Only A Mere Woman

For the messy, raw Part 1, click here . If you'd rather skip and focus on what I have been doing to manage my depression, please continue reading.      So we muddled through until Little Miss was born in August. I decided to have the placenta encapsulated this time, but I don't know taking it helped any or not. We decided to start with learning to track my fertility with the Creighton model of NFP , and began the end of October. While it isn't certain what causes postpartum depression, it has been speculated that hormonal imbalance is a plausible cause, and Creighton seems to be the best way for us to see how my body is functioning. We are blessed to not only have a good instructor reasonably close, but a NaPro trained doctor in town as well. Our instructor was able to give us a referral to the doctor, who was able to get me in to see him in November. And that really is a bit of a miracle, considering how busy he is. We had my hormone levels tested, and when the results ...

Part 2 HERE , if you don't want to read about the messy bits.      Today might not be the best day to be doing this, linking up with Flourish in Hope and Half Kindled for their annual PPD linkup. It was a bad day. I couldn't get a handle on my emotions. There was no logical reason for me to be having mini-breakdowns all day - Code Monkey was home, the kids were as good as they ever are (which, if you know us in real life, you know they are strangely spectacular, in spite of me), the sun was out, I've actually had over a week's worth of uninterrupted sleep at night, etc. Reading the posts about the struggles other women have had with PPD and similar disorders was icing on a very nasty emotional cake. But, perhaps the reason I should. The feelings are still fresh in my body. And reading about others is healing; I'm not the only one. I'm not crazy. I'm not just making this up. I'm not just lacking in self control.       Hah! Self control. If only you ...

     Things have been kind of, well, tumultuous here lately. And by lately I mean pretty much since Little Miss was born, so, like, nearly 7 months. But not in a bad way - more like in a growing can kind of be tough way. I have been thinking and pondering and contemplating so much, but haven't really felt like buckling down and blogging about it, mostly because I'm really good at making excuses to avoid as much "conflict" as possible, even if it really makes things worse in the long run. Cryptic, I know, but I'll explain eventually.       Today, though, I did something I * never * do:  I tucked my outside shirt in. HUGE  victory for me in the body image department. You see, I never got around to explaining how ashamed I have been of my body, though not for the reasons you might think. I've never been fat; I've never been too skinny; I don't have stretchmarks anywhere that people would see in everyday interaction. In fact, my body was the env...

    Growing up, I always wanted to be more like my Dad. Maybe it was because I was already a lot like my Mom, or because his coolness factor was higher because he was gone a lot and more mysterious as a result. I don't know. As I've grown older, I've noticed more and more similarity between myself and Mom, from the curling of our hair and our general build, to our tone of voice in the phrases we use. I've also come to appreciate being so similar to her, for she truly is a woman I want to emulate. Granted, everyone has shortcomings, but in spite of those I believe she was a fantastic mother. She would stifle her intense fear of creeping crawling things so our curiosity wouldn't be stifled. She powered through her fear of horses, and allowed me to see the realization of my dream of having one of my own, even to the point of taking care of him if I went somewhere overnight.  She gave the best support she could give when I came to her with a problem. She gave me room to...

     I am a servant. You are a servant. Whether we like it or not, we are all servants. We can't help it; it's built into our nature, and there is no escaping it. Everyone is a slave to something, whether it be our passions, our jobs, our families, what have you. The only question is, who do you choose to serve? Christians are often ridiculed for choosing to give up their "freedom" when they choose to serve Christ, but the reality is no one is free from service. The self-serving man is still just as bound to serving as the one who chooses to follow Christ. The only difference is in the masters they choose. 

          It has been so long since I've written. I don't know what to write. While I haven't had a good opportunity to sit down and put my thoughts onto "paper", it doesn't mean that I have stopped thinking. On the contrary, I've been thinking even more, and now cannot decide on a subject. So I guess I'll stick with what we've been doing lately.            Baby, lots of baby. Though this is only the third (and worst) blow out I've had to deal with. She is going to be 8 weeks old tomorrow. I could not have asked for a better baby. So calm. So content. I love her smiles. I love that she's starting to "talk". I love her complaining cry; the one where she cries and closes her mouth and it sounds like she's saying "Meh meh meh meh". I love the little happy laugh she does when I pick her up after she's been fussing. I am so in love with my baby girl, it's amazing.            Juanito is roughly 21 months. He'...

     As promised (for once), I continue the story. The lessons in letting go didn't stop with varicose veins. At our 38 week appointment there was cause for concern regarding preeclampsia . I had some tests run that weekend, and the results were not promising. At my next appointment, the midwife was strongly suggesting to try and induce labor. I was upset. This was not how it was supposed to be, a week early. I had things that needed to get done before Mary arrived. Code Monkey had a project due that weekend. Things were just not how I wanted them to go. I reluctantly agreed to take the midwife's advice, and left the appointment with a kit to try and induce labor naturally. I honestly was hoping that it wouldn't work; this was not how I  had planned it. God had different plans. After taking different herbal tinctures and homeopathic remedies every 15 minutes for 4 hours, there was some cramping but nothing consistent, so I went to bed. Around 2 a.m. I started timing ...