I knew I wanted to be a mom when I was five—I wanted to be pregnant, I wanted to rock babies, and I practiced it all. From immaculate conception to mystical pregnancy, I carried and birthed a Cabbage Patch Doll within the four walls of my pink bedroom. By age seven, I thought I had mastered the art of child-rearing.
What the future held for me as an actual mother defied all of my expectations. There have been incredible moments and tiresome moments and every moment in between. There were also the moments no one talks about: The moments I spent locked in the back of my closet, uncertain if I could survive another day. The moment my doctor told me that our son had multiple abnormalities on his anatomy scan. The moment I stood in my kitchen with a positive pregnancy test and an eight-month-old baby at my feet. And the moment a biopsy confirmed I had a precancerous tumor around my facial nerves, while my husband and our two boys, two and a half years and nine months old, waited for me at home. Nothing prepared me for the way life still goes on while you mother your children.
The initial 12 weeks of my first pregnancy were average: There was exhaustion, sickness, and aversions. I hid my belly under flowy shirts. It was exciting. And then I hit a wall when the 12-week anatomy scan flagged a soft marker for Down’s syndrome. There was also a rare build-up of fluid on my son’s brain, raising concerns that he may have a chromosomal microdeletion.
My world immediately fell apart, and I realized that the baby growing inside of me may not survive. So, strangely enough, I tried not to grow too attached. I didn’t know what to expect, how to hurt, how to heal, or how to even communicate my feelings. I was the first of my girlfriends to be pregnant, and none of them could wrap their minds around this kind of emotional trauma. Then there was my husband, a man of science. He analyzed every statistic and outcome. To my husband, the risk was small, and the numbers were in our favor. The chances of losing our son were slim. But to me, the mother, every second of every day was filled with worry. After all, I was the one being poked and prodded. I was the one feeling every kick and squirm. I felt alone in this.
I held all of my feelings in, assuming they were normal. I was the girl who had wanted to become a mother my entire life, so how could I have postpartum depression?
After eight long weeks of noninvasive and invasive testing, my husband and I learned that our son was healthy after all, and the markers detected in those initial scans luckily had been false alarms. A couple months later, we welcomed his 10 little fingers and 10 little toes into the world.
But shortly after that, I noticed I wasn’t quite myself. My son couldn’t latch, so breastfeeding wasn’t going how I expected it to. Our new sleep pattern was certainly hard to adjust to. And I was very protective of my son and panicked any time someone asked to hold him. But I didn’t tell anyone any of this. I held all of my feelings in, assuming they were normal. I was the girl who had wanted to become a mother my entire life, so how could I have postpartum depression? I had a loving, supportive husband. I had parents, in-laws, and friends itching to help. I had a village. But no one, no matter the circumstances, is off-limits when it comes to depression.
I slowly adjusted to my new life, my new role, my new friends, and the new relationship dynamic I had with my husband, my in-laws, and my own parents. But just as I was finally getting a grip on things, I found myself pregnant again.
This time, my pregnancy wasn’t planned and was a complete surprise—and at the time, another baby was the last thing I wanted. I went through the pregnancy paralyzed with fear. For one, I feared losing my unborn baby. I feared every blood test, ultrasound, and doctor’s visit, worried it would bring bad news. Then there was the fear of failing my children. I was struggling with one, and now I was about to have two babies 17 months apart. I had yet to figure out the sleep thing, breastfeeding was hard as hell for me, and I was constantly crying. With double the demands, it seemed like it would be impossible to meet all of the expectations I set for myself. How was I supposed to put both down for a nap? How was I supposed to give them both enough attention? How was I supposed to navigate my sad days with two kids pitter-pattering behind my every step. I wasn’t ready.
Yet, I carried on. On the outside, I was a beaming mother anxiously awaiting the arrival of her second child. But on the inside, my intrusive thoughts came more frequently, more clearly, and in more detail. The depression was all consuming, and I wasn’t sure I would come out alive. I’m certain my doctor could see this, but every time she asked me if I needed to talk about anything, I said no. I couldn’t bear to accept that this was happening to me, And I didn’t want to be the woman who was associated with such sadness.
Nonetheless, after my second son was born, my depression grew even darker and more unmanageable. Intrusive thoughts consumed me, I resented my husband and my marriage was falling apart, and I was truly struggling to connect with both of my boys. I often found myself wishing for phases, moments, and stages of their lives to pass by quickly, without realizing I’d be kicking myself later for missing out on them. I thought I was a mother with endless character flaws. And as if that weren’t enough, I was soon diagnosed with a tumor in my parotid gland, and I officially broke. My husband took me in his arms, told me what I already knew to be true—and I finally sought help for postpartum depression.
I learned the hard way that when we become mothers, it doesn’t mean that the rest of our lives stop. There are great and wonderful things that happen in our lives, just like there are devastating and scary things, too, and we still have to show up. Showing up wasn’t easy for me when I was hurting so very much, but with the help of therapy and antidepressants, I’m finally able to.
Today, I’m that girl I was when I was five and loving being a mother (most days). But I also love embracing the other parts of my identity, and I’m finally able to balance both only because I sought help. My transition into motherhood was a far cry from what I fantasized about as a child, but in the end my complicated journey into motherhood has made me a better person. And I can’t wait, when my boys are old enough, to tell them how I got here.