Liz Bauman is an American wife, mom, and writer living in Weisbaden, Germany. When she’s not camped out behind her computer screen, she quests for castles, plays Dungeons and Dragons, and drinks a lot of tea. Earl Grey. Hot. She’s also one of my favorite people, and a woman who’s personhood and journey through motherhood while living with mental illness always leaves me inspired and hopeful. If you’re so inclined, you can learn about her, tweet at her, or hire her. I’m thrilled she’s sharing her experience with us here on Postpartum Progress this week. Here is part One of her story. 

Archer at 16 days old

If asked to describe my experience as a mother in a single word, I’d love to say something like “joyful” or “empowering.” There are certainly days where I feel like motherhood has made me a strong advocate, a better feminist, and a compassionate member of the cult of womanhood. Sometimes, I go weeks at a time feeling like my two children have made me a better, more resilient woman. Like all that breastfeeding and babywearing have somehow infused my very essence with radioactive awesomeness, transforming me into some kind of Hulked-up mama hero.

But, the truth is, my motherhood has been isolating.

Let’s rewind.

Back when my husband and I were young and wild college kids in the expansive plains of South Dakota, we decided we would get out. Get far, far away from small town life and farms and go have big experiences in big cities. Shortly after we got engaged, the husband got accepted to George Washington University and I – on uneasy terms with my family – agreed that we should set forth on our grand adventure.

After 7 years in DC/Baltimore sprawl, we welcomed our son, Archer, and my world got simultaneously brighter and darker.

Let’s rewind again.

I struggled with mental illness since my teens. My diagnosis was a fast-cycling flavor of bipolar disorder characterized by frequent, but largely harmless ups and downs that rarely affected my life profoundly. But, a miscarriage at 23 triggered some major shifts in my brain chemistry that twisted my “frequent, but largely harmless ups and downs” into a screaming spiral into the gnarly pit of mix-state madness that nearly shattered the foundations of the life my husband and I worked so hard to build.

It was my first dose of the vicious isolation of motherhood and I didn’t even get a baby out of the deal. We had told no one that we were expecting, so I grieved our lost child alone. I internalized it and the sadness wrapped sticky, black anger around my bones that eventually permeated my heart and mind.

Broken and desperate, I hit rock bottom and my husband made me promise that I’d seek help.

A new shrink and an RX for Lamictal later, I was better. That seems like an over-simplification, but it was a pretty uneventful period of recovery and we spent a couple years soaking in our baby-free life, just being young and married and loving life on the East Coast. We both had our dream jobs and, with time, overcame the anxieties of miscarriages and mental breakdowns and I weaned off my meds so we could try, once again, to bake ourselves the proverbial bun.

It took a while, but – after 8 months of trying – we discovered we were expecting Archer. And things were good. Pregnancy was wonderful to me. It was my renaissance. I was stable, productive, and happy-all while being unmedicated.

When Archer was born, via emergency c-section, his resultant NICU stay tested my mental fortitude in a way I couldn’t have expected. Without going into all the triggery details, he spent his first couple of days drifting down the “will he/won’t he” line and I wouldn’t wish that sort of terror on anyone.

As he and I recovered, I found myself alone in the hospital. I was discharged and my husband – an important dude with a high-pressure job – went back to work. The nurses, taking pity on me, let me camp out in their on-call room so I could nurse Archer through the night because they didn’t have on-site rooms available for discharged moms.

I cried a lot. I’d never felt so alone. “Is this what motherhood is supposed to look like?” I asked myself as I cradled him his next to his incubator, lights blinking and monitors blooping.

Now, as I sit on the cusp of my second child’s first birthday, I can say pretty definitively, that it may not be what motherhood is supposed to look like, but reality is Kryptonite to supposition.

to be continued…