The Reality of Postpartum Part 2

When looking back at the first year of my son's life, things often feel like a blur. I am thankful for the overwhelming number of pictures I took to help me remember some of the happy moments we experienced. With social media there often feels this pressure especially in early motherhood that every moment will be sunshine and rainbows and you will remember every milestone. I am unsure how old my son was when he started crawling. I have pictures of his monthly milestone board that mentions when, but off the top of my head I would guess between 7-8 months. Does that make me a bad mom for not knowing exactly when those milestones happened? No, because it is unfair to expect myself to remember every moment of life especially when I had just come out of survival mode. My best advice? Take pictures and take lots of videos. When I look at them I can tell you exactly what happened and I have so much peace knowing that even though my mind might forget some things, I will always have moments in time. 
There is not enough talk about survival mode in life or in the early stages of being a parent. I would be so hard on myself for feeling that way. I did not want to feel like I was doing everything I could to survive the day,  I wanted to enjoy my day. Thanks to the help of therapy, my therapist helped me understand, that sometimes you have to persist the day. Sometimes that will carry on for several days, weeks, or months. I needed to learn to not only give myself grace during this time but also my husband and son.
What did survival mode look like this first year? After a few days of staying home due to postpartum anxiety, it would be a win if we picked up a grocery order. Self-care felt scattered so finishing a book within a few days felt like a small victory for myself. Some weeks I could get a few days of exercise in, others it felt like a win to squeeze in a small walk. A huge push for my son and I was getting us out of the house for gymnastics class when he was around 6/7 months old. Getting around others even for an hour once a week enforced the feeling of being myself again.  
I wish I could say there was an easy solution. Or I didn't spend a lot of time in that mode. With time, and grace my body stopped feeling that way. I learned that sometimes life is going to feel chaotic. In those times there is the option to embrace it, or hide from it and stop living your life. Learning to embrace it helped me come out of survival mode. 
One thing that has and will always remain true, is even through the times of just surviving. I knew the one thing that would never be questioned was the love I did have for my son. Michael didn't care if we only left the house to pick up a curbside order, or that I wasn't what felt like my best self. I showed up for him every day and always showed my love for him. That is one of the beauties of early motherhood, when your life feels upside down and you don't know what you're doing your baby doesn't care. Your baby just wants to be with you.  
It is easy to forget that young children don't worry about the things we do. They aren't concerned about seeing this perfect version of Mom. They love you for who you are unconditionally, just as a mother you love your baby unconditionally. When I stopped focusing on doing things perfectly and stopped focusing on being stuck just surviving; I was able to enjoy life more. Even now with an almost four-year-old, some days we are just surviving and that's okay. Over the last few years, I have gained enough confidence to admit that sometimes we are just in survival mode. It's not a bad thing once you accept it. Accepting it has allowed me to make changes during that time to help make our days easier and teach us to enjoy the hard days. Pizza for dinner twice this week because we're in the thick of surviving the flu? Guess what, it's going to be okay. We missed story time this week because we all had a bad day. That's okay let's try again next week. Michael is up super late since he took a long nap that he needed. It will be an early bedtime tomorrow which will be okay.
My point is that there have been plenty of times we just survived the day, and that's okay. There is no shame when I say I was stuck in survival mode during the first year of motherhood. At times it makes me sad, but the reality is I can't change the past. I firmly believe God gives you what you can handle. Guess what, we made it through the first year! Life with a toddler is the absolute best. It's not always easy to learn in the moment but it is okay to have times where you're doing what you need to do to float by. 
If you are stuck in the thick of it now, I hope you do your best to give yourself grace. At the end of the day, everyone including your children is doing their best. It is easy to feel guilty for just surviving some days, but when we can embrace both the good times and the hard times we can appreciate all of life more.
If you have read this far, thank you! I look forward to sharing more of my experience soon. I hope to encourage others to share their experiences as well.