A Nutshell

SO MUCH has happened in the past few weeks. Some of it I need to process (and writing is a great way for me to do that) and some of it I just need to tell people about. So here I am. Oh, and this has been written gradually over the past week, so some of the references are a little off as far as when things have happened.

LUKE GRADUATED! 

It seems like an eternity ago, but I'm pretty sure it was just last week. After 2 years of studying and studying at Wheaton, he is finally DONE. Oh, I mean, well, he has one little paper left. And by "little" I mean, only 30-40 pages (that's writing, I don't even want to think about how much reading that involves!).

So we went through the ceremony, which was pretty exciting, but he still has a little more work to do. We're hoping that he'll be able to finish by the end of June, but who really knows? It's for an independent study, so there isn't a real deadline. And it is for credits that he doesn't need, so he'll graduate even if he fails, it'll just screw up his GPA (not that I expect him to fail, that is all just to say that there's really not a lot of pressure on this paper). But even with all of that, the end is near.

THE BOYS ARE GROWING UP. 

Judah is crawling, Ayden is tantruming, and they are finally playing together. Judah can finally shove some food into his own mouth (not much, but some anyway), which means that there is hope that he will someday be an independent child instead of a needy infant. Ayden has finally learned the concept of whispering, which has led to some success in having them share a bedroom again (Judah has been camped in the living room for months now). They chase each other and wrestle with each other and yell at each other and share food with each other and all kinds of brotherly interactions. 

MY SANITY IS RETURNING. 

I mean that quite literally. I was really losing it for awhile. The first 2 areas listed here are major contributors to this third one. There is routine and balance in my life, and for the first time in 3 years I find myself NOT pregnant, breastfeeding, postpartum, or some combination of those things. Yes, it was this time 3 years ago that we got pregnant with Ayden and my body has been some alien object ever since. I find myself asking Luke to do something around the house, then realizing "oh, I can actually do that myself for once." That is a great feeling. We can also credit an awesome counselor and the arrival of summer as major contributors to my mental health status. I simply love sunshine.

RWANDA PLANS ARE MUDDLED. 

This deserves an entire post of its own, but a blurb will have to do for the moment. We have been asked by the mission board that we are applying with to slow down the application process. Because we have been in SUCH a crazy period of life, they think it would be best for us to wait to go to Denver to complete the application process (probably until the fall, but the specifics haven't been decided yet). For one, they think it would be good for us to have a period of calm in our lives before we jump into fundraising and preparing to move. In addition, there were some things that they wanted to evaluate more carefully (like my mental health) that they didn't have adequate time to explore with the deadlines that we were initially aiming for. 

Despite my impatience, we feel really good about this. Their decision was obviously made with our best interests in mind, and that is very reassuring to see in the mission board that you are hoping to join! In addition, they handled it all very appropriately; they flew us to Denver for one day so we could talk about everything face-to-face.

There was a second reason that they wanted to fly us to Denver and talk. We're a little less certain about what to make of it. They are very excited to have us join their organization, but they want us to reconsider Rwanda. Yep, you read that right, and yep, we were pretty surprised about it, too. To clarify, they didn't say we couldn't go to Rwanda, just that they weren't certain if that was the best field for us to join and they want us to think and pray about that decision some more. 

Their reasons are based purely in concern for us and our ability to fit in well there and thrive. I'm not going to get into all of it here, but again, we found that their motives are genuine concern and care for us. Although I can see how they came to have these concerns, I'm not sure if the reasons are completely valid. So, right now we are opening up to the possibility that God may be calling us somewhere else, while hoping that He is still calling us to Rwanda. If Rwanda isn't where He wants us, then He has something else that is even better than Rwanda. 

VACATION!! 

Luke's parent's have offered to take the boys for a week so we can have a little bit of a break, so I am taking them down there today! Meanwhile, we will spend the first part of the week ignoring all demands from work, church, school, or anything else. Then the later part of the week, we will take advantage of some time to get things done without constant interruption. THEN, as if that isn't great enough, we are going down to join the boys and their grandparents for a few days over the weekend. So the next few weeks look to be a nice break from the normal routine. I am REALLY looking forward to it!!

I think that will have to do for now. God is good. God is leading. We feel really good about life right now, despite the recent uncertainty about our longer-term future. 

The Shame and Humiliation

Last week, after increasingly improving more and more every day, I had a bad day. A really bad day. Luke and I had a fight before he left for work, and we were both too immature to just resolve it before he left. Then Judah decided it was a good day for his 6-month growth spurt, but of course it took a long morning of much screaming on his part before I figured that out. On the heals of such recent improvement, that bad day felt like an even deeper failure. 


By midmorning, I found myself looking for ways to get rid of my children. Not just for the day, but for someone else to raise them. I was convinced that I was never going to get better and therefore I was a terrible mother and the best thing I could do for my boys was to just give them to someone else to adopt and take in as their own.* 


I desperately needed help that day. I didn't ask for it. I was ashamed. At such an intensely weak point, I was too proud to tell the people around me that I needed some support. I wanted to keep up appearances that things were fine. I'm strong and capable. I don't need help. 


In the midst of it, I fessed up to an anonymous online community of moms--there's no shame if it is anonymous. The response was immediate. Countless women offered to come over and help if I lived near them. Complete strangers from all over the country were offering help, some even offering to drive up to 2-3 hours! Many others told stories of their own (past) despair, and how much they regretted that they didn't seek out help sooner. 


Then an email I received a few weeks ago from a college friend came back to me:

I just wanted to remind you of the ways that you let people come into your life and help you when you were in college.  I remember coming to get you at your apartment . . . The point is, please let people do that again for you.  Whatever that looks like now, whoever that is in your life now.  I love you, but I know there are a lot of other people who love you too.

By the end of the day it was clear: I needed to ask for help.**


So I did. Yep, I fessed up to my inability to manage even the littlest tasks and I asked for help. It feels so wrong to ask someone if they might be willing to come and clean your bathroom for you. It feels even worse to watch them do it. To stand there and know that you are physically capable of doing that task, you even have the time to do it, but the mental exercises necessary to accomplish it are outside your reach. 

Last night Luke needed to study late into the night so I had a friend come over to help with the boys. By the time she got here, I was completely stressed from the afternoon, and more than ready to have help. She spent the next few hours feeding and bathing my kids, while I helplessly stood nearby answering her questions about what they needed. 


After the boys were in bed, I flopped onto the couch, exhausted from the efforts of the day. She proceeded to pick up toys, put away clutter, and clean up the kitchen. I again found myself immobile while someone else did my job. 


It's humiliating to repeatedly reach the end of your patience for your children. It's humbling to allow someone to take them aside and play with them for awhile so you can have a break. It's humiliating to have a babysitter in your house when it is trashed from a week's worth of living but no cleaning. It's humbling to come home and find that everything has been cleaned for you. It's humiliating to show your weaknesses. It's humbling to allow others to lovingly help you when you need it. Humiliation is an acceptance of the shame that comes with people having a lower opinion of you because of your imperfections. Humility is an acceptance of the love of others as they reach out to help you. 


Last week, I felt ashamed and humiliated at the thought of allowing the people that I know to see me so weak and incapable. But when people respond with love and support, it isn't humiliating or shameful. It's actually quite beautiful and amazing. 

*Thankfully, I had a counselling appointment scheduled for the next day, and was able to work through the of the effects of that day and get on the right track again. I have no intention of giving up my kids. :~D 
**This post is NOT a plea for help. If it was, that would be passive and manipulative. I've asked people who are nearby and have the time and resources and who I have a secure enough relationship with that I'm not worried about them hating me forever judging me. It's one thing to tell everyone you know that your house is a mess, it's a completely different thing to ask someone to try to scrub that mess away. 

PPD* Posts

A few things that are on my mind that I would love to write about soon:

1. Asking for and accepting help. Why do we shy away from it? Why is it so hard? I've been asking for a lot of help lately, and am amazed at how difficult it is both to ask for it, and to receive the help graciously. 
2. The "shame" of talking about PPD. I just read an article by a woman who's son just turned one. She's been struggling with PPD the entire time. She said that publishing this article would be the first that her family and closest friends even knew that she had been struggling. WHY? Why is it so wrong to talk about it, especially while it is going on?
3. An update on me--a lot of people have been asking how I am doing--thanks! The summary is that it is still up and down, but I am in counselling that is going really well and I have gotten help from a number of awesome people. But I'd love to write a more detailed assessment of my life right now.

These few sentences don't do justice to all of the thoughts swirling through my mind as I work through all of this. Not only am I working to get out of this and figure myself out, but I am so aware of how HIDDEN this struggle is expected to be. I am determined to not hide. I want to talk openly about this, and I don't want to wait until after it is over. I'd love to set a precedent, if only for a few people, that it is GOOD to talk about things like this and accept the support of the community around you. Facing it alone only makes it worse.

Stay tuned for three long posts on the topics above. Sometime. Meanwhile, any readers out there want to chime in on any of this?

*PPD stands for Postpartum-Depression, which is the fancy term for the depression that plagues many women after the birth of a child. That said, I think these topics are applicable to ALL forms of depression. 

The Fog is Lifting

Life was a haze
I was there, watching my children play and cry and eat
But I wasn't really there
I changed the diapers and sang the songs
But I was buried
I would hear their cries
I could feel a tinge of compassion
But I didn't move
I'd offer a heartless word to try to appease one
And a toy or a blanket to appease the other
I knew they needed more
I couldn't do it
I watched myself ignore the things swirling around me
My husband needed a partner
I couldn't do it
My sons needed a Mama
I couldn't do it

Then slowly
Very slowly
Too slowly to see in the moment
The fog began to lift
I responded to a cry
I smiled as I sang
I tickled and giggled and played

Now I find that my cheeks hurt from the laughter

My legs and arms ache from the endless activity

My mind is clearing

My heart is open
Life is returning
I am returning

Depression

If you've read most of my January posts, you may not know that I've been quite overwhelmed since Judah was born. The first 2-3 months it was just that: overwhelmed. However, when I wrote this post in early January, I thought I had hit bottom and was on my way up again. Boy was I wrong.

Over the course of the next week or so, I continued posting fun little stories about the kids and tried to keep my head up. I even had a lighthearted post that, in reality, demonstrated a very typical hour of my overwhelming life. It is likely that I spent the rest of that day depressed, not moving from the couch and doing the bare minimum to take care of the boys.

The next day was not a good one. I frequent a popular online moms' forum that is known for being quite blunt, without regard to people's feelings. I posted on there that I was a terrible mother. I had put Judah to bed, and after he was in there crying for 45 minutes, I tried a bottle. He drank the whole thing! I had left my little baby to scream in his crib for 45 minutes when he was hungry! Meanwhile, Ayden had spent the morning in front of the TV and by the time I put him down for his nap (about 1:00) all I had offered him to eat all day was Graham Crackers and juice. I couldn't remember their last bath. I was beating myself up for all of this and more, and I expected this brutal group of women to join in and let me have it.

The opposite happened. Not a single person criticized me. Of the 20-30 responses I got, all of them agreed that I was seriously depressed and needed help. I argued with them that I was just a crappy mom who was failing her kids and they argued back that I needed to get some help for depression. If they aren't willing to criticize me for all of this, maybe this is something that I shouldn't be criticizing myself for, either.

The experience of posting that online caused a shift in my thinking. I tried to get help. I talked with my midwife about it being postpartum depression. I tried to find a counselor. For an entire month, every attempt to get help failed. If it wasn't an insurance issue, it was a scheduling issue. If not that, something else. I tried and tried and tried and tried to get some help to fight this. Nothing was working out.

Meanwhile, I sunk lower. Soon I was calling Luke home from work early, or spending all day on a Saturday just laying in bed (and yelling at Luke if he tried to cheer me up or help me). I gave up even trying to give Ayden anything more than Graham Crackers each day. My desire to spend time with people was completely gone. Every time that I made a failed effort to get help, I became more deflated. It just wasn't even worth trying.

Two weeks ago, I finally got in to see a counselor. She's great. I've seen her twice and in that time, I've had a few good days. And by that I mean that I am doing "better" but "better" means more often than not I am still in pretty bad shape. Wednesday was a really good day. Then yesterday Luke left the house in a bad mood (Judah had gotten him up super-early, among other things) and I never recovered from the discouragement of it. By the time Luke came home last night, I had been laying on the couch for an hour--not reading or sleeping, just laying there. Judah fell asleep on the floor next to me and Ayden was roaming the house playing. Then today was a good day again.

I expect the road to be rough for awhile longer, but I finally have hope that things aren't always going to be this way. I'm not sure what triggered all of this (PPD? SAD? Stress?), but it doesn't have to rule me. There is a way out of this.

There is a reason that I am writing all of this, and it's not to get sympathy or beg for help. People often caution that you shouldn't air all of your dirty laundry on the internet for all the world to see. There is certainly truth to that. But this section from 2 Corinthians chapter 1 has been on my mind throughout all of this:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

This "suffering" of mine is not directly related to my faith in Christ, but I still think the principle in this passage holds true: God's comfort to us can often be used as a comfort to others.

That is why I am sharing all of this. Depression is a struggle that plagues so many of us, yet is not acceptable to talk about. And that silence just worsens the issue. So I'm talking about it--not after the fact when I have it all figured out, but right now in the middle of it. This is my life. This is where I am struggling. And if you are reading this and struggling too, don't be ashamed. Get help. Even if you have to fight over and over and over and over again for a month to find it.

And if you do want to help me, please pray for me to trust God in everything and follow Him step by step. I've seen time and time again in my life that ultimately, no matter how much I fight to get through anything, it is only by God's grace that I will be fully restored.

Recipe for a Mama-Meltdown

Ingredients:
1 exhausting pregnancy
1 active toddler
1 very busy husband
1 mama who is still trying to have a life outside of raising children
1 emotional infant
Temper Tantrums (as many as you can find)

Mix the pregnancy, husband, toddler and mama for 9 months and let it simmer on medium heat. Once sufficiently stressed, remove the pregnancy and add the infant and temper tantrums. Turn up the heat to high. Meltdown should be ready in about 3 months.

Needless to say, it's been a challenge adjusting to two kids. Judah is not nearly as laid back as Ayden, which means he doesn't "tag along" to meetings or errands very well. Meanwhile, my easy-going toddler is about to turn two. Yep, those terrible two's are raging in his sweet little life. We're talking epic meltdowns because I offer him milk instead of juice with his snack. Or begging to have his diaper changed (which he usually hates) just because his brother is getting a diaper change and we're using HIS changing table.

I've felt like I was at the end of my rope for quite some time now, but foolishly kept saying, "It will all be better when ______." Then I finished that sentence with things like, "Luke finishes this semester," or "Judah is napping on a schedule." At some point in the past few weeks I stopped believing myself. The end of the semester came and went and we were still stressed. The kids have been sick. No one in our family has been sleeping enough.

So I reached the end of the rope and was surprised to find how frayed it was. No one ever tells you that the end of the rope is so frayed, although I guess it makes sense. Bills haven't been paid, commitments at church have been neglected, family and friends have been ignored, our home hasn't been cleaned. We eat out more than we should, and too many of those times are at McDonald's. Luke and I don't talk enough and therefore argue about everything. I keep forgetting to give the boys baths or brush Ayden's teeth. My nightstand is so dusty that every time I climb into bed, I start the night with a coughing and/or sneezing fit. Ayden watches more TV than I can keep track of. EVERYTHING is spiralling out of control.

So I gave up a few days ago. I just stopped trying. I curled up on the couch and aimlessly surfed the internet while Luke was left to get the boys their dinner and put them to bed. The alternative was so much stress that I could barely speak. Maybe that's what a panic attack is--I don't know, but it was something bad and completely out of my control. We suffered through a day or two of that. At times I would help for awhile, but if there was too much immediate stress, I would just crumble again. How do you keep going when you don't have some glimmer of hope that things will be different soon?

But there IS hope. For one, the immediate circumstances WILL improve, even if it is not on the timeline that I first imagined. Judah will eventually sleep and Ayden will emerge from the terrible two's as the sweet little boy that is buried under all of this angst. Luke will be done with school. The weather will warm up and I'll be able to go for walks, or maybe even the occasional run.

But that's not what is really giving me hope. We were talking in our Bible Study last night about Hebrews 12. It talks about running the race with endurance and God disciplining us as children. From the discussion of this text, I was reminded that God's "discipline" is Him teaching us things that we will need later. Maybe God is letting everything pile up at once so we can learn to trust him. Maybe God has something amazing planned for our future that is going to be so much harder than this and we NEED this time to learn how to handle it. I don't know the future, and I certainly couldn't guess correctly at how this time in our life fits into God's overall plan. But the reality is that God does have a plan for our lives, and for some reason it includes this crazy period. Meanwhile, I'm spending too much time looking at the million responsibilities swirling around me and not enough time looking at Jesus.

So maybe I should spend more time paying attention to the songs that I sing to Ayden before bed:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His Glory and Grace