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I Had Postpartum Depression Twice…And I Still Want a Third Child

I’m struggling.  Big time.  I feel like I’m losing a big part of myself over this struggle.  I swear, since becoming a mom I have been through hell and back. I lost my damn mind.  Why on God’s green Earth would I even ponder a third child? But…the struggle is real.

I feel like a part of my is dying now that my babies are no longer babies anymore.

I know. What am I thinking? I’m thinking I turn 40 in June. My oldest is nearly nine and my little man really is close to BEING a little man. He turned four in February. And the tiny inkling of baby left in my four-year-old is washing away.  And I can’t even stand this!!!  Every day I find myself looking into his eyes and focused on the “this is the end” moment with him. You’d think I was having a funeral over the loss of the babies in my house.  My husband hears me say, “did you see that?” He hears me tell my little man Hudson to slow down and not grow up so fast. I snap a picture of my boy sleeping practically every night.

I hear what you’re thinking.  Why don’t you go for number three?

Well…I would in a hot second.  (That’s really what it would take to make a third I’m sure.) But my husband?  I get the hell no every time I mention it.  Not that he doesn’t love me—he just doesn’t love me in “new mommy” mode.

In his defense?  I am a bit difficult after childbirth.  At least until I get medicated—#truth. The first one was off the wall crazy Joey.  The second one I was able to contain the crazy within the first few months.  So I’m convinced the third would be a perfect union, don’t you think?  Yeah. Not so much for the Mr. in our house.  He has shut my head down every time I’ve mentioned it.

My husband has said on a few occasions he can see why women have such a hard time when their kids grow out of the baby stage. Sweet I think…then if I mention another child?  He pretty much tells me I’ve lost my mind. Yeah…he’s not buying it at this point.

I try so hard to capture the truth in my little man’s perfect, innocent life every chance I get. But it just keeps going faster and faster down that motherly road I travel. I mean, I’m finally getting my brain and intelligence back after nine years of torture and I want to go back to the beginning again?

Yes.  Yes, I do.

Maybe it’s cause I feel like my oldest got swindled out of his early childhood because I was gripped with postpartum depression for three years.  Poor kid.  What gives me light is when I look at old photos and videos of him.  I remember everything.  I smiled. I laughed.  But I never stopped to listen to the elders who told me that it would go by so fast.  I didn’t stop to listen to the women before me who lectured me in me desire to run away from the mom thing with a baby in tow.  I sure wish I would have though.  I wish I would have stayed in the moment instead of hoped to check out so many times.

I know everything happens for a reason. I know that there is a reason my life hit that turn in my past. There is a reason why my husband tells me his shop is closed.  But it doesn’t make it any easier. I love being a mother. And despite all odds, I’m pretty damn good at it.

Who do you get out of the real mom bye bye baby rut? Or did you not even have it and kiss the baby stages goodbye?

Not trying to brag…but I do make designer babies.

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