I read somewhere recently that “dirty laundry should not be aired on the internet.” This was from a fellow blogger. I have to say that for me, writing is therapeutic. It is a way to connect with people outside of how I normally would, since I am introverted by nature. So around here, I write about whatever my heart leads me to write about and pray that someone else can relate to it.
Today, that just happens to be when I realized that I stopped enjoying motherhood.
I wish I could say that this is a recent discovery, but it isn’t.
To give you a little back story, for those of you that don’t know, I am a mom of four little ones. I have had all four of those little ones within the last four and a half years.
Yes, really.
After my first daughter was born, I was full of the “first baby joys” and loved everything about motherhood. After our second daughter was born, I was on top of the world because I had an amazing birth experience and now had two beautiful daughters.
It was the second that we found out that I was pregnant with twins where it all changed.
Now please, before you judge, I am not saying that I don’t love my children. I love with all of my heart. I felt so thankful to have been blessed with healthy pregnancies and wonderful babies.
But two at the same time??? When I already had two under two… I was freaking out.
From that moment on, my joyful outlook on motherhood was changed.
I don’t really know why it changed or what triggered in me. All I know is that I went from being a mom of two under two, to a mom of two under two, with two more on the way.
Throughout the pregnancy with the twins, while it was a healthy and normal pregnancy for the most part, my emotional state was waning. Then, I would say I thought it had a lot to do with pure exhaustion and being drained from the inside out. I was still a student, as I am now, and running this blog, and taking care of my home and family.
It is only now that I can look back and say that it probably wasn’t only exhaustion that got to me. It was the point where I had started losing the joy that motherhood had given me for those first years.
At the end of my pregnancy, as a lot of you know, I had a very traumatic birth experience that really just took over my mind. My anxiety overwhelmed me after they were born and I lost ALL of my joy at that point. Words like “postpartum depression,” “PTSD,” and “postpartum anxiety” quickly became the most used in my vocabulary.
It has only been recently that I have come to terms with my birth experience with the twins and have begun to heal from that.
However, it took my husband telling me HE doesn’t see the joy in me anymore, for me to come to the harsh realization that the enjoyment I once had in motherhood is still missing. I didn’t realize that there would be lingering effects that I would still need to deal with. I didn’t know that even after a year, I wouldn’t feel like myself still. While it is increasingly better by leaps and bounds, compared to how it was, it still isn’t the same.
I’ve always known that motherhood is hard, and have never shied away from that. I normally embrace hard times with open arms as I am naturally a hard person anyway, according to some people in my life.
Queen of the RBF over here.
I never knew that it would be this trying. I didn’t know how much postpartum and your birth experience and the day-to-day could truly effect you as a woman and a mother.
I long to be able to find joy in every moment of motherhood. I wish I could see what everyone else does when they say “you’re doing a great job with those kids”… I just don’t.
There is no shame to admit that I am struggling as a mother. I have no shame in saying that I do not have it all together or that it really does take a village, and I need to find mine.
I see a woman who is barely getting by with her sanity. Who wants so badly to find happiness in even the mundane routine of everyday, I just haven’t figured out how to do that yet.
It hurts my heart to say that. It hurts to admit that a lot of the time, I am not filled with joy around my children. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not unhappy. I don’t want anything else out of my life. I am thankful for everything I have been given because I am truly lucky to have these amazing children and my husband. I am just in the season where I am desperately seeking joy.
I pray that this season of life for myself and for my family has a beautiful lesson at the end.
This article originally appeared on Motherhood and Merlot