Just Write

She just hasn't been herself lately. Her bubbly, sweet as a fresh, juicy strawberry personality has all but disappeared and in its place has left a cranky, clingy, super sad toddler. This has been going on for two days now. The piles of dishes on my kitchen counter are evidence to all of the cuddling we've been doing. It is so much more important to me than the housework right now. My baby's tears make my heart sink. I cannot stand seeing her in pain. The first dose of infant pain medicine took effect after twenty minutes, but it's now wearing off again. And we're right back where we started this day: lots of crying and even more comforting. Big brother and I do everything we can to distract her. We try playing with the wooden toy food and plastic plates on the fuzzy new family room carpet. That helps for a few minutes, but before we know it she's crying again, asking to be picked up by her mama.

We head upstairs so I can get a shower and get us all dressed for the day. I plop her in the portable playpen that has been stationed in our master bedroom for us to be able to accomplish tasks like showering and dressing, as her brother assumes his position next to it with the ipad in front of him. He chooses a fire truck show and I turn on the water full blast.

Five minutes later, as I'm blow drying my naturally curly hair straight, I peek over to find my footie-pajama-clad baby girl laying on her tummy clutching her lovie {paci in her mouth, of course}, fast asleep while her brother's noisy video blares two feet away from her.

Sleep, sweet baby. Rest and let those stubborn new teeth break through your swollen gums so that you're back to my bouncing bundle of trouble and giggles again.

I miss you, Sweetie.

Goals and a look back at an old list for Five Things Friday

This Friday I thought I'd do a little blast from the past.

I've been thinking a lot about goals lately. Back when I was a senior in college, we had to write a list of five goals we wanted to accomplish in the next 10 years. I can almost picture that piece of paper in my mind. Part of me thinks that if I really look hard enough {read: dig through all my piles of junk and clutter} I'd be able to find it. Because I'm pretty sure I saved it.

We were told that by physically writing your goals down on paper you were much more likely to actually attain them compared to simply thinking or talking about them. Something about the act of putting it in writing that makes it seem more real, I guess.

I can remember four of the five things on my senior year list of goals.

1. Get married
2. Buy a house
3. Have kids
4. Make $100k in one year
5. ?

I actually accomplished all of those things in the first five years out of college. But for the life of me, I cannot remember the fifth thing.

It still bugs me.

In the corporate world, I always had goals. It didn't matter whether I had a strict, micro-managing boss, or a laid-back superior who could care less what my numbers looked like. Because to me, I had goals in front of me for the week ahead, for the month, and for the year. If I didn't, my work tended to be just mediocre. By laying out the objectives I wanted to reach or exceed, I pushed myself harder and did higher quality work. My reputation was so important to me. I was always worried about what people thought of me and how they viewed me as a recruiter that I almost needed to better myself with each placement to keep up. It was exhausting. But looking back, I'm very proud of what I accomplished in the ten years I worked.

Now I'm a mom. I'm a wife. I'm a homemaker. I don't care so much what other people think of me, but I do care about feeling that I'm successful in my new career of SAHM. I haven't set goals for myself in over two years. Unless you count the 35-pound weight-loss goal I was determined to accomplish after the birth of my son. {I hit that one, in case you're wondering.}

I'm itching to write some new goals. Given that it's June 1, I thought it was a good date to lay out some monthly goals for the rest of the year. I think I'll stick to three goals for each month, so as not to overwhelm myself.

June

1 Volunteer at a nursing home

2 Start and finish the gardening work around the house (weed all flower beds, lay fresh mulch, hang flower baskets from porch)

3 Run four days a week

 

July

1 Clean and organize garage

2 Carve our initials into the humongous tree that lives beside our house

3 Do a 3-day juice fast

 

August

1 Take a photography class

2 Cook vegan/vegetarian the entire month

3 Repaint the kitchen a bold color 

 

September

1 Create Preschool boxes for each of my kids to collect their artwork and projects

2 Plan a fall {October} wine tour with friends

3 Do a 10-day juice fast

 

October

1 Go on a family camping trip

2 Go to church every week and become more involved by joining a group

3 Finish my manuscript

 

November

1 Be a "Room Mom" for a day at my son's preschool

2 Work hard on my abs and keep them in shape through the holidays

3 Finish holiday shopping and start a new rule that each child gets 3 gifts and each adult gets 1 gift from Santa in order to simplify things and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas

 

December

1 Throw a really awesome holiday party & make it a tradition

2 Format my manuscript into a blog book including my own photography

3 Sponsor a local family for the holidays

 

I'm hoping to hold myself accountable to these goals to be able to look back on the second half of this year and see all that I've accomplished. I think it would be incredibly satisfying to say that I was able to do what I set out to do. Not just for me, but for my family, too.

I'm excited about this. I feel a new energy that I haven't felt in awhile. It's time to rock this list. Let's go.

What do you think? Have you written out any goals since becoming a mom? What do you want to have accomplished by the end of 2012?

Just Write

Yesterday morning both kids were completely quiet on the monitor as I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes enough to drag myself out of bed. I took a quick peek at the screen to see my little man sound asleep in his bed, laying on his side towards the wall, and my baby girl silently tracing her cheek with the knotted corner of her super soft lovie blanket. I was excited at the chance to get her up and fed {if I was lucky} before her big brother woke up. He needed the extra sleep since he missed his naps over the weekend. I tip-toed into her room and peered over the rail at the front of her crib. She lay flat on her back, paci securely in her mouth, with her lovie tucked under her arm and its head in her chubby little grip. I smiled and said my usual "Good Morning, my love!" to which she replied with a happy grunt and a quick flip over onto her belly. She popped her bottom in the air and pretended to not want to be picked up.

I snuck out of her room as she was lying face down, and waited a few seconds for her to notice I was missing. She started to whine and I peeked my head into the doorway so she could see me. Instant smiles.

I picked up my little bundle who was zipped up in her sleep blanket, and placed her gently on her changing table. I asked her if she "had a good sleep?" as I normally do. The corners of her pouty mouth crept up slowly into a warm grin {paci still in her mouth} as she pointed to her chin and said, "Mama".

I had spent months watching her point to her head and say, "Dada" ~ her own unique way to use baby sign language to ask for her Daddy.

But today was my day. And I couldn't think of a more fitting day than the day after Mother's Day. I'll treasure that moment forever.

Dear New Mama ~ don't ignore PPP symptoms. Please.

Dear New Mama, My son was four weeks old and I was manic out of my mind in October of 2008. I was somehow able to hide it so well from everyone close to me, my parents, my best friend, my therapist, even my husband. No one knew but me. But who was I kidding? I couldn’t go on like this, and I knew it. The week after he was born I had broken down crying to my mom, handing her my cell phone pleading with her to call my OB to ask her what I could take to help me sleep. I had been off all medication (except pain meds from the C-section) since October of 2007. A full year with no medication at all: a recipe for disaster for anyone diagnosed as having bipolar disorder two years prior. But I was doing it for the baby. My husband and I both wanted a medication-free pregnancy, and then I wanted to breastfeed and did not want to expose the baby to medications that would come through in the breastmilk.

The first month, I had slept maybe 2-4 hours a night and it was catching up with me fast. I'd take two Tylenol PM and would get a few hours of sleep, but woke up, as I usually did since the baby was born, in a sweaty panic – I just knew he needed to be fed even though he was usually sound asleep at the time. I was trying desperately to make breastfeeding work, but we were struggling. He had lost weight since we left the hospital and the pediatrician forced us to supplement with formula but I was determined. I was so afraid of failing. My best friend was my cheerleader, urging me to keep going, visiting when she could to offer helpful tips and encouragement. My husband was also supportive and we knew it was risky being off medication in order to breastfeed, but we had decided to try it. My parents had arrived two days after the baby was born and were planning on staying a week before heading back down to Florida. When they realized how little sleep I was getting, they were worried and my mom pushed out her return trip by five days. After nearly two weeks of help from my parents, my husband’s parents, friends cooking dinners for us, and my husband being off from work, I had to learn to do it on my own. It is so foggy, those first four weeks, but we took pictures so I could remember. I did it on my own for two weeks, three days. Then the shit hit the fan.

The statistic was 1 out of 1,000. I never thought I'd be that one person who was dealt the postpartum psychosis card. I mean, what are the chances, right? But I guess I really should have seen it coming, having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder only two years earlier.

So, you may be wondering, how did I know that I was experiencing postpartum psychosis? Well, at the moment I didn't. I just knew that how I was feeling couldn't be right.

I was dead-set on breastfeeding, and therefore, was the sole source of milk for the baby so I had to be up every two to three hours. The process of changing his diaper, changing his outfit if he had leaked, swaddling him back up, feeding him on the boob, burping him, and settling him back down took me about forty-five minutes each time. Therefore, I had an hour or so to try to sleep before he would wake again, but instead of sleeping, despite what should have been my intense exhaustion, I would rush around the house doing laundry or dishes or I'd pump to try to get my body to produce more milk so that I could store it. It was as if my body had surpassed the exhaustion phase, and I was now invincible. I was starting to believe that I didn't even need sleep. I also felt super smart - like my brain was functioning at a superior level. Having never been a stellar student in any stage of my schooling, it was weird, to say the least.

During the fourth week, before I was eventually hospitalized, I started experiencing hallucinations. Mostly things are fuzzy, but one I can actually remember is from the morning that my husband finally realized he needed to commit me. I had woken up several times during the night but just stayed in bed listening to the sounds of trucks driving along the highway not too far from our house, hoping to fall back asleep. When the dawn broke and light started filtering in through the mini blinds, the alien spaceship that was hanging from the center of our bedroom (aka: the ceiling fan) began to spin, illuminate, and hover towards me. I shook with fear. But kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want my husband sending me to the hospital. I had to keep feeding my baby. We had just started to “get it” and he was doing well. I was actually enjoying the bonding time it created between me and the baby.

THANK GOD my husband got help. He had to call 911 because he wasn't able to get me to agree to go in the car to the hospital, let alone take medication. I was so lucky, because he knew the signs to look for from my two previous manic episodes, and he wasn't afraid (or too proud) to admit that I needed medical attention. Specifically, anti-psychotics. Stat. And although I never had thoughts of wanting to harm my baby, who knows if those could have been the next thoughts to enter my mind had we waited any longer to get help.

What I want you to know, mama, is that if you ever experience symptoms similar to mine after the birth of your baby, please don't feel ashamed about it. Don't ignore the signs. Have your husband or partner read about them too, so they can be as prepared as you are. Knowing what you know now about postpartum psychosis is half the battle. The other half is being open to accepting the help you need to get better for you so that you can be there for your baby. I did, and I'm so thankful because it was the best decision my husband and I did for our family, and continue to do, each and every day.

The medication I take keeps me "in the middle", as we in my family like to refer to it. I ended up taking it, under the close supervision of both my psychiatrist, OB-GYN, and high-risk OB-GYN, during my second pregnancy and we were blessed with a precious baby girl who has completed our family. I continue to take my medication, see my psychiatrist and therapist regularly, and lean on the support of my husband, parents, and close friends in order to keep my mental health in check.

I wish you all the happiness in the world as you meet your new little bundle of joy. I know that you'll turn out to be one incredible mama. Just like I did.

Much love,

Jennifer aka BipolarMomLife

The 4th Annual Mother’s Day Rally for Moms’ Mental Health is presented by Postpartum Progress, a national nonprofit 501c3 that raises awareness & advocates for more and better services for women who have postpartum depression and all other mental illnesses related to pregnancy and childbirth. Please consider making a donation today, on Mother’s Day, to help us continue to spread the word and support the mental health of new mothers.

Could that be me someday?

As I sat in the audience this afternoon and listened intently to the fourteen mothers on stage pour their hearts and souls out during their time at the mic, I couldn't help but wonder:

Could I actually do that? Could that be me someday?

My mother-in-law and I arrived early, and snagged great seats - front and center - to take it all in. As the theater filled up, the room began to buzz with excitement. I heard a song playing that I had suggested via Twitter to Stephanie, the show's Director, last week when she asked "What's your favorite song about motherhood or makes you think about your babies?" Instantly, I thought of the video montages I've made on each of the kids' birthdays and tweeted back, "Let Them Be Little by Billy Dean, Don't Blink by Kenny Chesney, and It Won't Be This Way for Long by Darius Rucker," which were three of my favorites that I had used as background music for those videos of my precious babies.

A few more songs played, and I took another look around to see that practically every seat was taken. Finally, the show was about to start.

Minutes later, as the first presenter spoke, you could feel the emotion in the air. Everyone was focused on the stage and the woman who, at that moment, commanded the microphone. The roar of applause as each speaker finished was the audience's way of thanking each woman for sharing so much of her life with us. For telling us what was inside of her heart.  Not just anyone could get up on stage in front of several hundred people to talk about her family, her kids, her struggles through motherhood.

There were stories that we could all relate to, ones of sleepless babies, sibling tae kwon do classes and family dinner hour gone awry no matter how hard you try. Tales of how hard it is for one mama to drop her preschooler off at school, of how another mom is trying to teach her children that calling someone {or even something} "stupid" is not nice, it hurts feelings, and of how it just may be okay to take your 8-yr old to Hooters for his birthday if he's that persistent about it.

And then there were more unique stories of a child with Autism and his passion for trying his hardest to keep pace with his peers in third grade, of battling and beating cancer to become a stronger person than she'd ever imagined, two separate accounts of miscarriage and how the women were able to mourn their losses and eventually conceive again, giving birth and becoming the mothers they so desperately wanted to be, and a heart-wrenching outpouring of a mother's deep longing, from during her childhood, to just be normal. But then how in the world does a young mother who just lost her 12-yr old son in a tragic accident find normal in the midst of heavy grief?

Each of these stories had the audience captivated during and proud at the end. We laughed out loud, we cried, we nodded in agreement to so many points in the stories we heard.

But how would the audience react to a mother telling her story about how she fought mental illness and won? How, at 26 years old, newly married and climbing the ranks of a successful recruiting career, this young woman crumbled because of a manic breakdown. And when she started picking the pieces up months later, how she faced the reality of countless psychiatrist and therapist appointments trying to figure out just what was wrong with her and how the medication she was on made her so scared she would never be able to have kids that she sunk into the lowest point in her life, a depression that lasted a full year.

I think it would be a gripping story. Especially since I know how it turned out in the end.

But could I actually get up there and tell it to a live audience? That we'll have to wait and see, my friends.

My hope is that with another year of writing under my belt, I'll be that much more confident in my voice and my story.

Because I think it's an important one to tell.

Someday.

Listen to Your Mother DC

Tomorrow is going to be an awesome day. First up, I'm getting up at the crack of dawn to run a 5k. Nothing like getting your workout done first thing in the morning, right? If I'm lucky the hubby will get the kids up and dressed in time to see me cross the finish line. This would be a huge accomplishment for him, considering they were not able to find the finish line at the last 5k I ran back in October, so instead he took them through the drive-thru of McDonald's for breakfast on the way home. Way to feed them a wholesome breakfast, hun! We all know how complicated it is for Dads to get their kids out of bed, fed and dressed (forget the tooth-brushing) before 8am. {This race is actually at the same location as the last one, but still, I'm not holding my breath.}

Next, it's home to shower and get ready to go to lunch with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law before heading over to the theater to see

Can't wait to see these incredible women speak! Maybe next year I'll have enough guts to audition to be part of the cast of LTYMDC 2013.

I hope so.

My manuscript

Sometimes when I think about it, I get all excited to sit down at my computer and start writing again. Especially after receiving feedback from the few individuals who I've asked to read it. When they say it's good, that it's really good, it motivates me so much.

Then life gets in the way.

Diapers need changed, meals need to be served, baths need to be given, stories need read, little ones need to be tucked in.

And after all that, I'm usually too exhausted to open up my manuscript and write. There just aren't enough hours in the day, it seems.

Do I at least get points for thinking about it? Because I think about it a lot. Usually more than once a day.

Sometimes I think I should sit down and at least outline the major points I hope to cover in this story of living my life as a parent with bipolar disorder. You know, an intro, middle and ending. Tie it up with a neat little bow.

The last person who read it and sent me feedback {incredible, detailed, awesome feedback, let me just say} had a good point: it's hard to outline the book because it's not finished yet. I'm still living this life that I am writing about.

Speaking of not being finished. My husband and I are so incredibly grateful to have two precious little ones, a girl and a boy, nonetheless. Sometimes I think we hit the jackpot. Especially since I took medication during my second pregnancy. But I had a surprising feeling emerge after the birth of our daughter.

I don't think I'm done yet.

Surprising because I had intense morning sickness during her pregnancy. So much so, that I took Zofran for six weeks. I had early contractions that sent me to the hospital for monitoring overnight, not once, but twice before she was born. I had awful heartburn almost daily, a bladder that constantly felt as if it were going to explode, and a good night's sleep was distant, distant memory.

But the day after she was born, I knew I could do it again. My husband used to say that he always wanted to have three kids. He and I were both the product of 2-kid families, and I could see his interest in maybe adding another to the mix, but I thought I only wanted two myself. After we found out she was a girl I proclaimed we were done. Then she arrived and I instantly forgot about all the discomfort that the pregnancy caused.

I think you just have that feeling as a woman. You know when you are done and when you're not. And I don't think I'm done yet, plain and simple.

Know it or not, we're not planning on crossing that bridge yet. And so the story isn't truly finished yet. If we do go on to have another child, one thing is for sure: I will continue on Lithium during the entire pregnancy. There is an increased risk of a heart defect, but the benefit of my staying on medication - the medication that works so well for me - vastly outweighs the risk of taking the medication during a pregnancy, for me. For me, and the experience I've had thus far, it's a no-brainer.

So for now, I will go to the manuscript from time to time to tweak and write, but my focus at the moment will be this blog and reaching people through this medium. There are so many ways to reach people, and I hope one day to be in print, but right now I think that one of the best ways is through blogging about my journey.

I will blog on.

Just average

Lately I've been finding so many incredible mommy bloggers out there who are such brilliant writers. They tell their stories with such creativity and raw emotion that I find myself becoming so envious of their ability to say exactly what is on their minds and say it so succinctly and usually with a humorous spin. Not only that, but also the personable touch of  having put themselves out there for the world to see, pictures of their families included, along with beautiful portraits of their smiling faces (usually somewhere in the upper left or right corners followed by a quick text bio.) Why can't that be me?

I realize that to improve on something, you must dedicate yourself to practicing that skill. You must set aside time every day to work hard at getting better. "Practice makes perfect" is a phrase I often heard growing up in regard to my lack of dedication to playing those black and white keys. Just another extra-curricular activity I ended up dropping during my childhood.

My excuses these days are that the kids take up my time during the day that by the end of the day I am so wiped out from having been run ragged by two little monsters for 14 hours straight, the last thing I want to do is sit at my computer and write. More like take a bath with a glass of wine instead.

I've been reading so many other amazing blogs that I've lost focus for my own blog. And I had big dreams for this blog. Still do.

I'm going to work on writing more often. It may not be pretty, but I want to start to make it a habit to come here and write about what is on my mind. One blog I've been reading lately does a link-up on Tuesdays called Just Write in which she encourages other bloggers to spend some time writing "in the moment" which is a new exercise I am going to try.

I'm going to do a mini version of it right now because I do have something on my mind.

During the last date my husband and I went on which was a few weeks ago, I mentioned to him how I wanted to get better at writing and photography. It occurred to me that I have always had a love of everything artistic, ever since I was very young. And yet, in college I was too timid to truly follow my heart for fear of failing and not being able to support myself as a "starving artist". Turns out, in the recruiting business I ended up in, I saw first-hand how challenging it was for graphic designers and writers to launch their careers on a decent salary and at that point in my life I was grateful that I had chosen to follow a more lucrative career path.

Our conversation shifted to the kids. We both agreed that we want to try our best to encourage and support them no matter what field or career the choose to pursue. I have a feeling that this will be tough for me, as I have an underlying ability to speak my opinion on any and everything involving my children. It's another thing I am working on.

I aspire someday to be recognized for being a voice that helps other people. And I hope that by that time I am able to do that through words, pictures and maybe even video, as some of my fellow bloggers do right now. I have so much respect for you, ladies. Keep on writing because you all inspire me and so many other people through your heartfelt words. (Check them out by clicking through my blogroll, right sidebar.)

That's all for now from me, just your average mommy blogger.

Full disclosure

So in beginning this project I decided to consult with my husband to make sure that I had his full support. He knows that I have been wanting to do something like this for a long time, I just wasn't at the right point in my life to be able to do it until now. I believe that I am a strong writer.  People have told me that I am an excellent writer actually. But in my opinion, there is one huge roadblock standing in the way of my blog becoming a success: full disclosure. Coming out to the world and saying that you have bipolar is such a scary thing. There is so much stigma attached to the label of bipolar that it makes it almost impossible for most people to admit that they have the diagnosis at the risk of losing friends or losing their job. Future employment is probably the major reason my husband and I are nervous about unveiling my identity completely.

As an avid blog-reader, I myself know that unless a blogger shows their true identity and describes his or her life in detail and with pictures, their blog is not all that interesting or captivating. I want to be able to share without strings attached and at this moment this isn't possible. Not without my husband's approval and he did make a valid point when we talked this evening. He wants me to think about it more.

I've had what I would consider to be a successful career so far as a Recruiter and, although I'm a stay-at-home-mom right now to our two kids, I'd like to work again. I am easily described as a Type-A personality who craves challenges and goals to exceed, so I predict that there will be a time in the next couple of years that I will want to do some type of recruiting work and therefore I would need to be hired by someone. Whether that be a private client hiring me to do some freelance recruiting, or a company hiring me as a contract recruiter, it's all I've known career-wise for the past 10 years and it is work that I do well and enjoy. So will coming out to the public that I am bipolar hurt my future chances of employment?

I guess in a sense I'm also wondering, "Will my diagnosis revelation change the way people in general feel about me as a person?" I really hope not. That would truly be sad.

Only time will tell. I'm going to consult a few more people who I respect given their situations surrounding bipolar disorder and disclosure, in addition to my parents and brother, to collect some opinions which will help me to make this very difficult decision.

Have you ever been scared to disclose to friends or colleagues/bosses that you are bipolar? How did you handle the decision?