The words.

I’m unexpectedly revisiting an old journal of thoughts that I opened as I couldn’t remember it’s purpose.

These are the words of postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression.

Attempting to get philosophical about how much I’ve grown or healed since these days is a bit too wax-poetic for the raw pain of what this experience was and sometimes continues to be for me.

But, I can now say, and truly believe, that my kid loves me. 💚⁣ ⁣

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Different by a lot.

Raising a child with a significant gross motor delay is different than a raising a child who develops typically. At times, it’s different by a lot.

For instance, what did we do this weekend? We finally reached the point we needed to lower O’s crib from the newborn position as he’s gotten pretty good at coming to a stand (hurray!). His mobile finally had to come down, too. He turned 2 at the end of November.

I want to reach out and bring O to play dates and such, but he just can’t do a lot of stuff other kids his age can. And a trip to the park for him? It looks *dramatically* different than a trip for a typical developing child of his age.

At times, it’s isolating. I want moms to bond with over our kids shared triumphs. But for so much of the big stuff that’s happening to him right now? The mom’s with kids his age went though it a year and a half ago. It’s old news.

Every day in every way I’m celebrating him. He amazes me. But, I’m also worrying, wanting and aching for him. I don’t know if he knows if he is different or not (how can he not when all the children around him at childcare walk?). In a few years I don’t know if that difference will still be there or not.

But right now, I just want him to be happy. To find his people. To fit in. And it feels like the cards are stacked a bit too much against him at such an early age. I hate that I can’t change that. I realize some of this is my worried mom perception, yes. But it’s the part of it that’s not that keeps me awake at night.

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He is who he is, and I am who I am.

Since the day he was born, I have parented O based on two principles: respect and trust. They are small words, but they are profound words. Words that in times of uncertainty and unease, have helped lead the way… and in times of strength and joy, words that have been enthusiastically celebrated.

Respecting and trusting a two month old, a six month old, a fourteen month old, a whatever month old — it looks a lot like this. It is fundamentally different than the ways many babies and toddlers are raised, yes, but it is beautiful. I haven’t been perfect about it (when it came to getting O to sleep, I /had/ to let some of it go), but it’s meant so much to me to try and be with it’s premises as much as I could.

This means that I didn’t do tummy time with O until he was able to discover it on his own. I honoured his timeline, and I had the mantra of “in-time”, NOT “on-time”, on repeat in my head. This wasn’t the Olympics, and he’d eventually find where he needed to be. Heck, come the start of kindergarten, he’d be running around and causing a ruckus just like every other kid there. There felt no need to rush it.

It slowly became apparent that O would be taking the long way around as a means to development of his gross motor skills, however. At six months he rolled into his tummy. At seven months he rolled onto his back. He is still a bit funny about doing both, however. At 12 months he mastered sitting on his own (yes, you read that right). And just today, at 14 months, I witnessed him get from his tummy to a sitting position for the first time ever. I was so, so, SO happy to be there to witness it, surgery bruises and all.

Now, and because you’re probably wondering, he has yet to crawl (though he does some fierce, exploratory circles on his tummy), yet to stand and yet to walk. And you know what? It’s taken me a long time to say this, despite how deep my intentions were in respect and trust, but it’s gonna be okay. It really, truly is.

As anxiety is wont to do, there have been times aplenty that I have struggled. Did I cause his delay? Should I have pushed him anyways? Is it my fault he currently has the gross motor capabilities of a 6-9 month old? Should I have listened to the naysayers who told me differently? Have I been stubborn and foolhardy for my gain alone? Insert doubt after doubt after doubt.

Do you know how hard is to to watch a kid half your child’s age do things that they cannot? Or the heart wrench at yearning for their freedom and independence of movement as they howl in frustration for the umpteenth about not being able to reach something just outside their grasp? The wanting of so much more for them, and for them to be like all the other toddlers in that last play date you attended, but knowing you are powerless. Insert worry after worry after worry.

But you know what?

I listened to him. I honoured his choices. I let him guide the way. I did what was in my heart. I was lead by a gentle, slow and patient love that believed tremendously in respecting and trusting him. And as he now gets extra, special help from various specialists so that he can learn more, I continue to do all of those things everyday and always. This is no ones fault. It is simply how the cards laid.

He is who he is, and I am who I am. And at the end of the day, week, month and year, we’re gonna be okay.

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The bough.

I’ve been quiet on here for a bit, hey? I haven’t forgotten about Soundly Sarah, however. Rather, I’ve chosen to be purposefully quiet. While I have had many, MANY things I have wanted to write, a large part of me couldn’t consciously put any of it to paper until I addressed something that took place not long after I last posted here. Addressing that something has been an extremely private, long, arduous, six month journey for me, however, and I have returned here now as I am finally ready to write it out and begin again in this space that I have so missed.

On a Friday morning near the end of July, I had a breakdown. It was a full on, anxiety ridden, nerve stricken, tears and screams, I’m losing my mind, I can’t breathe, I can’t think, why am I shaking?! breakdown. It was very real, very scary, and with D’s help, immediate medical attention was sought for me to understand what the hell was going on.

But to make clear to you what I eventually learned about myself, I first need to give a bit of back story.

Many of you are already aware, but for those who are not, the first hundred days of O’s life were a nightmare. He would not, could not, be put down. At all. He slept nowhere but on us (no matter how many times or how hard we tried to change that). If he was awake, he had to be moving or breastfeeding 95% of the time or he was livid. It was all this and so so so so so much more. A part of me has chosen to purposefully forget some of it because I just have to. His colicky, angry and needy demands drained from me every ounce of energy, every ounce of sanity, and my every ounce of EVERYTHING, joy included. The posts I put on FB from during this period were mostly a façade of the few good moments he did have. All the other moments that didn’t make it on FB were the REAL ones, and by god did those real ones hurt.

But after those first hundred days, we found a bit of reprieve. We found a little bit of peace. I was able to find some happiness once again. I started to feel a bit more human. I bit more myself. A bit more like I could do this motherhood thing and that we would survive.

Near the end of July, however, O began a vicious cycle of teething. At the time I didn’t know it, however, as you tend to not know a lot of stuff during that first rodeo until you get slapped in the face with it, and boy – did it ever. The reprieve we had been experiencing? It was shattered to the ground, stomped on, set on fire and proceeded to have its ashes obliterated into one million pieces. Well, that is exactly what was happening in my head at least. Because, unlike freaking out like a normal person and hoping for the best, I began to have a series of PTSD like flashbacks that quickly worsened.

Imagine holding your child as they are screaming at you, unable to find comfort or calm. You are sitting in a rocking chair in their dark room, trying your best to help their exhausted, pained body. But rather be there and be present, your mind is waging war on you. Your mind is telling you that you are going back to those first one hundred days and you are never leaving it. Your mind is telling you this is it from now on. Your mind is telling you that there will never be better. Your mind is SCREAMING at you, as you struggle to breathe amidst a rapid tightening of chest, that this is going to be FOREVER. There is no escape, there is no way out, you’ve gone back and you will never return.

And then imagine telling no one for days and days that this is happening to you continually and soon constantly because you are ashamed, unsure, embarrassed and deathly afraid.

On that Friday morning, the bough finally broke. Like a river it all flowed out, unstoppably and rapidly, and the shell I had been frantically trying to encase it all in soon gave way.

With the help of BC Women’s reproductive mental health unit, psychiatrists, counselors and medicine, I soon came to learn of a thing I had never heard of before. Postpartum anxiety. I knew of postpartum depression, but anxiety? That was a new one. Additionally, I came to learn of the concept known as intrusive thoughts. They were the thoughts that were giving way to the PTSD like flashbacks and they were the thoughts I soon set out to try and understand, come to peace with and, if I was lucky, banish for good.

However, the weird thing about getting help for mental illness – which anxiety falls under – is that it breeds other things. Admitting it can be a chain reaction, and a revelation of so much can be equally clarifying AND unhinging. It brings you up the depth to which you’ve denied, it forces you to acknowledge that which you have refused to do, and it leaves you raw. It leaves you weak. It leaves you to realize just how deep, multifaceted and pervasive our minds can be, and how much they will refuse to let go and morph anew no matter the amount you shake.

Six months later, I still wouldn’t call myself healed, but I’m trying. There has definitely been some harder moments, and they’ve absolutely effected how I deal with the outside world (I apologize to those who might have read this who I KNOW have gotten the receiving end of some of that), but I’m trying. Intrusive thoughts are still a daily struggle of mine, though they have decreased in intensity and occurrence. But I am making my way back. Always.

Most importantly, and this has taken me a LONG time to say, I finally know now and can say with confidence that this doesn’t make me a bad mom. This doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve O. An inability to cope doesn’t make me abnormal. It makes me human. Admitting it here, on a public blog, can in fact be empowering. It can be healing in itself. And while this has been a damn hard journey to wellness, I am determined to get that shell of mine back. That is a belief that I refuse to let go of. And to those of you who are willing to join me for this journey, thank you. I appreciate you more than you know.

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How can we ever really know?

O was born with a couple of things that make him different than the typical baby boy. Some of these things will require surgery in a years time and one is something that cannot be seen by the human eye.

This unseen part about him is chromosomal. To be more specific, he has a large deletion in his 3rd chromosome. This deletion may be the reason for some of the other, differing, things about him — or it may not be. It’s hard to say. All that is known right now is the unknown, as his deletion is considered rare to the geneticists at BC Children’s and it hasn’t been seen enough to know what it could imply health wise, now or later, if anything at all.

In an attempt to understand how this came to be, be it from D and I or how our DNA combined, blood work was done on us. As of a few days ago, I now know that I too have this large deletion in my 3rd chromosome and that I passed it on to O in the womb.

I’m writing this here, in this space, because I need to better understand what this means to me. I need to voice it, to put it in text, to make sense of it. Selfishly, I need to be told it will be okay (even if the irrational side of me disagrees), again and again, on top of how many times I’ve already been told as much. I’m in the midst of scheduling a follow up with the geneticists to be told the same. Everyone is hinging on the fact that I seem to be okay, same with my other family members who may or may not have it, and so O should be okay too.

But how can we ever really know that? Am I okay? What about later on? Have I missed something my entire life? Was there something I should have questioned but never did? Is my son going to suffer because I didn’t? These are huge, unknowable, worrisome questions — I know. But how does one continue on as normal when they find out that something is missing in the base of their DNA? In the base of what makes them human? And that they’ve passed it on to their son, with repercussions entirely unknown?

Nothing I can do can change this, I get that, and I know that I need to be positive. I have to be. Not just for me, but for O and D. But how?

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