I wrote about how on Sunday we did things like Build Bears, eat popovers and lose our son in the mall for five minutes. I felt like a human again.

Well, let’s say that if Sunday was a hill day, yesterday was a valley.

But throughout the day today we climbed, each in our own way.

Since (how I mentioned previously) the other story is not my story to tell, I will tell you that while I woke up this morning not feeling great, I ended up feeling better and better as the day went on.

I danced with my son, all around his bedroom, to Ed Sheeran’s sick Grammy performance of “Thinking Out Loud” (featuring John Mayer, Herbie Hancock and Quest Love). We both felt so happy. I thought to myself, “Have I ever felt this happy before? Certainly I must have been happier than this little moment.” but I really was so filled with joy.

And then the best friend who made me an “aunt” texted to say that she was driving around, and asked if we would like company for an hour.

Yes!

So I got to see my little niecey and watch my son try to hug and kiss her, too shy to ever actually make contact.

And there were some other snapshots of tiny, wonderful moments (tasting an amazing date, fresh from Israel)

and some crappy moments (listening to my daughter cry because the ziplock bag that holds her little plastic My Little Pony dolls broke).

I was glad to just be able to chill with my husband, tonight, with some TV or a podcast. First, I would be able to catch up on my Bravo and E! shows while he went rock climbing.

And then, and yes, I am purposely being vague here, he got home and we held hands, as a team, and he had to face a source of stress in his life, and I made my intention, ahead of time, to not let myself become enraged.

I am an extremely calm person. Extremely. You would think that because I am so emotional and dramatic I would be having outbursts left and right, but I have raised my voice maybe a handful of times in the past decade. I never yell.

But, tonight, I failed at meeting my intention. The rage crept up inside of me, as a mixture of protectiveness and disgust, and I tried to just breathe through it.

Another thing I am is a lazy person. I don’t say this disparagingly. I am not lazy-minded, nor am I a lazy mother, but in general, I would rather be relaxing than running.

But after we dealt with the stressful situation, and I sat there, rage coursing through me, my husband told me that he had just heard a really cool new band on the radio. Saint Motel.

And he was excited about it, so I sat on the couch, under my blanket, the E! channel frozen on my living room TV, as he plugged the song “My Type” into our stereo.

And all of a sudden, almost instantly, I started to shake my head. It was super catchy!

We both sat for a minute, moving to the beat of the song, and then I realized, I wanted to dance.

“Do you want to dance?” I asked my husband.

“Sure!” he said.

We could dance it out.

And so we had a crazy dance party in our living room

and all of a sudden my rage evaporated.

I actually danced it out.

I think that this vignette would make for a better scene in a movie than it does for a blog post, as this story is more of a scattered diary entry than a moving call to action or personal confession,

but I think that’s OK. I give myself permission to share with you the fact that I had two dance parties today,

with my two main men,

and that they made me happy.

And, as so many of you have said, just take life day by day, sometimes even hour by hour, so that is what I am doing. And this hour is an hour to dance party.

So that I shall do.

And, because it needs to be said, I am absolutely no longer Marnie; after this past week’s episode of Girls I am, 100%, no going back, Jessa. She rocked my world this week.

See? This is totally a quirky diary entry.

Dear Diary,

Today I made up a few games with the baby and he ate two poptarts, a cheese omelette and a kale smoothie for breakfast. I also got to see my niece in one of my very favorite shirts that once belonged to my daughter. I got to hear praise about my husband and echo it.

I listened to Ben Stiller on Howard Stern and I found about this new band called Saint Motel.

I had the best date ever. Oh, and by date I mean the pitted kind, from Israel. It was outrageous.

I got angry, but then I danced it out.

XOXO Love Always,

Jessa

The post Dear Diary, Saint Motel and rage no more. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

I am also making much more of an effort to meet my basic health and human needs.

And as great as that is, and though my quality of life has improved over the last few weeks, that comes with a catch.

My daughter turns 5 next month and as my very close friend said today, “She is a very mature 5″ which is true; almost an understatement. She is wise and empathetic and intuitive; but that also means that she can be both cunning and cutting.
She is now at a point in her language where is able to identify the adjectives that represent the tone in which one is speaking.

For example, if I were to say something like, “Yes, that would be awesome if the baby took the ice cream and smeared it all over the kitchen floor,” she would reply with, “Mom, your just being sarcastic.”

She gets nuance and emotion. And she can use that to her advantage in mostly positive ways, but goodness does it make it hard sometimes. This weekend I had to teach her what “manipulative” meant.

She had taken to saying things like, “I am going to tell you something that I want to do, and if you don’t let me do it I am just going to tell you now that I will be sad forever and I will not be able to stop crying for three months.”

I called her out on this, turning the tables with examples, and we have now changed the language to, “Mom, I would really like to do something. If you say no, I may be disappointed but it’s ok.”

But today, she really hit me where it hurts.

She found that guilt soft spot,

the place in all of us where it is tender and sensitive and fragile,

and she gave it a nice wallop.

My daughter was very disappointed when I sent our babysitter home a little early so that she could avoid driving into the city in bad weather. But instead of using our new phrase, she cried hysterically and said that she was so sad that she could not play with her best friend (our sitter is virtually a part of our family, but come on) and then said, “You don’t even play with me mom. You just watch.”

“What are you talking about? Watch what?” I asked.

“You just sit with us and watch “Vanderpump Rules“.

“That is not true and that is not nice. I play with you and sing songs with you and dress up with you and beanboozle and show you music videos. And FYI, Vanderpump Rules is only on once a week, anyway.”

But I really started to feel guilty; because part of what she said is right. I do not run around like our two sitters do. I do often not engage in elaborate games that involve running up and down the stairs of all four floors of our house, like she gets to do when her godparents or our friends visit.

And that is not because I don’t care and it is not because I am lazy.

It is because I am tired.

 I am not just “oh it’s hard being a mom” tired, but I am tired because my body is still healing physically

and working very hard to get back to a place of strength and wellness.

My kids and I played in my daughter’s room this afternoon; we did low-key playtime, where I let him open and close drawers and my daughter read books to me and then I took out her special ponies to play with.

And then I asked her for five minutes to sit quietly. I would stay in the room with her. I would watch and enjoy; I just needed five minutes of time when I did not have to be “on”.

And she went and socked me in the gut, yet again. “I am so lonely I am just going to wait downstairs until daddy gets home.” (which made no sense, because I was offering to sit with her, and her proposed plan would leave her downstairs and alone, but whatever).

I called my husband as he drove home from work.

“She says I don’t play with her. I feel like a bad mom,” I confessed.

And he talked me down. He reminded me of our special, unforgettable day just one week ago.

“I guess I am good at nurturing,” I admitted.

“You do so much,” he said.

And, because I am very tired…

BREAK.

***Literally 4 hours later***

I could not make this up if I tried.

I typed those words above: And, because I am very tired

and I fell asleep.

Sound asleep.

At 6pm I fell asleep. I napped until 7:30 when my daughter cried from her room that she heard the sound of a big bang.

So, I guess I need not say anymore; I think that the above speaks for itself.

To be honest, 4 hours (a chicken pot pie and 3 episodes of House of Cards later), I don’t remember how I was going to finish that sentence.

And, because I am very tired–

you can fill in the blank; I am sure you can.

Here. I’ll go first: And, because I am very tired, I am more sensitive than usual, so probably harder on myself than I should be, as sleep impacts my mood profoundly; and because I am so very tired I fell asleep at 6pm while typing a blog post.

There you have it. A reminder, perhaps another little nudge from my angels, to take care of myself;

that being a good mom doesn’t mean running or jumping or chasing; it means loving with all of your heart and soul.

And that I do.

The post Because I am very tired appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

As we headed back for my test, my heart racing, my stomach turning, I admitted to the bubbly, kind tech that I am a bad combination: I am claustrophobic and a hypochondriac. She laughed, in a warm and kind way, and assured me that there was nothing to worry about. “I just have bad anxiety,” I told her, as I was putting my belongings into a locker by the MRI room.

We got into the room, she put a fresh sheet of tissue on the table and then she said, “Before you go in, I just have to tell you a story. Long story short…” and then went on, and I am not exaggerating, to tell me a ten minute story about how her son started to get weird neurological symptoms, including screaming fits, twitching, the inability to balance, sleep or brush his teeth and she was sure he had a brain tumor, being an MRI tech and all. AND, he also had anxiety. They took him to many hospitals and finally, through a special program, he was diagnosed with Encephalitis, the source of all of his symptoms. Including the anxiety. So basically, she spent ten minutes telling me why I should be more worried. I actually got a bit woozy at one point and sat down (there is only so much you can hear about the blood and brain) but when I finally got in the MRI machine I actually started to laugh. It was so ridiculous that I just had to laugh.

2. Speaking of my MRI, I had to take out my new ear piercing, just two days after I had it done, as there is no metal allowed. I tried to put it back in last night and it didn’t work well. So my husband re-pierced my ear. I feel like this might not have been a great idea.

3. Today, someone pointed to my son and asked, “Oh, so you’re the babysitter?” (Score!)

4. This week, I received the most incredible support from the most incredible friends, near and far. I felt very loved and for that I feel very blessed. I was able to ask questions, ask for help, tell seemingly endless and boring stories at times, and other times, I did not have to say anything at all.  #friendshipisthickerthanblood

Speaking of friends, this, the whole dress debacle that seemed to dominate the internet last night, caused me great anxiety. I asked my one bestie, the neuropsychologist, why our brains would make us see things so differently (she saw gold and white; her husband, my husband and I all saw blue and black). I tried to explain to her what white looks like to me: I said it is a light color, whereas black is a dark color, like the sky outside at nighttime. She asked me if I saw marshmallows as black; I asked my other bestie if this was a sign of the apocalypse. I was seriously scared. Thank gd she has a survival kit.

5. This morning felt like a mom-win.

I made three different breakfasts for three different dependents, because my one child does not eat strawberries or muffins and the other won’t eat blueberries or eggs.

and then there was this one. Have I mentioned that we hand make all of her meals?

Then, I packed a lunch and decided to write a note for my daughter that she could read by herself (because she’s really taking off in her reading and it is so cool!) So I tried to make it easy, and use a picture like they do in the BOB books.

Except, I can’t draw. My husband makes the most amazing lunch notes, but this morning it was on me.

Let me see if you can figure out what I was trying to convey with this masterpiece here:

Finally, my last moment of heart-exploding pride came when it came time for my daughter to leave for school.

I mean, the newsboy cap; the kiss; the chunky thighs; the love.

And those are a handful of things that are on my mind.

So, what color did you see?

(Just kidding. I do NOT want to know.)

The post A handful of things appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

My plans, my outlook, my mood.

I was able to appreciate some really sweet things from some really sweet people.

There are many. I have been the lucky recipient of so many kind notes, inspirational screen shots, kisses–

but here are just a few of the sweet things that touched me this week:

I have a good, old-fashioned pen pal. My pen pal went on a trip to New Orleans a couple of weeks ago and sent me photos of beignets, to which I responded, “I want those now!” And this week, they were delivered to me. Now that is sweet.

Do you remember when my husband woke me up at 3 o’clock in the morning to give me a new pair of shoes? Well, this week, he brought home another “Just Because” present. When our pipe burst in May, leaving our basement completely flooded, I lost nearly all of my shoes. Thankfully, not the aforementioned 3am pair, but 2 entire suitcases of shoes (they were being stored in our always dry basement while we were rearranging the bedrooms after the birth of my son). We are not in a position for me to just go on a shoe shopping spree, but my husband walked in the door this week with a huge box and an even bigger smile. “I want you to start rebuilding your collection,” he said. Just because. Sweet as can be.

On Wednesday I visited the synagogue where I grew up and experienced many special moments, most of which are too personal to share. BUT, I will say that for anyone with whom I went to Hebrew School, our quilt is still hanging up in the school building! I took a picture of my square, and saw the squares of so many of my old friends (who are my still friends) and it was a sweet thing to see.

The story above says it all. Someone took the time out of her night to make sure that I was shown some sweetness, both literally and figuratively, by leaving a package at my door. The awesomeness of this community never ceases to amaze me.

This week, my husband built a castle for our kids.

We have been finishing our basement (through this oddest series of events, this dream ended up happening!!

Perhaps I willed it into reality?)

which means that our house is filled with things in strange places. I am currently referring to my sunroom as “The Furniture Store”, as it is housing two completely separate rooms worth of furniture. Two couches. Three chairs. Two ottomans. Many lamps. It also has half of our childrens’ toys, the other half being stored in half of our third floor playroom, which is now being converted into a guest room.

And boxes. So many boxes. Huge boxes, for things like pedestal sinks and toilets and tv stands.

Is there anything sweeter than watching your kids play together in their own, magical, cardboard castle?

Yes. Yes, there is;

It’s watching your husband and children act out a play called “Ariel in her Undersea Castle”.

And really, when you have friends, and family members and kids and memories like mine,

there’s not much more to do than to savor their sweetness. And this week, I am so blessed that I can.

The post Sweet things. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

That said, this site is definitely not appropriate for children. I share some very personal details about mental illnesses and disorders that are very adult subjects.

And today, I wanted to write about sex. But, I hesitated. I was anxious about it. Would it be inappropriate? And I realized that what I am writing about is not anything explicit, nor is it even sexual. It’s more about being a human being, which is something that I write about often. One of my favorite parts of this site is the response that I am so fortunate to get from my readers to my writing; I hear, over and over again, “I can so relate to you”, so I figured I would broach this subject and see how it goes.

This all got started when I was talking to a single friend about a fun, recent date. I got to hear all about the conversations and the activities and some of the details. I am often regaled with these tales of chemistry (or lackthereof), excitement (or lackthereof), and sex (or…lackthereof).

And I realized something very interesting; If I were to respond to these emails in kind, sharing my own details and stories about sex, it would be weird. Or so I thought.

And so I asked this friend and it was confirmed. My friend agreed. It would be weird.

So I figured out how it works, and it is pretty interesting.

Here is what seems to be the formula

(and let me say that my incredibly sophisticated scientific research applies to my friends and the people I know who are generally open and trustworthy):

1. If you are single and you are talking to a single friend, you can talk about sex. Sometimes in great detail.

2. If you are single and you are talking to a married friend about sex, you can pretty much do the same. There is some slight deviation here if the friendship involves parties of the opposite sex*, one being married, the other single, but in general, this rule applies. (See. I am so scientific! I want to make a Power Point next!)

3. If you are married and talking to a single friend (particularly of the same sex) you do not talk about sex. At least not in the same way.  You don’t tell them stories or talk specifics, typically. You talk more generally, as in “It is important to feel sexually attracted to someone whom you are thinking about marrying.” Or, at most, “I am lucky that I still have a great sex life.” With someone of the opposite sex, it is completely situational.

4. If you are married and talking to a married member (of the same sex), you talk about sex exactly like the single person talks to the other single person about sex, but perhaps even more than you normally would. At least from my experience. You share details, you ask questions, you give tips, you give thumbs up and high fives.

5. If you are married and you are talking to a married member of the opposite sex, it’s a toss up. It totally depends on the relationship, and I don’t think that there is a hard and fast rule (no pun intended). I can only base things on my own experience within my own group of friends, but I know that there are certain male friends, husbands of my female friends, with whom I feel just as comfortable as my girls. I can talk about anything and everything with them, make dirty jokes and say things dripping with innuendo. You should hear some of the conversations we get into over our beloved Shabbat dinners.

However, (and this is something that I have learned) I would say, as a general rule, if you go to a party and are introduced to a couple, you should probably not go over to the corner with the husband and discuss anything sexual unless you are making conversation about a major event in the news or in popular culture, which would give it total relevance.

So, I just laid it all out there (no pun intended, again), and I wonder…why is it like this?

I have asked my husband about this before, in fact; how he talks to his best friend on his drive into work every morning and gets to hear the most colorful tales. “Did you tell him about us?” I will ask. 99% of the time the answer is “No”. That 1% is when there is an opportunity for him to throw in a joke (that isn’t really a joke) related to what they have been talking about.

And then I got to thinking about marriage. And friendship. When we get married, we are not suddenly bubble people. We are the exact same people we were before we exchanged vows, but just committed to another person for life. So what happens that makes our single friends shun us when it comes to their desire to hear about our sex lives?

When I was dating my husband, I am sure I shared stories with my girlfriends, or asked questions, and that was fine. But nope, oh no, once the ring was on his finger, the idea of talking about my husband became repellent, like talking about one’s parents.

(By the way, my parents and grandparents read this blog, so Mom, Dad, Mommom and Poppop: this does NOT give you the freedom to talk about sex with me. That is never going to be OK.)

So I am curious, single peeps, married peeps, people who have been both single and then married, or married and then single: Talk to me. Talk to me about sex.

Because I write this blog to make peoples’ lives better, and I think that answering these questions will help relationships, whether they are friendships, romantic relationships or even interactions with acquaintances.

So here is where you come in (I am not even going to say it): Tell me what you think about what I have just written. If I was brave enough to just write about sex to thousands of people, you can share your opinions with me. You can do so by commenting under the Facebook post with this link on my personal page, or the Mommy, Ever After Facebook page, you can send me a private message on Facebook or at Rebecca@mommyeverafter.com, or you can start your own dialogue, and share with me what you come up with. I can’t wait to find out.

*I am aware of and completely acknowledge the difference between sex and gender, however, for the purposes of this post, I went with the commonly accepted expression that “Sex” means either “Male” or “Female”; This in no way reflects my own personal beliefs on the issue of gender identity or equality.

The post A Post About Sex. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

***

Part of me wishes that I could say, “I don’t know when it happened. It just crept up on me.” in talking about my depression, but that would be untrue. I know exactly when the turning point occurred, exactly where, exactly why and exactly how. It was March 17, 2013. St. Patrick’s Day. I have referenced this day before when I first opened up about my struggle with postpartum depression, but now I can tell you more, perhaps because I now know more. This may be the most vulnerable in my writing that I have ever been or will every be, but right now, at this moment, my heart is completely open, and so I am letting the feelings pour out of me, before my brain starts to compartmentalize things again, burying the painful, shielding me from the hard and forgetting the details.

On March 17, 2013 I was 6 weeks pregnant. I was at my parents’ house for Chinese food and when I went to the bathroom and saw a bit of blood. My entire body became paralyzed. I can’t remember whom I told first, my husband or my mom, but the thought of it now would bring me to my knees if I were not already seated. It is making me double over. I thought that I was losing my baby.

It was a Sunday night, so we had no option but to call the hospital’s emergency line. The doctor on call was brusque, and said to me, “Well, either you’re having a miscarriage or you are spotting so you can come in or you can just wait and see.”

I don’t understand how someone could be so callous in her line of work, but to me there was no choice. My husband and I went to the emergency room and I was more scared than I had ever been in my entire life.

From the moment that I found out that I was pregnant with my second child, I felt a tremendous sense of love and gratitude. I felt whole in a way that I had never felt before. I felt like our lives were about to change in a way so that we, as a family, would be complete.

I didn’t have to wait, that night, as I checked in to the Emergency Room. I was sent into the triage room immediately and then, we were given a bed in the hallway, as there was no room ready for us at that time. I remember some specific things about that time on the hallway hospital bed; I remember having my blood drawn there and then seeing blood on the sheet that covered the gurney; I remember talking to my husband about the thing–the possibility–that something was really wrong. How would we tell our daughter?; I remember when they wheeled me to the ultrasound room and how I had to endure an uncomfortable examination and the technician was not allowed to tell me anything. I had to sit there, as she watched my uterus, and I was not able to find out if, in fact, I had a baby with a beating heart inside.

We were moved into a room after an hour or so and our doctor was a young, tall, dark haired man who was more of a busy ER doctor than a hand-holder, if that makes sense. He told me that my blood levels looked good, that there were two definite structures in my uterus, the yolk sac and the embryo; and the embryo was my baby, with a strong beating heart. I am writing this with tears streaming down my face, for all that was, all that could have been, all that is and all that will never be.

I asked the doctor for an ultrasound photo, but apparently they don’t do that in the ER like at the OBGYN’s office, but he allowed us to look at the images on his computer and pointed out what he referred to as “a little cheerio”. That was our baby.

And then, my life changed.

There are details about this part of the story that are both too painful and too personal to share, but that was the night that I turned down the road from being the person I had always been towards the depressed person that I would become. As I have written before, I went completely numb to the baby growing inside of me. It sounds horrible and ungrateful, but really, it was my defense mechanism. I had been so scared that I couldn’t let myself feel. And I think that this also caused a rift in my marriage. While he was relieved and unfazed, I was everything and nothing.

I think of that night, often. I have shared details of it with my friends, some more than others, and it has haunted me for 22 months. This was when I started to feel that lonely feeling. I was not alone, not ever really, but I was lonely nonetheless.

I am mad at so many things about that night. That night was when I went from “A Happy Story” to “A Hard Story”.

And you know the rest.

The rest until yesterday.

***

My kids have been sick for over a week now. Fevers, ear infections, snot, coughing…the works.

We started Saturday morning on the later side, which was nice, and I spent most of the early hours on the computer trying to order things like new bedding for my daughter, birthday gifts for her friends and a present for my husband’s birthday next week. At 9:30 my husband brought our congested baby up into my bed with me and he napped next to me for two hours. My husband went climbing at the rock gym and my daughter played in her room and I can’t remember what I did. Truly. I don’t know if I slept or wrote on the computer. I feel you Adnan.

When my son stirred, I texted my husband to come up to our room, I wasn’t feeling quite right. My left arm was hurting and I was having some chest pain. We thought that maybe I was hungry and dehydrated so I sat with a bag of cinnamon raisin bread and just kept eating slice after slice and I drank a smoothie. But I did not feel any better. I started to feel lightheaded and so we took my blood pressure which was 90/58. My pulse, to me, felt unusually weak. My lips turned blue. We called my mom and she came to watch the kids while we went to the ER. On the way there my husband joked that we should have a punch card like they give out at the frozen yogurt store or the nail salon, as we seem to be incredibly frequent visitors. But the on the ride there I was also shaking uncontrollably and even though I wore a tank top, a cashmere turtleneck, a big cardigan and my winter coat, my husband covered me in his heavy Canada Goose jacket because I was so cold. When we got to the hospital I couldn’t even think straight to sign the forms, so my husband did it for me. They put on my wrist band and when I looked at it, I thought something looked odd, but I was feeling so lightheaded. “My name is not Tasha Williams*” I told the lady and she cut off the mislabeled bracelet and gave me a new one with my correct information. I was taken to triage immediately where they made me change into a gown, despite my uncontrollable trembling and gave me an EKG. Apparently the spasms made the reading look crazy. The nurse asked me for a list of medications that I take and also medicines that I am allergic to. I was still somewhat disoriented, but I heard my husband give her the list. I felt such warmth towards him at that moment. That feeling only grew when he wheeled me into the bathroom where he helped me to pee into a cup. I can’t even begin to imagine what search engine terms will now lead people to this site, but I am telling the full story, because I am trying to emphasize to you how lucky I feel to have a husband as wonderful as mine. And it was in the bathroom that I started to cry.

Earlier this week I wrote about having an emotional day, but those were spells of tears or wet-eyed smiles. The deluge I had been waiting for finally came. I sat in the wheelchair as my husband pushed me back into the waiting room and I sobbed and sobbed.

“I am so sorry,” he said.

“Do you know why I am crying?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“There are two reasons,” I said.

“I know,” he said.

“What are they?” I asked, not meaning to quiz him, but just curious if he really understood.

“You’re sad because this is where you gave birth and you’re sad because this reminds you of being in the ER on St. Patrick’s day when we thought we were losing the baby.”

He knew exactly why I was in such pain at that moment and let me sob into his shoulder.

When the woman from radiology took me back for an x-ray I cried to her. “My babies were born here. And now I can’t have any more,” I cried.

“Aww honey,” she said. “Did they just tell you this today?”

I then explained that I had learned about this fourteen months ago, but I still whimpered my way through my x-ray nonetheless.

Now before we all let things get too heavy here, let me add some levity by painting the picture for you:

My husband and I both wore masks for the entire 5 hours that we spent in the ER, completely paranoid about (specifically flu) germs. But not only did we wear masks, we used hand sanitizer at least 20 times (my husband even rubbed it on the handrails of the chairs on which we were sitting) and every time someone would come within six feet of me I would hold my breath and turn away. (I read that the flu particles can travel as far as six feet.)

Because of the face masks, we could not whisper to each other, so we had to text when we wanted to speak privately.

For instance, a lady stood up near me and I was aghast, turning my head as far away as I could and breathing in as little air as possible.

And so, because I had undergone a series of tests (bloodwork, the EKG, a chest x-ray, etc) we had to wait to be seen by a doctor. But the hospital was so inundated that we could not wait in a room, as we usually would. We had to wait in the waiting room. For three hours.

These masks are the absolute PERFECT way for me to honor my rule of not showing the full faces of my family members; I should have thought to bring a stash home.

As time went on, I grew more and more impatient. My phone had died, my chest was hurting and I was simultaneously and equally scared of the germs that were clearly infiltrating my mask/the Carbon Dioxide poisoning I was likely getting by breathing solely through a mask for 5 hours.

There were a few bright spots during the endless wait.

At one point “Take the Money and Run” played in the waiting room, and my husband and I talked about the time about nine years ago when we went up to his dad’s farm house on a vineyard. We walked home about a mile from a wine tasting and sang all of The Steve Miller Band songs we knew, a little tipsy and a lot in love.

A miserable hour after that, one of us pointed out the fact that at least we were sitting, doing nothing, and not having to chase after kids. #thingsonlyparentswouldthink

Finally, appearing like a mirage in the desert, a nurse came out from behind the double doors and called my name.

So from the waiting room I was moved into a hospital bed in the hallway. No room. No privacy. Just a stretcher in the hallway.

It was just like where we sat on St. Patrick’s day, almost two years ago.

“How eerie is this?” I asked. “It is exactly the same.”

“This is incredibly weird.” he concurred.

I shuddered.

But, this time, things were different. They really were. We still had anxieties and concerns about my health and the unknown but somehow, we were in it together in a way that we had not been that night in March. We have grown so much as a couple in the past two years; We are so bonded and such a tight team.

Still, it was hard to be there.

And so I continued to wait, very impatiently, while a doctor gave me a Neurological exam, took more blood and I hounded the nurse for my test results. At one point I pulled her over (after the fifth time I asked her for a print out of my labs) and told her that I am on an anxiety medicine that I take four times a day. During my time at the hospital I had missed two doses.

“You really are anxious,” she said. “Why do you even have anxiety?”

Oh no she di’int.

“The reason why I am asking you for the anxiety medicine that is prescribed to me is because I suffered from severe postpartum depression after giving birth to my son in October of 2013. It was so severe that I ended up being hospitalized. I am still dealing with the after effects, both physical and emotional.”

“Oh,” she said. “And you have another kid too? That explains it.”

“I did not have postpartum depression because it was hard for me to handle having two children,” I began, but my husband looked at me and said, with his only his eyes, as the mask still covered his face, “calm down or they are going to throw us out of here!” and so I just looked up at her, still in my mask, and asked, “Were you my nurse before?” as she looked familiar. She couldn’t remember, but I knew that I had seen her before. When she told me that I needed a bag of IV fluids I told her that I would not be happy to get one (model patient, I know) because I have had more bags IV fluids in the past year than I can count (this is not a figure of speech).

Again, she asked, inappropriately, “Why have you needed so many IVs?”

And I rattled off my list of ER visits and then she stopped me when I mentioned the carbon monoxide poisoning. That jogged her memory; she had treated me and the kids back in May.

And then we waited, and waited, and waited some more, and I started to feel really defeated, like I had wasted our time. I felt guilty and confused.

And then something occurred to me.
“Maybe we were supposed to be here. Maybe we were supposed to come back to this place and make peace with it; this place that has haunted me for almost two years.” I have admitted before that I suffer from PTSD. That night, two years ago, is part of that diagnosis.

The tears started to flow, again.

“I think of this hospital as both the magical haven where our children were born and also the place where my life changed for the awful. This place holds my Happy Story and my Hard Story,”

I told my husband.

“Well,” he said, so wisely that it takes my breath away. “That’s what most hospitals do.”

And I realized that he was right.

Minutes later my doctor returned to tell me to rest, to take a medicine that I am allergic to and to follow up with my PCP on Monday. All in all it was an awesome visit.

But I only say that with partial sarcasm; because I do believe in things happening for a reason. I think I needed to sit in that hallway with my husband, again, and leave with him, hand in hand.

***

I couldn’t see his lips moving as we spoke in unison,

Baruch atah adonai

eloheinu melech ha’olam

shecheyanu

v’kiy’manu

v’higyanu

lazman hazeh.

A new beginning. A new year. A new version of us, one so much stronger than ever before.

Two years ago on March 17th I thought that I was losing so much; I was uncertain about the future health of our growing embryo, and the state of my marriage, and, really, I lost myself for awhile. And truly, when I think about it, the girl who walked into that hospital on that evening, is gone.

Since then, so much has changed. And for that, I feel so glad.

So I signed my discharge papers, these ones with the diagnosis of “Chest Pain” as opposed to “Possible Miscarriage” and my husband wrapped me in his warm coat and strong arms and we walked out together.

Into the future.

And I held my breath through my entire walk back out through the waiting room.

Amen.

*Name changed to protect the innocent. And to protect Mommy, Ever After from violating HIPAA.

The post In sickness and in health. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

Earlier this year I had even decided that it would be the car in which my daughter would learn to drive.

I loved my car.

I loved that it was recognizable and a little famous around town, because of the pink peace sign decal on it’s cute little behind;

I loved that it was the first car that I negotiated myself when I was 21 (I was so tenacious that Shareef, my salesman, had to bring his manager in to deal with me).

I loved that it was the car in which we drove both of our babies home from the hospital;

Many memories.

But, as you may recall, it was recently hit by a beer distribution truck, leaving it with gashes along the driver’s side and a rear of falling-off-pieces, which is as technical as I can get when describing car parts.

So while it spent three weeks in the shop being put back together, my husband suggested that perhaps we should consider selling the car, as it would be in pristine condition and, at almost 10 years old, the perfect age to “retire”, before it started having any major, expensive problems.

At first, I was adamant. I would never sell my car. It meant so much to me.

But as someone who is not a car person as I am sentimental person, I tried to think rationally.

Because as much as I loved my car, and as many memories as it held, it wasn’t my first.

Which made me think, “If I could sell my precious first car, a car with so much history, then maybe I can sell this one, too.”

You see, my first car was my 17th birthday gift from my parents, which I realize makes me an incredibly lucky kid. It was a little black sedan with a kelly green double pinstripe (upon my request) and I got it when they drove it to my play practice with a red bow across the hood.

I have many memories of my little black car, like driving it with my girlfriends on trips to the shore and sneaking out during free periods in High School to move it so that I would avoid a parking ticket for exceeding the two hour limit.

But, there is one main memory about my black car that is more of a feeling than a snapshot; a state of existence; of being so young and free.

And here it is.

During our late Junior and all of Senior years of high school, my best friend and I spent hours driving around in my car. I am always cold, so I kept my car at the “Max High” temperature setting, which meant that my best friend, who is always warm, would literally hang her head out of her window to try to be able to breathe (we are compatible in every way besides temperature). We blasted Cat Stevens and sang along to “Wild World”. For the holidays our senior year she bought me a special device that plugged into the ashtray/charging port that made the whole car smell like “Warm Vanilla Sugar” from Bath and Body Works.

I got pulled over only once in that car, prom weekend, and it was for making a left hand turn without a signal in front of a cop in Longport, New Jersey. He did not give me a ticket. I drove straight to Wawa and bought myself a Shortie hoagie, extra meat.

When I was in college, and visiting my husband at his job, I pulled into his office building parking lot and drove directly into a bright yellow parking pole.

I drove it to and from my college, which was three and a half hours away, and it was sturdy and comfortable and totally mine.

But when I was able to get a new, bigger, nicer car upon graduation, I was ecstatic. As I said, I pulled out of the parking lot of the dealership, thinking, “I am never selling this car. This car will be mine forever.” Because in my mind, it couldn’t get any better.

And then, things happened. Life happened. And as much as I hate to admit this, my precious car started to have more bad associations than good. It was in that car that I had terribly upsetting conversations, and scary drives to the hospital and while it was in the shop, I realized that perhaps this new chapter in my life would have to include saying goodbye to a real, tangible symbol of the past one.

My husband, who is obsessed with cars,

(he has had five different vehicles since we have been together),

found his dream car, and we would be able to buy it by selling mine.

So I made the decision; I would take his car, a cool, three row SUV that we purchased literally for Twin and Go Go when they visited last February, as we realized that when we added a human to our family, we would no longer be able to all fit in one, regular car.

I am not kidding when I say that it was nearly a year ago when I took both kids with me, picked up Twin and Go from the airport and drove straight to the car dealership, where we met my husband and drove away with this new seven-seater.

This was definitely a step up from the time that they visited our daughter when she was three months old, and she peed on me in the backseat of my old SUV. See? My car. My best friends. My memories.

So I texted my husband one day last month while he was at work.

“You can get the car.” I said.

I would sell my beloved car so that he could buy his dream car.

And that is because

my car was far less beloved to me than it ever used to be

and

he was far more.

I was resigned to my decision, and at peace with it, but it was emotional, nonetheless.

Getting ready for my last drive, I decided to snap a few shots for posterity.

Like my faded old sticker that was my parking permit for Grad School.

And the tapes that I used to keep in my console (because my car still had a tape deck).

And, finally, the dusty old outline from the peace sign magnet. That magnet was coming with me. Somehow that imprint survived all of the detailing a the body shop; if you look closely, you can still see it.

And off we drove to the car dealership, at dusk, both of my kids in the backseat of my car for my last ride.

And as we drove, I cried. I cried happy, for the chance at this fresh start;

But, to be honest, I also cried sad. Just a little bit. I was saying goodbye to an old friend.

But, just as it always does, life goes on. And my son was babbling in the carseat behind me and my daughter asked me if we could listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers “Dani California”.

And so we did. Three times.

And we belted out those soaring choruses, banging our heads, and dancing in our seats, and I realized,

it is time for new memories to be made.

Before we drove off of the lot, the kids and I in my seven seater,

my husband in his new, sporty little racecar,

I went back to my old car one more time and touched it. I said a silent “Thank You” for I don’t really know what, but I wanted to bid it a proper goodbye.

It had meant a lot to me.

When I got home that night, I got a text from my best friend:

“Look at what is on the radio!!!” it read.

Oh baby baby it’s a wild world,
And I’ll always remember you like a child, girl.

We may no longer have the small, vanilla scented Camry or even the same life,

but what we have now is so much better.

Here’s to old friends, new cars, fresh starts

and belting out songs at the top of our lungs as we drive down the road.

This road and that.

The post “And I’ll always remember you like a child, girl.” appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

T.S. Eliot

Welcome to www.MommyEverAfter.com.

It is so nice to have you.

Here, let me make you comfortable.

For the past four and a half years I have spent every day hanging out at a simple, static, steadfast site over on WordPress.

Mommy, Ever After started when I was the new mother of a two month old baby girl. I had always loved to read and write, but found myself, at that time, with no resources that were actually helpful when it came to being a new parent. Everything was either a tale of absolute enchantment OR a hyperbolic message board of terror.

So I took a leap of faith and somehow figured out how to make my very first post.

It didn’t even have a title. I used multi-colored text. Take a look:

and by the end of day one I seem to have gotten a bit more bold:

I did not know what I was doing or where I was going (or, to be completely honest, how to even define a “blog”) but I knew it felt good. And people, being voyeuristic by nature, started to read and I, being brutally honest by nature, shared it all; the good, the bad, the inane, the insane, the heavy and the hard.

I will soon be publishing a post that is a guide to this new site, because thanks to the incredible folks at Brand Revive, I have a real, big girl website now, with pages, categories, sections and more. I don’t want you to miss a thing.

But for now, I will either assume that you are an old friend, having traveled with me over here from .wordpress.com (thank you, by the way–so much) or you are new and can lose yourself in the hundreds of archived posts I have up there, neatly categorized, under “A Happy Story”.

And, I will say that the old Mommy, Ever After isn’t here anymore. That chapter has ended.

Welcome to a new beginning.

And what better way to start than with a prologue…

Emergency rooms 3 and 4 were connected, separated by a thin curtain that could easily be opened to make it a makeshift suite of sorts. In room 4, in a stretcher that appeared humongous, lay my son, 3 days shy of 2 months, hooked up to an IV, oxygen monitor and receiving O2 through a tube in his nose. In room 3, I lay, dizzy and disoriented, hooked up to an IV and receiving my third bag of fluids. A nurse handed me a yellow pill. Potassium. She told me that I was deficient and to swallow. We were in a suite in the Emergency Room of a hospital. He and I were together, but still so far apart, as we were each confined to our beds. He and I were ailing. He and I were both being poked and tested and medicated. He and I both needed help.

That snapshot is from exactly this week last year. It is also the prologue that I have written for my book proposal. Yes, I am writing a book (or at least I am trying), and at the rate I am going, the book is writing itself. I have a literary agent shopping my book to publishing houses, and I am hoping to find a good match. My story will be told in the way that it is presented above: “A Happy Story”, “A Hard Story”, and then, ultimately, “A Hopeful Story”.

When I say the book is writing itself, you can probably conjure examples that I have shared from the past year; the flood and subsequent CO poisoining; my hospitalization; the incredible closeness of my group of friends that has now become a family;

But what you do not know is that this past weekend, at the very time that we were supposed to be on a plane to St. John, we were back in the Emergency Room with my son.

Not only were we back in the same hospital, but we had the same nurse that he had had exactly the same day the year before. She wears a necklace with three charms symbolizing her three children and I remembered their names.

Being in the small triage room was surreal. How are we back here?

But, fortunately, we were not there for a feverish 8 week old with a terrible respiratory virus.

My son had an allergic reaction to Penicillin, swelled up, we called the paramedics (our besties!) and we took him to the closest hospital with the Peds department, which happens to be where we spent this week last year, as he was inpatient, on oxygen, as I was fighting for my life in my own way.

This is where the story gets kind of crazy. Before our planned trip to the Virgin Islands, I asked my Pediatrician if it would be safe to give my son a small dose of Benadryl in order to calm him during the flight (please don’t judge. This is the baby who slit his wrist on my coffee table 3 months ago). He approved, but suggested that we test out the drug on him before flying, as in rare cases it can have the opposite effect and actually make kids more wired and not at all sedated.

So, Sunday morning, I was being treated for my severe ear infection, my daughter for her own infection, and my son, prophylactically, as he was fussy, warm and pulling on his ears. Before his nap that morning I suggested giving him some acetaminophen. My husband chimed in and suggested Benadryl instead. At that point, we did not know whether our trip to St. John would be postponed or completely cancelled, so we thought a solid nap would do both of us good and it was the right time to experiment, so we dosed him up with the proper amount of the antihistamine.

But he didn’t sleep well. He was restless. And red. And, actually, my husband and I were laughing at him when we finally brought him downstairs, because he was acting–

forgive me for not being able to find a better way to say this–

high.

He stood, staring at the vacuum cleaner for 20 minutes. He doesn’t stand still for 20 seconds, ordinarily.

And we were cracking up. Evidently, he was in that small percentage of kids who have a paradoxical reaction to the drug.

But after his 20 minute date with the vacuum and some other strange behavior, I noticed that his eyes were swelling up. The redness on his cheeks had intensified and on his forehead there were big hives. His eyes swelled to near slits as I spoke to the 911 operator.

The problem was, he had not just been given one new medication in that 24 hours, he had been given two.

The police arrived immediately, before I could even change out of my pajamas, and the paramedics soon thereafter.

On the way to the Emergency Room, I just laughed. “This must be a joke, right? This year is just a joke.”

As it turns out, by the time we were seen by the Pediatrician in the ER, his swelling had gone down some. This lead them to believe that he had experienced an allergic reaction to his second dose of amoxicillin, and that the Benadryl, the coincidental, serendipitous drug, actually helped to start calm down the effects. Had we been on the plane to St. John, his allergic reaction would have happened at 30,000 feet.

The doctors and nurses were so nice. It was so much better than last year, when he had to be put on breathing tubes, given a spinal tap, a catheter and IVs, and when I was losing my mind.

But it was then that I did something that I rarely do these days; I started to cry.

I cried to the nice doctor in the dark blue scrubs and white coat.

“He has had so much happen to him in such a short life; he is only 13 months old and look what he has been through.”

But it was then that I remembered my recent epiphany;

My son has not only survived some crazy medical and safety situations, a crazy mother and an all around crazy first year, but he is huge and thriving. The doctor looked at me and told me to look at my son.

“He is a moose!” she said.

And she is right. He is so strong and resilient and now that he has had six emergency room visits, he is tougher than ever.

But,

But…

He may be a moose, he may be strong, but he is still my baby.

This is a hard time of year for me. It is the one year anniversary of when I was supposed to go to Brown’s postpartum unit,

when he got hospitalized,

when I was forced to wean him against my will,

when I had akesthesia as a reaction to Abilify,

and when things really started to crumble.

While my real support system became stronger than ever, some real, trusted people let me down, and it was a blow that was hard to handle when I was already in such a weak state.

This week last year, I truly did not know if I could go on. It is scary for me to admit that, but I would be doing you a disservice by being anything less than brutally honest. I was low, like many other people I know who have been or who currently are suffering.

And so, I have decided to do something about it.

I have already proclaimed that this will be the year of really living; of celebrating things big and small, by organizing parties and dates and by making an effort to tell the people around me how much they mean to me.

But there is something else.

This year I want to be a better person.

I want to let go of all that has weighed me down, not just for the past year, but for my entire life.

I want to be good to people. I want to go out of my way. I want to give back. I want to help. I want to be vocal and make a difference.

And that is why I decided to take yet another leap of faith, bigger than my intimidating first blog post back in June of 2010.

I have decided to put my all into Mommy, Ever After, in an effort to help others. When I have opened up about topics like postpartum, anxiety, depression, fear, doubt, self-worth and other hard things to touch upon, I have received an incredible outpouring of support and gratitude. Most of it you do not know about. Most of it has been private. Most of it has been me making emergency phone calls to friends in crisis, or driving to the hospital to hold a hand, or giving someone my phone number to use 24/7. And I do not say this in any way to applaud myself. I am humbled by the fact that there are people who trust me enough in order to confide in me their deepest of secrets and fears.

And so, in moving forward, I will have those “pity party” moments, but hopefully much less than the dance party moments.

I will continue to be an advocate, a voice, a friend.

I will strive to be the woman whom I have always dreamed of being; lighter, happier, and more content.

I will celebrate the big, of course, but also cherish the mundane.

Last night, before bed, my husband and I had just finished the last installment of the NPR Serial Podcast. We talked a little about our thoughts and then I asked him to tell me a bedtime story. I wanted him to tell me about the last few episodes of Homeland, a show that I haven’t watched in several seasons, but that I was curious about, based on all of the hype. He is the best at telling stories.

And he looked over at me and I was smiling, my full face in an enormous grin.

“What?” he asked with a tiny giggle.

“I get to go to sleep next to you,” I said. “I get to have a sleepover with my best friend every night.”

And with that, he kissed me and told me stories of Iranian leaders and CIA infiltrations until I was sound asleep.

That was how I ended my day. And then, as it does, the sun rose this morning, and there was a new beginning.

And today I did some things right, and other things still need work, but guess what?

It is the beginning. I put an end to something dear to me…

and from there, my friends, is where I shall start.

(Featured Image via Lindsay Dochtery Photography)

The post “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning… appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

She didn’t know that The Beach Boys concert with my family was my favorite concert ever. EVER.

She didn’t know that “God only knows what I’d be without you.” is the phrase that I use to describe how I feel about my husband.

She just knew that it was beautiful and that it featured a feather prominently.

And this brings me to tears; the friendship, the music, all of it.

I hope you enjoy.

The post For the love of music. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

The post The time out chair. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.