Dear New Mom,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

Here’s the thing, my youngest, the one I had the worst bout of postpartum adjustment with, is now seven. Yes, SEVEN. Shouldn’t I be over this by now? Well, it depends on who’s asking. If you didn’t experience crippling bouts of anxiety and a constant low grade buzzing along with rapid weight loss to the point of copious hair loss and extreme lack of sleep, then sure. But, hey, I coped. I coped really well. I was actually happy at that time. I was thrilled with our third. She brought such levity to our lives with her blonde Shirley Temple curls, cherubic face and sunny disposition. She was positively yummy. Still is.

As for me? I was my usual uber-Mom self. I was a nursing, co-sleeping, attachment parenting, baby wearing, baby food making, stay-at-home, family managing bad ass. Yes, I was mostly good but oh, the anxiety-fueled buzzing. I loathed the buzzing. Basically, save for my happy place (our city’s gorgeous Arboretum) and long, long drives and even longer walks — my record was two hours in the middle of the night, just my faithful pup and me — I was a nervous mess. Because of this, I experienced a level of exhaustion that most new parents are able to transcend after a few weeks or months but that lasted well over a year and beyond for me. Some days I was tired before I even woke up and yet other days I woke up with a reserve of energy that was systematically depleted as the day wore on until I was just DONE. Naturally, this greatly affected my mood. I was short tempered, highly sensitive and a lot of times eerily disconnected.

I’m happy to report that with an amazing therapist and, yes, meds, I healed and felt — I hate to use this word —normal again. I learned so much about the things I could do on a daily basis to make it through the rough patches and start again the next day. I came out of that period just a bit worse for the wear but also enlightened, grateful and with mad coping skillz, yo. 

Fast forward to January of 2012. I’m sitting in my car at a red light minding my own business and BOOM, another car violently crashes into me from behind. There is no blood, there are no broken bones but I am hurt. When I exit my vehicle (my trusty, boxy Volvo), what I see is a nightmare. The car that crashed into me is nothing but twisted metal and broken glass. I’m freaked out but thankful to be alive. However, something has happened to my right side. Starting at the base of my head, down my neck and into my upper back, my right side is far from feeling right. Something is wrong. There is constant pain. That low grade, gets-you-at-the-oddest-times pain. Loading a dishwasher, doing laundry, holding my camera, carrying groceries … they all result in the painful reminder that I’m not right and haven’t been since the day that yahoo carelessly crashed into me.

The meds, the topicals, the TENS machine sending electronic impulses trying to jolt my muscles into submission, none of them worked long-term. After months of physical therapy and agonizing migraines which I’d never experienced before, at last, there was a ray of hope. A rehab doctor recommended a pain doctor who in turn recommended biofeedback therapy. My new therapist explained that my muscles were basically balled up into a tight fist and that we could help that with non-invasive methods. We could breathe, we could take care, we could think about things we were going to do and plan accordingly so that normal activities would result in little to no pain. Eventually my muscles would loosen up without my having to think about it so much and I would feel whole again. I was skeptical but willing to give it a shot.

Several sessions later and guess what? It’s working. The slowing down, the breaking down activities into small pieces with lots of rest and stretching in between, the self-care, the careful planning, the breathing, the STOPPING. It’s all helping. Better yet, it all feels eerily familiar. Sure enough, it’s those mad coping skillz rearing their beautiful heads again. Different but the same.

I’m here to tell you that it’s OK to seek help, take care, slow down and breathe during this postpartum period and beyond. On any given day STOP and give yourself permission to phone it in a little or a lot. Whatever you do, don’t give up or think it will always be this way. After a while you won’t have to try so hard just to be well. You simply will be. Eventually your mothering muscles will loosen up and you too will feel whole again.

~ Ninotchka

Artist and writer Ninotchka Beavers lives in Dallas, TX with her husband and 3 daughters ages 16, 10 and 7. She is the author of “Twice Blessed: A Diary of Secondary Infertility” and blogs occasionally atwww.ninotchkabeavers.com

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