need the hospital the first time, but it was there.  It was intrusively there sometimes.  I wrote about the problems I had there in a previous blog.  And the research is showing that home births are as safe as hospital births for low-risk pregnancies who plan a home birth. 

I have also since this met several women who have had successful home births.  I have people I can talk to about it, who can point me in the right direction.  And I've already done it once, without complications, without drugs, even without the pain-reducing effects of warm water.  I feel triumphant in my decision.  I don't think I will change my mind again and this feels very empowering to me.  Just to feel like I've made an informed choice without doubts.  I had so many doubts the last time around, times when I cried that I was "NOT going to that damn hospital, you can't make me." Times when I was in the hospital and felt a lack of control and knowledge.  Times where I felt my decisions were questioned over and over again. 

No, I'm not pregnant, or at least I shouldn't be.  But we plan on having another one in a couple years and I'm already thinking about it.  I've already got a plan for a midwife, possibly an apprenticing midwife, a birth doula, and a post partum doula.  A warm tub and a lot of interviews.  I kind of wish I had planned a home birth the first time around, but I do not regret my decision, because given my knowledge and experience I think I made the best decision for me at the time, even if the outcome wasn't perfect. 

So maybe you can read about my home birth sometime in 2014.