Can’t you just feel the warm waves crashing over your toes as they dig into the cool sand?
I can!
Welcome to Friday’s Soothers!
Every Friday I’ll be posting a relaxing pic much like this one – nothing quite like a little day dreaming to kick off the weekend!
2) What did you find (and continue to find) to be most challenging about Motherhood? The least?
The most challenging aspect of motherhood is keeping communication flowing. Making sure you are able to make your own wants known and yet listening at the same time to the needs of those around you. I feel that finding a balance between these is the key to successful communication.
The least challenging is falling in love with your children.
3) How did you develop the Postpartum Mantra (You are not alone, You are not to blame, You will be well with help)?
When I started getting educated about this in the early 80’s – listening to what was being said through the grassroots & research, it was clear that there were three simple messages. I’ve always tried to take the complex and simplify it. A lot of advocates have used this concept for other purposes as well. I have been involved with self help in the 60’s and 70’s and those experiences fed into this mantra. Blaming and being well is something also used by Alcoholics Anonymous.
4) What advice would you give to partners and families of women with Postpartum Depression? What can they do to best help the mother?
Hanging in there as with any illness -stay mindful that it is not the person’s fault, just like the person with cancer didn’t get it on their own. With any mental illness, when the behaviour changes and it is harsh and alienating, it is hardest because you don’t want to be there for them. Encourage them to get help and be there for them. Never give up on them or yourselves.
5) When you started PEP (Parents Educating Parents), what was the primary motivating factor?
We were a group of girlfriends providing support to each other and realized we were motivated to share the support we were experiencing in our small group with all the families in our surrounding community.
6) Has PSI’s success in supporting women and families with PPD experiences surprised you?
No, I knew eventually it was a matter of staying committed and patient and given my previous experience of working in communities, I knew it would just take time. I always felt that this was the right thing to do.
It didn’t surprise me – it delights me.
7) What activity refreshes you the most when you’ve had a rough day?
Most important to me is to not allow intrusions into family life. I will turn off the computer after five o’clock then go start dinner and focus on family. I also enjoy music and play the flute. Another thing that refreshes me is friendship, including my friendship with my husband.
8 ) As a woman who has experienced PPD, what has it been like to guide your children through their parenting experiences?
We were very mindful and the absolute most important thing is the supportive stuff. Our oldest married someone who had no idea what depression was and the most important thing was finding a simple book (english was not his first language) for him to read to educate himself about this. Once he read about depression, it was amazing to see the light go on and see him grasping an understanding of depression. We focused on getting educated, increasing awareness, and providing a lot of mothering through the child-birthing process. I am grateful that there is improved support for my children’s generation because there certainly wasn’t the same level of support when I experienced PPD.
9) Any advice for other women who want to pay their experience forward and help women with PPD?
10) If there was one piece of advice you could give to an expectant mother (new or experienced), what would it be and why would this be important for her to hear?
Listen to your body and enjoy it…every pregnancy is different. You have to focus on staying well and get help when you need it – you can’t do this alone.
After a particularly stressful weekend of Cameron screaming his way through it and the girls well, being toddlers, I made it a point to slow down today. You wouldn’t know it though because I did three loads of dishes and laundry (no, I didn’t FOLD the laundry.. that’s for tomorrow), cooked a wonderful rosemary dijon pork roast with carrot souffle, green beans, and stuffing. YUM. And for dessert, we made gum drops. (Jello cut into shapes and dusted with powdered sugar) See.. fun stuff!
After dinner, I decided to fix myself a cup of tea once I had finished cleaning up. Took the tea to the front porch and sat on our bench swing to watch Nature settle in for the evening. I am still breathless and amazed at everything I quietly witnessed.
Bees buzzed, birds chirped and called to one another, squirrels played tag in the gigantic pines, children down the road squealed in delight and called to one another, walkers strode by and bicyclists zoomed past. I watched the goats at the farm across the street scurry toward dinner and felt wind that was stirred up by two birds flying through our front porch. But the most captivating of all was a tiny brown creature with long ears and a twitching nose. A wild bunny rabbit sat in our front yard eating dinner. I sipped my tea slowly and watched as the bunny sniffed and chewed, occasionally stopping to scratch it’s ear. As he slipped away across the yard, he stopped to clean his face. Well-mannered little thing, I thought. The sun continued to slide down behind the trees, leaving an orange glow wrapped around the stand of pine trees in our yard. This glow illuminated all the flying insects and made them seem magical, almost surreal. And that my friends, is why I will take my front yard over Calgon any day!
I have had the good fortune recently to get to know Sue McRoberts, author of The Lifter of My Head: How God Sustained me during Postpartum Depression, and 1/3 of the blogging team at Totally New Moms. The following are 10 questions I emailed to her and the responses I received. Enjoy!
(As a side note, interviews with Arlene and Rebecca from Totally New Moms will be arriving shortly as well!)
1) When did you become a Christian and what has helped to solidify or sustain your faith over the years?
I became at Christian at the age of 8 but I didn’t really understand it until I was 14. In college I started really living out my faith. What has solidified my faith is God’s faithfulness. He’s always done what he says in scripture he will do. Seeing God’s consistency and compassion has sustained me.
2) What made you decide to write your book, The Lifter of my Head: How God Sustained Me through Postpartum Depression?
I went to a local Christian bookstore, looking for a book on postpartum depression from a Christian’s perspective. There was no such book on the shelf. After doing some research no one at the store could find such a book on the Internet either. The clerk suggested to me that I should go home and pray about whether or not perhaps God wanted me to write that book. At first I thought that was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. God gave me no peace until I started writing!
3) What kind of process did you go through to write your book? What part was the most difficult to write?
Writing from beginning to end what happened to me during my PPD experience was excruciating. I wrote 95% of my book while I was sick. I wrote the book as these things were actually happening. Only editing was done while I was well. I cut about 35,ooo words from my final manuscript. I had a lot I wanted to share! The process itself was simple. I had a brainstorming notebook I constantly wrote in. I wrote constantly when ideas would come. Sometimes at 3 a.m I would do my best writing and thinking. For me the toughest part was describing the darkest parts of my illness. I wrote the whole thing in faith that God wanted me to do it. But I never believed for one second that anyone would relate to my experiences with psychosis. I was wrong! Other than that, reading the book in it’s entirety for the audio CD’s was a nightmare. It’s one thing to write it and edit it over 6-8 months. To read it in 5 hours was tough emotionally. Hearing those words come out of my own mouth about broke me.
4) Prior to Motherhood, what was the main focus of your life?
I was a teacher and a coach. My students were my life. I miss teaching and coaching so much that it’s difficult to express that emptiness in my life. I’ve filled that with a great husband, three kids, and much ministry but boy do I miss it.
5) What is the hardest part of Motherhood? The easiest?
The hardest part of motherhood for me is having strong willed kids only to discover that maybe I’m strong willed too. That can be volatile so I’ve learned to be a little more passive and easy going. What else is hard for me is that I can’t make them choose the right things in life. I can only guide them and that is scary. I’ve learned to guide them and pray for them but let God take the reigns. It freaks me out to much to try to control these little people. They aren’t puppets. I was shocked when I discovered that!
The easiest part for me is playing with my kids. I love pitching baseball to them, kicking a soccer ball, riding bikes. My five year old can’t stand when I want to work on reading or math with him. He sees me as his soccer pal. So playing is a very important thing in our house.
6) How has becoming a Mother changed you? Has it strengthened your faith in God?
I have three strong willed kids, all of which have worn me out at times. I’ve learned to focus on what really matters and know what those things are that I will battle on and which ones aren’t so important. Strong willed kids will get in your face no matter what though. They love a fight and a challenge. So I have had to rely on God for strength, creativity in parenting, rest, and most of all some grace for my kids. It has strengthened my faith in God tremendously. When my first child got her first spanking at 18 months she looked at me and said, “Is that all you’ve got?” I knew I was in trouble! But God has stayed with me!
7) In your opinion, what aspect of Motherhood should be most celebrated?
The fact that we are molding and shaping godly men and women one diaper at a time, one feeding at a time, one school grade at a time, one conversation at a time. Every day we are impacting our children’s lives. Mothering matters! It’s only what you do for Christ that counts. Leading your kids to Christ, teaching them to walk with and depend on him…these things count.
8) When you get time to yourself, how do you pamper yourself?
I eat breakfast out with my friends, go to dinner and a movie with my husband, or go for a nice long run.
9) How did the idea for your joint blog, Totally New Moms with Arlene Pellicane and Rebecca Ingram Powell come to fruition?
I knew when Rebecca agreed to write an endorsement for my book that we would one day work together. I prayed about it for ages. I don’t even know if Rebecca knows that. We both have a heart for girls and women. That drew me to her. Arlene was Rebecca’s special find! I’m pretty sure the idea started with me and Rebecca talking about it. Then Rebecca found Arlene and it took off from there. I think the three of us have such different styles and personalities, we complement each other well.
10) If there was one piece of advice you could give to an expectant mother (new or experienced), what would it be and why would this be important for her to hear?
Look for resources around you, they are everywhere. Printed material, experienced mothers in different seasons of life, your Bible, your doctor, your neighbors. Listen and learn. Be open to other’s opinions and take help when it’s offered. And above all, don’t be so hard on yourself. We aren’t perfect and that really shows up in our mothering. But don’t beat yourself up for a decade because you did or said something wrong to your child. (I’ve done that…) Kids are resilient. We aren’t most of the time. Ask God’s forgiveness and move on. There’s bigger things to come! And just think, some day you’ll be entering middle age and you’ll not know where the time went. Cherish the good, the bad, and the ugly of mothering because it all matters!
I am sitting here hooked up to my pump – gotta leave sustenance for the little one while I’m gone on Friday. Can’t have him starving and screaming. That wouldn’t make anyone happy, now would it?
In an effort to get back into the blogging mood, I’m going to start posting whenever I can grab a second. So forgive me if this is overload at first but I’ve been out of practice for a bit – you know, with the birth of the baby and all.
I have to say that this time around things have been so much different. Being able to laugh and smile and play with Cameron without having to force myself to is refreshing. And I LOVE to pick him up and hold him right on my chest so that his heart is right over mine. I feel as if we are communicating and our hearts are one – it blows me away every time how powerful holding him that way can be for me. I NEVER felt that with either one of the girls. And yes, it does make me sad to think I didn’t really bond with the girls the way I am bonding with him BUT the girls are both happy and get plenty of love now and don’t seem to be scarred at all by that experience. Recently I’ve really been mourning the loss of bonding with Charlotte when she was an infant but lately she’s been very cuddly and huggy so it’s making up for it slowly.
Gotta run. I think I may try to crawl back into bed for a short bit. Pray that I made it!