Truth.

Time for a little confession. The ups and downs of Olivia Rae Downs. 

The first few (3) weeks of her life were wonderful. She never ever made a peep. And slept 5 hours at night! Angel baby?!  I was thinking so. Then one day, she flipped a switch. Non stop crying and puking. All day, every day. She started waking up more at night, and cried all day. I cried all day. I produced WAY too much milk, and was always engorged. I had mastitis. Then I had it again. Then I had to get it drained. Twice. With a big day needle. All the while, miss O kept crying. Crying and crying and crying. I started hating life. I started wishing I hadn't had her. I had some of the saddest, scariest thoughts ever. I was miserable. 

I decided to stop nursing after I couldn't get a clogged duct unclogged one weekend (after having mastitis 3 times already!) Olivia was 6 weeks old. The pain had finally made me give in. I felt like I had failed. Add that onto my already depressing thoughts? Anytime anyone mentioned to me "oh it gets better just push through, it's best for the baby..." I honestly wanted to kill them. Don't tell me what's best for my baby! Formula. Wow. How do you choose what kind to give your kid?! There's like 50 different types! Did you know that?! We probably tried 10-12. We went from gentle, to regular, to the non dairy expensive crap, to generic. We didn't see much of a difference between them, so we chose the cheapest, and kept trecking along.

Christmas came and went. I had a two month old baby, who cried. A lot. She was cute, but at that point, that's all I felt towards her. Cute baby.

At this same time, I had my 6 week post partum visit. I went in, and took the depression test. And failed. Bad. My overly peppy doctor walked in smiling, and told me I'm not depressed. That what I'm feeling is normal, and it's just because I'm adjusting to two under two.

Then, I noticed I had the symptoms of mastitis again. Even though I hadn't been nursing in a month! I thought I was crazy. Off to the doctor, after Olivia had her own doctors apt, cause not only did she cry a lot and puke a lot, but she had rsv. It was terrifying.  At my doctors apt, after yelling at her (she had told me I wasn't getting mastitis again because of all the antibiotics I was on) and then breaking down into tears in front of her, I got to experience the draining of 2.5 cups out of my boob. And then wear a tube that drained it for me for 2 weeks. 2 weeks! No shower, and having to empty out puss every single day. It was sick. At my follow up apt, she told me I needed to talk to my doctor about anti depression meds. 

One of the worst days I had, was the day I thought I was getting the drain out and I found out it had to stay in a few more days. I admitted to a few people that I didn't know if I loved Olivia and wished I hadn't had her. All she had done was cause my pain. (This breaks my heart now remembering this day...) and I prayed. I knelt down, and cried. Literally, within minutes, a friend from my ward had emailed me asking me if she could take Olivia for a couple hours. It was an answer from God. I am so grateful that The Lord sent her that day.

Later that month, I called my obgyn to set up a Mirena insertion apt. They couldn't get me in until NEXT MONTH. I had had it. I started bawling to the poor receptionist. "I need a Mirena now. I can't have any more children! And by the way, y'all told me I'm not depressed and I am! I hate my life, children, and I just need to see the doctor." That got their attention.

A few weeks after taking the anti depressant, I started feeling more like myself. The four month sleep regression happened and I started waking up every hour every night, and yes, I was tired. But I didn't hate my baby. I actually started really liking her in between her crying. 

I only had to be on anti depressants for a couple months. My body and hormones were all out of wack, and I needed help getting them back to where they belonged. 

The colic and crying stopped somewhere around 7 months. The puking did not. Do you know how disgusting it was to clean up puke all day long of a baby who ate peas, sweet potatoes, cereal, etc? Gross. But, baby girl was so darn cute, and it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. 

The best thing happened. Before 9 months old, Olivia stopped puking! We happened to switch formula too, so I don't know if she grew out of it, or if it was a formula issue. But man. It's so nice to not have to pack 3 outfits and 4 burp cloths every time we leave the house!!!!!

While the first few months of Olivia's life were hard on all of us, I don't regret having her, even for a second. Those thoughts that were coming to my head were caused from a chemical imbalance. It makes me sad to think that so many women go through some of the same things and have the same thoughts as I did. I had never felt like a worse person than I did when I realized I "failed" and breastfeeding and had such horrible thoughts like hating my own kid. I didn't understand why Heavenly Father would give me such hard trials to overcome when I was so fragile. Looking back, I know that my relationship with Olivia couldn't have been as strong as it is now without going through what we did together. I now know that I didn't "fail" because I couldn't breast feed! I now know that I am 100 percent in love with that little curious, happy, crazy baby girl. She is so much like me in so many ways and it amazes me :) 

I just wanted to share some of my thoughts in case anyone out there is going through something similar. It is ok to be depressed. It is ok to struggle. But just know that I couldn't have gotten through it without my Heavenly Father next to me.