Motherhood is hard

I started my transition back to work on January 1st. My daughter turned 14 weeks old the day I went back. And that first day was a STRUGGLE.

You see, my daughter still isn’t taking bottles. We’ve tried everything we can think of. I’ve tried 11 different brands of bottles. We’ve tried all different temperatures. We’ve tried having me give her the bottle or sneak it in while she’s nursing. We’ve tried having someone else give the bottle, and I’ve been out of the house. My husband tried wrapping the bottle in one of my shirts. He’s tried spoon feeding and syringe feeding her. Nothing has worked consistently enough that I feel confident that she’s getting the food she needs when I’m not home. And she inhales milk when I get home and she can finally nurse.

Because of this bottle aversion, she spends a lot of my work shifts screaming. And for my husband who is already exhausted from his overnight work shifts, the screams can be debilitating. Luckily we’ve had some people come to the rescue and help when we really need it, but it’s so hard for me to be at work and know what’s going on at home. My mental state is not well when I’m at work. And my husband’s isn’t either leading up to my work shifts. It’s just a bad time for everyone right now.

It’s made even worse when I hear about the maternity leave and the help available to new mothers in other countries. People overseas are flabbergasted when they hear I only had 14 weeks off after having my baby, and they’re even more stunned to learn I’m part of a lucky group of people to even have that much time.

You see, at 14 weeks old, my daughter is hardly even registering that she’s a separate person from me. She still depends 100% on me to survive. And I’m expected to leave her for hours. The maternity leave system in the United States makes absolutely no sense. On top of the insanely short leave time we get, childcare is ridiculously expensive. Not to mention simply living. My husband and I can’t survive off of one income, but even with both of our incomes, we can’t afford childcare. So we’re stuck working opposite shifts, and my husband got the short end of the stick when it comes to sleep.

So I get it when he struggles. But knowing he’s struggling makes me struggle. And my mental health is not okay right now. My postpartum depression is hitting me, and everything is stressing me out and making me upset. I need to make a change, but I don’t know what to change or how to change it.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew going back to work would be hard. I just had no idea it would be this hard. I would give anything to be able to stay home with my daughter. It honestly would solve almost everything that really stresses me out right now (it wouldn’t solve how much I dislike our living situation, but that’s a different issue for a different day). I think - actually, I know - the overall vibe of my family would go back to happy and getting close to thriving instead of simply being in the survival stage, which I felt like we were finally getting out of right before I started working again. But we’re back in survival mode, and I don’t get to enjoy time as a family anymore. Half of our time together is stressing about coming up with a new plan to make my work week easier on my husband, and the other half is spent trying to catch up on everything that just didn’t get done during my work week - dishes, grocery shopping, cleaning up the clutter that just gets thrown around in the chaos of trying to survive for 4 days.

I know it’s only been 2 weeks. My husband and daughter are still trying to find their groove. But I worry that until we find a solution to her hunger strikes when I’m not around, they won’t be able to find a groove. And that’s so hard, as a mother and a wife, to know how badly they struggle when I’m not around.

I know things will get better. They have to. Maybe my daughter will give in to the bottle, or maybe we’ll just survive until she’s old enough to eat other things in between nursing and we can start to thrive again. But right now, I’m not okay. And I don’t know how to be okay again. I know I’ll figure it out, and this stage won’t last forever. But I’m admitting I’m not okay, and it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to admit that I’m struggling, A LOT, and it’s okay to hate the stage we’re in. Because I do, I hate it. I feel helpless when I’m at work, and then anytime I’m home I feel like I have to take on the entire burden of childcare, regardless of my husband offering to help.

I don’t really know what the point of this article is, I think I just needed to put in writing that I’m struggling. I needed to admit “out loud” that my postpartum depression is trying to win right now. I’m not letting it, and I won’t let it, but it’s trying. It’s trying to take away the joy in raising my daughter, but I won’t let it. Her smile will always be my sunshine through the clouds.