Friday, March 8, 2013

Posted by Unknown On 12:02 PM
As a new mom I had these negative feelings all the time. When I spoke with other moms I realized I wasn't alone.

1. I do the majority of the work.

I couldn't help but feel this way all the time. At night the baby would wake up crying several times a night. Sometimes it was every two hours. Nick Sr. would sleep right through it all or pretend to be asleep.  A couple of nights Nick got so frustrated he slept on the conch while I had to rock a screaming baby all night long.

I even got a picture of him trying to change the baby’s diaper. Look at this awkward position lol.



2. Nick Sr. gets to have all the fun.

If Nick wants to go out somewhere, he just goes.  I have to plan my schedule around the baby and make special accommodations. I thought this just happened to me because we didn't live together. But I have a couple of married friends who felt the same way about their husband.  If I’m even ten minutes late getting the baby or I’m taking too long to run an errand, Nick will blow my phone up.

3. If it weren't for the baby Nick and I would not be together.

This was the biggest thing for me. All those selfish behaviors Nick demonstrated towards me made me not want to be with Nick Sr. At first I thought all men were like this until Nick and I broke up- briefly. During this time I was socializing with another guy that I worked with. He was a very big assistance to me. I couldn't get my baby to stop crying and he told me take my baby to different doctors until I found out what was wrong with him. My baby had a ear infection that another doctor missed.

 I would go to work with huge bags under my eyes. He (Not saying any names) would often ask to baby sit for me so that I could get some sleep. I never did take him up on his offer. He was really experienced with babies because he had a baby brother. He gave me a lot of useful tips on setting up a routine for getting the baby to sleep. 

Well because of him I have much higher standards for Nick Sr.

I am very old school in my belief that if I have a baby by someone, I am going to try to work things out with that person. I stopped talking to the guy at my job and got back with Nick Sr. 

Today things are a lot better between us and he is doing his share of the work. I think him finding out about that guy at my job really shook him up. He really started to bring in his "A" game. 


Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Posted by Unknown On 12:39 AM

I know many of you read this thinking she took entirely too much from Nick Sr. But I was bright enough to know brighter days were ahead of us. I read that a lot of couple’s divorce within the first year of marriage or the first year after having a baby. The first year is always the hardest.

I was understanding enough to know Nick Sr wasn’t raised to respect women. He didn’t know a thing about kids because his mom took care of his first child. And out of respect for him and his family I won’t elaborate anymore.

I was understanding but not stupid. If his behavior didn’t change I wasn’t going to stay with him. I made that abundantly clear to him.

It’s now February and he has done a total 360. If I call him and tell him to get his winy child he will be there in a second. Nick even does the chores around my house and he doesn’t even live with me. I even get awesome foot massages! He sterilizes the bottles regularly. He lets me sleep while he takes care of the baby.

We were in a great loving relationship. We are committed to each other. As for his mom, I changed my number. She doesn’t have it.

My dad apologized to me for what he said. He has been so helpful. This man works 15 hours a day and then comes home and watch the baby for me. He is the best grandfather I could ask for. Its been times I sent him out the store at two in the morning to get something for the baby, and he turned around and got up a 7:00 to go to work.

My father has gone up and beyond to take care of us. He is a great man! He is the one who bought me my breast pump.

I use to wake up every morning so sad. Now I wake up to my son cooing in the morning and it puts a smile on my face.







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Monday, March 4, 2013

Posted by Unknown On 10:42 PM

Nick had no idea I was at the hospital. Nick couldn't handle watching the baby so he left the baby with his mom. She even started sending me mean text messages.

“If Nick keeps the baby Friday, you need to get him Saturday. You need to take responsibility of your child. I’m going to have a talk with you.”

She made me feel worse then I already felt. I cried to hard the nurse came in my room to check up on me. I showed her the text message and she gave me lots of sympathy and then told me to cut off my phone.
A doctor came in and told me everything would be alright. He told me that Postpartum Depression is nothing to be ashamed of. People will try to tell you to snap of it, or to stop moping around. People don’t understand it.

After our long talk I was told I would be going to Baptist Behavior Health. I was so afraid. I thought I was going to one of those white rooms with padded walls that you see on the movies. I arrived there, and to my surprise, everyone there was normal. It was very nice and clean, and I had room on the river with a very nice view.

People were playing cards or watching Housewives of Atlanta. Three people told me they were faking being stressed out because it was such a nice place. So whenever a nurse passed them, they would try to appear sad. The food wasn’t bad either. I got all the rest I needed. The nurses kept trying to offer me anti-depressants. I wouldn’t take them for personal reasons.

I spent 7 days there. The first three days, I slept for about 20 hours a day. I only woke up to eat. (The doctors record how often you sleep.) The last 4 days, I didn’t sleep during the day and spent my time talking to the other patients or working out. The people there were funny, caring, and great.

While I was resting Nick had to watch his own baby. Nick would call me while I was in the hospital. I heard the baby yelling in the background. Nick had to wake up every two hours to feed the baby, and he had to go to work. Nick was finally getting a taste of his own medicine. He came to the hospital apologizing for not helping me. He apologized for all those things he said to me. He even went as far as booking a dinner and a nice hotel room in a very upscale restaurant in St. Augustine.

From this point things did start to get better for me. I will write more about how God helped me in part three.

I also want to thank Bryanna Davis and Makita Hunt. They were the ONLY people that ever helped me. Makita was the only person who watched him while I went to work. And Bry helped me as much as she could. She would get him on the weekends for me and come to my house and spend the night to help me.



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Posted by Unknown On 10:39 PM



God truly dislikes when people slander others as if they’re perfect, so I am not writing this to tarnish anyone’s name.  I write this only to share my story of hope. If I can help at least one person, then I have accomplished my goal.

Healing comes through the sharing of testimony. If you saw me then, and you see me now, you know God has brought me through. He has kept and preserved me.

If someone reads this and wants to gossip about me, that’s fine. In this blog, I share very personal and intimate details of my life. I have always been an open book. If God delivers you from something and you keep it to yourself, you have just done His people a disservice. You are wrong to keep that light hidden.
The Bible says we are the salt of the earth.

***

It started even before the baby was born. I was so depressed about being pregnant. I hated when people ask to touch my belly or wanted to talk about pregnancy. I didn’t feel an overpowering sense of joy when the baby was born either.

Actually I was trying to go through labor alone. I woke my sister and asked her to drive me to the hospital. We were almost successful at leaving the house unnoticed, but the stupid automatic garage door awoke everyone in the house. My dad was so excited that he called my family members and told them I was in labor.

My cousin Lisa and my mother arrived. I was so grateful for them coming. I felt bad about not telling Nick Sr. (the baby’s dad). The baby was soon to come, so at the last minute I called him.

A few hours later and three pushes later the baby arrived. I had a really easy and great delivery. My baby was so beautiful and healthy. I loved his little hands and toes and he had a full head of hair.

Pictures taken by Keisha McCall few hours after delivery.

 


For three days I tried unsuccessfully to breast feed my baby but he wouldn’t latch on. We just couldn’t get the hang of breastfeeding. My baby was so hungry that he cried the entire hospital stay. I kept asking the nurses for formula, yet refused and demanded me to keep trying to breastfeed. They made me feel like if I gave my child formula, I would be considered a bad parent.

In three days my baby lost so much weight that I ended up having to buy him clothes for premature babies. They finally gave me formula.

I was just so confident that Nick Sr. would be an expert with the baby because this was his second child. He unfortunately had no clue about the nature of parenting. He couldn’t make bottles. He didn’t understand why I got upset when he went two days without properly cleaning the bottles. It seemed like the only thing he could do was change a diaper, and even then, he’d act like he deserved a reward for what’s expected.

The baby woke up every two hours. After 9 weeks of getting no sleep and slaving around a six bedroom house that I was expected to clean alone, I was terribly overwhelmed. My baby required to be held all day. Whenever he went to sleep, I cleaned up. I was so exhausted and I got help from no one. The only person who was really a help to me was Bryana Davis. At first I felt like Nick Sr. wasn’t obligated to take care of his child because he was working. Nick works at a real job, and I work at home.

I soon realized that way of thinking was not balanced at all. Nicks Job ended at 3:00 Pm. When did mine end?

I couldn’t even trust anyone with my baby because everyone appeared to be so incompetent. I left my baby with a loved one for four hours and when I came home he had been in the same diaper. This person left my baby in a soiled diaper for about three hours. After reacting in rage, they told me they were too afraid to change the baby’s diaper. Just stupid.

My family members would hear the baby crying for hours at a time and never once offered to help me or get the baby for even an hour. One night the baby cried for six hours. I rocked him. I fed him. I changed him. I rocked him some more. Nothing helped. Finally I cut up my music to try to drown out the sound of my babies crying.

My dad told me I was getting exactly what I deserved.

On top of Everything Nick Sr. complained because we never had sex. When we did do it, it was painful and I didn’t enjoy and I felt like Nick was disgusting for even wanting to do that with me two weeks after having a baby.

I was stressed out. I bought very expensive Dr. Brown Bottles because I heard they reduced colic. I got my baby gripe water. I tried all the remedies. One day out of nowhere I went and bought a swing that cost about $200.00. At first my baby really liked the swing. It gave me a break and I wasn’t required to hold him so often. Nick Sr. yelled at me for getting the swing. He said I should have waited on him before doing it myself. He was so very mean and unsupportive.

It was finally time for me to return back to work. I was so tired, twice I fell asleep while driving. I was scheduled to be to work at 9:00. I had to get up at 6:00 to dress the baby, dress myself, feed him, make his bottles, pack his bag, and drop him off at a relative’s house, and then sit in traffic for an hour.
I got to work a 9:01. “You’re late!” my boss said. “That counts as a point against you. You’re only allowed to have 12 points.”

I had the worse job in the world.

We were expected to meet this stupid sales quota. It was my job to sale ATT UVerse, over priced cable, expensive internet with slow speeds (they charge 30.00 for 3 megabytes of speed), and outrageous fees. Every five minutes someone would ask me “Did you sale something yet?”

It was also my job to do customer service. Our employees were so eager to sell something, that they would lie to get sales. They told them the bill would be $50.00 a month when in reality, it was $90.00 a month. Some people even promised their monthly bill would be 14.99 when it was way higher than that. They also did tell new customers about the $130.00 activation fee. People were expecting bills for 14.99, but they instead got a first bill for $200.00.

They would call in, angrily demaning to know why the bill was so astonomical. Then, the customers would get surveys to rate us on how satisfied they were. The surveys scaled from 1-10. If you got anything lower than a 9, you got written up.

Friday November 9, I finally had enough. My friend Bryanna told my mom that I didn’t look good. She explained that my eyes were hollow. I was so stressed out that I broke down and cried at work. No one asked me a thing about sales for the first time. I clocked out of work early and called my gynecologist. I let her know I hated being a mom and I was so depressed. She told me I had Postpartum Depression and wrote me a prescription over the phone.

That night I begged Nick to watch the baby. At 10:00 at night he got the baby. At 7:00 Am he was texting my phone telling me to come get the baby. Bryanna didn’t even want to show me the messages.

I saved some of the texts

Me: Nick please keep the baby I am so tired.

Nick: Lazy

Me: Please I just really want to get some rest today.

Nick: If you are at work I’ll watch him. If not then you need to come and get him.

We got into a huge argument. He called me every degrading name a man could call the mother of his newborn child. Then he broke up with me. I cried so hard while Bryanna watched the baby for me. I called three churches requesting for prayer. I was sure I was having a nervous breakdown. All three churches had automated robots instructing me to press 3 or for directions to the church or 6 for the fax number. I called the church during a time of need and couldn’t even get in contact with a human. Ever since then, I haven’t really cared for churches, especially churches with too many members and too few personal relationship between the pastor and his members.

Finally I called Pastor Heratio. I was crying to hard he couldn’t understand a word I was saying, but he knew I was in distress. He told me he was at work and he would have his wife call me. Within five minutes his wife called me back and prayed for me over the phone. Then she hung up.

She called me right back saying that the Holy Spirit told her she needed to see me in person. Within two hours, I found myself at Baptist hospital.


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Posted by Unknown On 10:18 AM




Recently Nick acquired an ear infection that required antibiotics. Consequently he suffered a yeast diaper rash.

This rash seemed to come out of nowhere. I increased the amount of desitin I used on him. I went from using it nightly to using Desitin with every diaper change. His rash continued to get worse.  I decided I was going to fight this naturally. I started changing the baby every hour. That actually exasperated the problem. His but was raw from all that rubbing. And I was out of diapers.

It finally dawned on me that this wasn't a regular rash. Yeast infections occur after the use of antibiotics. I called Nicks father to ask him to get Monistat.

“Whats that?”

“Its coochie cream. The baby has a yeast infection.”

“Boys don’t get yeast infections. So no I’m not getting it and I would like it if you wouldn't put feminine products on our son. Just continue to use the desitin”  

His rebuke doesn't surprise me. I've learned that sometimes Nick Sr. can be an idiot. You just cant argue with these types of people. They have to learn from mistakes and experience. Meanwhile the babies’ rash continued to get worse. I rinsed the wipes with water before putting them on Nick’s sensitive skin. I continued to use the diaper rash cream.  

A couple of days I heard Nick Sr yelling from the hallway. “What the hell is wrong with my son’s private part?” He called me over to inspect the baby, as if I didn't already tell him the baby had a terrible diaper rash. “This looks like something from an STD pamphlet.” He continues. The baby has red bumps all over his private part and its even extending to his thighs now. While I have his attention I bring up the Monistat again.

“The baby just had antibiotics. And they cause yeast infections.”  This time Nick Sr doesn’t argue with me. He goes to the store and get 7 day Monistat. We mix one pack of Monistat with one pack of desitin. We agree that if the babies rash doesn’t clear up in one week we will take him to the doctor.

Within three days the babies’ rash starts to look better. By day seven the rash is completely gone.

And once again I’m right. Actually I'm always right. Moms always know.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Posted by Unknown On 4:40 PM


The truth is I have way too much time on my hands. Facebook is dying and I tried three times to use twitter but I guess I was just too boring to get any followers. So twitter was a bore to me.  I just don’t understand how a site about tweets could be so popular. I digress…

Being unemployed gives me a lot of time to think. My baby has to go to daycare everyday even though I’m unemployed or we will lose our voucher. So I’m alone a lot.  When you’re unemployed you don’t have lot of options as to how you are going to spend your day.

I have come a long way. I am a survivor of Postpartum Depression.

When Nicholas was first born I woke up every morning wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. Sleep deprivation, stress, and a baby with acid reflux had really taken its toll on me. My baby cried so much that no one wanted to watch him. People would agree to watch my baby and thirty minutes before I had to go to work, they would call and bail out.

I knew I had to go to work. I knew I needed someone to watch Nicholas. Daycare was not an option because these daycare's were asking for $150.00 weekly. That’s $600.00 a month. I felt guilty about asking relatives to watch him because he cried so much.

All the baby books said my baby would start sleeping through the night by 3 months. It’s now six months and my baby still doesn't sleep through the night. Sometimes he wakes up three or more times to eat or play.

And don’t even get me started on money. A long time ago if I had a thousand dollars in my pocket I really thought I was doing something. Now I spend that in a week! Diapers, milk, baby wipes, clothes…. Babies aren't cheap!

And I have wasted so much money!! Had I known better I wouldn't have bought a bunch of new born clothes. I have bags of clothes I have to give away or throw away. The next time around if I decide to have another baby I will buy 3-6 month clothes instead of new born clothes.

I bought this expensive ass swing that my son hates. I got this top of the line bouncer that my son can only tolerate for fifteen minutes. I bought these overpriced doctor brown bottles that experts claim reduces colic and reflux. I haven’t noticed a damn difference between these bottles and the cheapy bottles. I feel like I have pumped money down the toilet.

But I have managed to make this a positive learning experience and I think I’m a better woman for it. I've learned a thing or two about budgeting. This budgeting thing has taught me a lot of self discipline. I have learned to appreciate people like my father who work hard because raising kids is not easy. Providing and being responsible for others mean you have to sacrifice. I've learned to appreciate my health. This list doesn’t end. That is just how grateful I am.

He is at the age where he smiles more and cries less. The other day while giving my son a bath I realized what a blessing he is to me. When he smiles so does everyone else. We call bath time “Splashy splashy time.” He just laughs and splashes water everywhere. I don’t even mind cleaning up the mess!

I just wanted to share this with everyone.. And YES I am one of those moms who tapes and take pictures of EVERYTHING. I'm one of those moms who thinks everything my baby does is cute. 




P.S. I just wanted to share this random story that made me laugh today.

While I was cleaning up today Carmella (My sister) was holding the baby for me. I thought I heard him crying so I peaked in to her room to check up on him. Quietly I spied on them. Carmella was watching videos on her laptop while the baby laying comfortably at her legs. As soon as the baby noticed me in the doorway, he frantically sat up and made weird faces at Carmella like he wasn't enjoying her company.

I thought it was so cute that the baby would think I’d get jealous of him cuddling with my sister!