POSTPARTUM SURVIVAL | DEALING WITH POSTPARTUM ANXIETY | Pregnancy Vlog

You guys, today Marin is one month old. I can't even believe we're here. It has gone so fast. You know they always say to enjoy it because it goes fast. I have been enjoying it. It doesn't make it go any slower. Right? Yeah. Okay, so I wanted to sit down and just kind of talk about postpartum with you guys. It's something that doesn't get talked about enough and first-time moms want to know more about or should know more about. It's something that I feel like can be kind of taboo. Some of the like feelings and struggles associated with postpartum. So yeah, I just wanted to dive into that with you guys a little bit and talk about my experience. It's been a little bit different with all six of mine. What I did this time around to kind of ease that transition into motherhood again and to just make things as smooth and enjoyable as possible during this first postpartum month. I remember after I had Tyler I was so exhausted. Like I remember that moment of falling in love with her and just being like so smitten as a new mom. And then I remember the first day we came home from the hospital and my parents were there. We had some, our best friends were over and then John's parents were there. I was so tired. All I wanted to do was rest and I wanted to take my baby and go back and just lay down and take a nap. But I felt obligated to share her with everyone and well his parents were there and they you know they all wanted to see the baby and hold her and so I felt like I had to go back and be by myself to rest and leave her when all I really wanted to do was just spend time with her. The first day of Tyler's life she actually had to be 24 hours in a special care nursery because she had a fever when she was born. So I missed out on some of that you know initial bonding period. Anyway, I remember being back in the room by myself while she's out there and I heard dad say, oh I made her smile or she smiled or laughed or something. Oh that's it. He said she her first laugh and I lost it. I just started bawling because as a new mom and it's so funny in hindsight. But I thought I missed out on my baby's first laugh. I thought she was kind of laughing in her sleep. Not like a real laugh but you know newborns do this like sleep laugh. I never forget how sad I felt just feeling like I was already missing so much. This is like three days into her birth. Like feeling I was already missing so much and she was growing up so fast and you know the pressure of sharing that time and all the hormonal stuff. Like there's so much more I understand about it now that I didn't back then. So let's like take that shift to my recovery with Maren which has been totally the opposite. For the past month I have been a recluse. I have been up in my room snuggling her. We are you know pumping and nursing and just cuddling. John has been amazing and helpful and supportive and taking care of the other girls. Such a huge blessing that he is home and works from home and has had time off like around the holidays to be able to do so but after Tyler in that experience I kind of changed the way I did postpartum. I now don't feel that obligation to let everyone hold the new baby. For me it's important those first few weeks especially when we have other kids at home. It's so important to to establish that nursing relationship and that bond and it's more helpful for people who are coming in to who want to help to give attention to the other kids and dote on them and do things with them and you know help around the house or do those things. My opinion personally and a lot of like my midwives that I've had have the opinion of that that time like the newborn is for the mom to hold and take care of. If you're coming to help help with other things and so that's kind of what I've adapted and I can't even tell you how much more it's made me like enjoy my postpartum time where I don't feel like it's hard to explain okay I don't want to sound selfish. I will let other people hold my baby but I am more protective and I definitely hold her more than anybody else because I have realized and learned how fast it goes and I don't want to miss out on that. I feel like with some of our older kids I kind of took for granted those early stages and maybe it's because you know I realized the potential of her being our last newborn that I'm trying to hold on to a little tighter. Whatever it is I've kind of adapted a the baby's mine to take care of. Please help play with the other kids or just visit with us or help around the house if you want to help and that has taken a lot of pressure off me I feel like and it's just made these moments more enjoyable and sweeter and I really feel like I've valued and treasured them so much more. So another thing that has made it easier to transition into that postpartum having a newborn stage is taking the expectation off of myself. With some of my other girls I was as soon as I was feeling better I was like all right back to work like get back into the groove of everything start taking it all on again. It's like we have this immense pressure on ourselves as women in America especially to crush it. Everything we do we got to crush it. I'm a woman, I'm a mom, I'm a this like I can handle name it, list it, all the things. That's the pressure we put on ourselves to be able to keep the house clean and keep all of our kids happy and do special things with them and run a business from home like all of the things we expect to be able to just handle in stride and then we feel really guilty when we fall short in them. Props to you if you are handling all that like it's amazing. I used to think that I could and I used to try and put that pressure on myself. I would fall short in an area or my postpartum anxiety or those mood changes that happen because of your hormonal shifts. I maybe would lose my patience or just become flustered or frazzled or whatever. I would feel really guilty afterwards like bad about myself. Why can't I you know I should be doing better than this like I can do it. This time I took the pressure off myself. I said you know what it's the holidays it's crazy all I want to do is enjoy this stage and I don't want to take any of it for granted and I don't want to miss all the things that I know in like three months. I'm gonna forget all the little faces that she makes now and all the little sounds she makes while she's sleeping you know. In a few short months those are gonna be gone um and so I just want to enjoy them while they're here. So I took that pressure off myself to jump back into everything. It feels good like there are still times where I'm sitting here like man I really should be doing more. I really should go downstairs and clean up. I really should you know go to the grocery store and knock out all of the grocery shopping you name it. Like I still have those thoughts but then I stop and intentionally say you know what rest in the grace she's not gonna stay this little further along. It's taking me six kids to realize that but I'm telling you mamas enjoy it while they're so little. You don't have to crush it. You don't have to crush everything. It's okay. This is the time where I don't care if things are messy. I'm sorry if I'm not responding to messages or things right away. My expectations of myself are up here and I'm I'm down here but I'm giving myself grace. So give yourself grace. That's really important. Another thing that I think has been really helpful is understanding and being able to recognize your own emotions and feelings for what they are. So postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, those are things that I feel like sometimes you may not realize you're experiencing especially if you're not familiar with all the different ways that they can present themselves. If you don't understand exactly how those things work or what they look like it's harder to say and acknowledge oh I might be struggling when we need to be able to acknowledge that we are struggling in order to get help. Thankfully postpartum depression has never been a huge struggle but I have dealt with postpartum anxiety. That one doesn't get talked about as much and it is uh it's huge. I feel like it's completely changed me as a person. We have six kids and we've had them back to back and I feel like after having my first is when I developed postpartum anxiety and that it's kind of carried through and maybe even gotten worse over the succession of years and having more children. There is a point in my rest that is me having grace for myself and saying I'm going to enjoy this and there's also a fine line where I can see and identify now that all the little things are overwhelming me. All the messes, all of the the kids being loud and wild and rambunctious so when I get up and I go downstairs and I'm around all of it and it's chaotic here, which it is a lot with six kids, I start to feel very anxious and very like frazzled and I come back upstairs. So there was a point the other day where I was like is my extended vacation from life, we're going to call it that because it kind of has been, is that postpartum anxiety? Is that me finding a way to cope with serious anxiety? So being able to identify those feelings is very important because then I can really break it down and evaluate what's going on in my heart, what am I struggling with? I'm struggling with being thrown back into everything. When everything gets chaotic I can feel the anxiety overwhelming. So knowing and recognizing that and being able to say okay well on postpartum there's hormonal changes that are happening, how can I support my body, what can I do to help myself get past this and get past, even if it's just in that moment, get past these feelings and get past this like panicked feeling that I'm having. So I'll take my oils and inhale those. If you've never used essential oils I highly recommend, especially for emotional support, heavy feelings, supporting healthy hormones, all those things. So that is a huge thing. I will pray. I will put on worship music. I remember on Christmas I turned on worship music and John was like this is not Christmas music and I said I know. He's like do you need you need that? I was like yeah that's so good. I'm like I needed something to ground me and center me because I was feeling so anxious because it was just madness and my parents weren't here to help Asia. All of that is beside the point. The point is I'm able to do things then when I can recognize versus a few kids ago I would just be like I don't know why I'm just so angry like I'm losing my temper over nothing, I'm yelling, whatever it is like I just can't handle it and I don't know why. And it was such a bad place to be in, I'm sorry, to feel like there's something wrong with you and not be able to know what it is or why you all of a sudden have no patience for something or why you're just feeling lustered. Like it comes out of nowhere you guys. Like if you've experienced it I know you know exactly what the feeling I'm talking about. Understanding those things has given me authority to stop them and to kind of reset myself to say okay I'm going to take some time to pray. I'm going to switch on the worship music and inhale some oils. I need to go upstairs. John love you but I need you to watch the girls like I'm just going to take the baby up. I need to like take a mental break. All of those things have helped so much with me coping and so I realized through that like I said my retreating is my way of coping with some of the anxiety. So I need to find a way to work back into normal life with compromise. Saying okay it's time to start doing more of my normal duties and chores around the house and my business stuff but I need to figure out what's going to work for me where I'm not pushing myself too hard. So creating boundaries and working within those is super important. And then of course you guys your body has just gone through so much. Postpartum is like a huge adjustment. All of your hormone levels are changing and adapting. If you're nursing you have even more physical needs and demands because your body's producing milk. Stay hydrated and eat healthy foods. This one has been real tricky for me because I just like have a huge sweet tooth. Okay we're gonna be honest here. I'm like craving carbs like it's my job. But trying to eat healthy foods will make you feel better. Your eating habits actually can directly affect your moods. So eating healthy foods is going to help you to feel better physically, have more energy, support healthy milk production, as well as support like happy healthy mood. You're just gonna feel better overall. This time I've recognized my need to take it a little slower and really enjoy it and soak it in. So I've been silent and missing from vlogs a lot. That's why I said this whole first month I'm like how has it already been a month? I feel like I've been hiding away and I have been but I feel so happy and I feel so full of life and I feel like just I don't know I just feel good. So I hope that inspires you and encourages you. You know and if you are postpartum take on some of that advice and hopefully it will help you. And you guys if you need help ask for help. That's one thing. It took me six kids to the other day for the very first time as a mom. I'm talking in seven years for the very first time I was at Target with her. It was the first time I left the house. It took me so much longer to even get to the store. I posted a video. You guys can check back on our Facebook for it. It was the first time out of the house. I was already so frazzled. I was just exhausted and trying to hurry home because I left John with all the kids for too long. I was going to the car and I had a cart full of stuff. Her in my wrap. It was cold and windy. An older woman was like can I please help you put your stuff in your car. First time in seven years I said you know what yes. I would actually really love that. And my first thought in my mind was oh no I've got it because that's always the response. Oh no it's okay I've got it. But I recognized that man help would be so nice. It took me six years, six kids, seven years to realize that help is nice. What I'm trying to say is if you need help ask for it or if somebody offers you help accept it. It can be so hard to do whether it's that pressure of I got to be able to crush it. Everyone else can crush it. That mom's crushing it. Whatever it is you don't have to crush it. It's okay to accept help and it feels really good too and it feels good for those people to get to help you. So I encourage you, hi sweet girl, that if you are about to have a baby or just have a baby and people are reaching out to you or you feel like you need help, ask for the help. Take the help and enjoy it and take those extra minutes to enjoy your baby. Right dear little baby? All right well I love you guys so much. I'm so glad y'all are with us. Look forward to seeing more of me as Maren and I get back into the swing of life. I am ready. I'm finally feeling excited and feeling ready to get back into a routine and just back into the swing of things. Right? Whether you're a first-time mom or a six-time mom, I hope those tips help you guys. Okay I love you guys and we will see you.