A Tiny Human Brings New Things

When you are pregnant, you are not only adding a tiny human to your family. You are adding love and laughter and joy. You are adding anxiety and frustration and tears. You are adding moments of sunshine and moments of rain. But most of all, you are adding laundry.

Yes, laundry.

It is amazing how much laundry one tiny human produces.

And if you don't keep up with it, if you let it go a few days without thinking about it, suddenly Mount Laundry becomes a new planet and you can't even find the washing machine because it is covered in tiny baby onesies and mismatched socks and muddy pants and underwear that makes you question if your child even wiped when they went to the bathroom that day. And then it becomes baskets upon baskets of clean laundry that require folding only to be unfolded when the bigs attempt to put their own laundry away and then worn again and the cycle repeats itself again. It's like Groundhog Day but with laundry.

And while laundry does work just like this, it is really just a metaphor for something else in my life. It's the big, ugly elephant in the postpartum room and it's trying to sneak closer and closer so it can stomp on me. I keep trying to push it aside and pretend it's not there, but I don't think I can anymore. It's reaching for me and grabbing for me, and for all my ducking, diving, and dodging, I can feel its cold fingers at the edges of my being. It's trying to reel me in with thoughts of being unworthy and unloved. It plays with my emotions, whispering that normal childhood things are "big deals" and making me overreact more and more to the silliest things that I used to be able to just let go. It's whispering sweet nothings into my ear, trying to court me like a lover. It's trying to move in, leaving its toothbrush and underwear in the dresser of my mind. I find myself swinging from overreacting to being numb and just going through the motions. It's exhausting.

Postpartum Depression is just like laundry. It's unwanted and it piles up and gets worse when you try to ignore it. It doesn't just go away if you don't deal with it. Most of the time, I slip through its grasp. Most of the time, the sun shines and the waters are calm. But more and more often, I am finding myself in the midst of a storm. So, here I am standing up in my truth. My cold, ugly, hard truth. It's trying to make a comeback this time. But I won't let it without a fight. I am putting my foot down and saying, "NO!" I won't let it take over my last baby experience. I won't let it tell me its lies. I won't let it take over my life. No. No. No. This is my life, and I want to enjoy it.

So I will put on my battle gear and armed with placenta pills, I will fight.

And I will win.

And maybe the laundry fairy will deem me worthy of a visit?