"I just need to make it through today"

"He is cutest when he is sleeping"-Erica Kopp (the first two months of motherhood)

I live in a society and religion where the goal is perfection. I am not dissing this goal.....but I feel like there is a difference between trying to be a good person and trying to make everyone think your life is perfect. I am guilty of trying to make people get the perception that my life is flawless. I do things such as, only doing a facebook status about the positive things going on, deleting any flawed pictures of myself off of my camera, not posting pictures until I take that extra minute to edit that zit on my face, telling you I am "wonderful" when you ask how I am doing instead of completely sobbing in your arms. These are just a few examples of how I try to give you the image that I am always happy and things are always wonderful.
It wasn't until recently that this image bugged me. It was when I was going through something hard in my life that I no longer could log into Facebook and feel happy after scrolling down and reading about everyones "perfect" life.
I am finally at a point in my life where I feel like I can share my experience with you without being ashamed or wiping tears off of the screen as I type it. I am the perfect example that it does get better and your hard experiences will soon just be a faded memory. I want to get my feelings on paper before it fades completely because I want other women out there to know that they are not alone. Before I tell you about this...I want you to know that I am not trying to scare anyone out of becoming a  mother. I am merely just trying to be real and not mask my situation with the perfect image.
I will start with giving you a little background....I have been married for four years now. My husband Eric and I got sealed in the temple on our 3rd year anniversary. I had always said I was going to wait 5 years of marriage to start having kids but after we got sealed our 5 year plan changed and we decided that the time had come.
Getting pregnant was extremely easy and fast, which I am extremely grateful for...I know of several girls who aren't as lucky as me to have not had to wait. The first couple of months of my pregnancy was miserable....I had to take work off because I couldn't keep any food down and I was dry heaving and vomiting for weeks which turned into dehydration. I kept telling myself..."I just have to make it through the first trimester". I found my "miracle drug" at the end of my first trimester and was able to go back to work. I had to continue taking this drug throughout my whole pregnancy because anytime I would go off of it I would end up at the toilet again.
The second trimester was easier in the fact that I was no longer dry heaving but I began to gain weight which I knew was going to be a challenge with my anorexic history. It didn't look like a cute baby bump where people could tell that I was pregnant. I just looked larger and like I had eaten too many burritos...I kept telling myself, "I just have to make it to the third trimester where people will know I am pregnant."
The 3rd trimester came and it wasn't too bad until I lost my vision when driving one day and ended up passed out on some strangers lawn, later being admitted into the hospital, and after being released spending the last weeks of my pregnancy having severe anxiety attacks where I can't breathe...telling myself, " I just have to make it through the labor".
It had finally come, one week late, I was going to have my baby boy! I was scared to death of pushing that baby out of me but this is something I had anticipated for 9 months. It was to be expected that labor was going to be hard and scary. As my contractions started to worsen I kept telling myself, "I just have to make it until I get the epidural."
Labor was 15 hours long....not too bad until my epidural wore off and I was feeling a lot of pain. It was too late to do anything about my epidural wearing off, it was time to push. I told myself, I just have to make it through the pushing."
Our sweet baby boy was born on August 1st 2013 at 11:57pm. He was 7 pounds and 10 ounces and was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen but I was so shaken up and out of it that I don't remember much of the rest of that night.
The next day I was in bliss with my baby. I wouldn't put him down and I refused to send him to the nursery and wouldn't sleep because I just wanted to hold him all the time. I figured this was the normal reaction of a new mother in the hospital and didn't think much of it. My last day in the hospital when Sawyer was more responsive he began to lash around frantically and scream when I would try to breast feed him. The nurses told me to hang in there, that the first two weeks of breastfeeding are tough. I thought to myself, "I just have to make it through the next two weeks."
The next couple of days were super rough. My family all headed off to bear lake. I began having really bad pain. The pain continued to get worst and I began feeling sick and weak. I finally went to the doctor, finding out that I had a hematoma. Aside from this hematoma I was struggling with breast feeding still. He would get frantic when I would try to breast feed and he would be awake all night screaming because he just wanted to suck. When he was asleep I couldn't sleep myself. The amount of anxiety in my stomach was unreal. His jaundice levels started getting too high and so he had to be put under lights at our house. This was hard because I wasn't able to hold him and try to calm him when he would cry. I called my mom crying in desperation several times not knowing what to do. She told me I just had to survive until she got home and then she would be able to help. I kept telling myself, "I just need to make it until she gets home."
When she arrived home she came over to watch him while we got a good nights sleep. Even though I knew he was in good hands with my mom I still had so much anxiety that I wasn't able to sleep. A couple of days later my doctor ordered my mom to take him to her house and to give me a sleeping pill for the night. I had maybe gotten 4 hours of sleep in a week and was becoming delusional.
At two weeks old Sawyer started to sleep for about 5 hours through the night. I still couldn't sleep because of anxiety. I would spend my day dealing with a fussy baby and would spend my night restlessly tossing and turning. I became a walking zombie. My mom and all the people around me would talk about how cute my baby was but I no longer could see it. All I could see was a little creature who was sucking all of the life from me. I began to have regret and constantly cry to Eric because I felt like I was a bad mom. Every time my baby would cry I would feel helpless and as if I were a failure as a mom. I started to wonder if I was wrong about being cut out to be a mother and wondered why people had children. I figured it was time to set aside my pride and ask for help. I made an appointment with my doctor for the following monday. I kept telling myself, "I just need to make it through till monday."
My doctor diagnosed me with postpartum anxiety. It was actually pretty common but wasn't heard about as much because they lumped it in with postpartum depression. I was put on a small dose of something for anxiety and was reassured that it was going to get easier. I just had to get through the next two weeks until the medication kicked in.
Things didn't immediately get easier. The anxiety continued for a little while and my baby continued to be fussier than normal. over time I began to be able to cope with things better because I began getting sleep. As for my baby being fussy, the doctor couldn't do anything but diagnose him as being colic. He told me Colic usually gets better around 3 to 6 months. I kept telling myself, "I just need to get to him being 3 months."
He turned 3 months last week. Things have gotten a lot better. I no longer look at him and see a creature that is sucking the life out of me. He is the cutest little guy on the planet and even though there are still hard days, the good outweighs the bad and on those bad days I just tell myself,"I got to get through today, tomorrow will be better."
I have recently realized(my mom pointed it out) that I do the same thing as everyone else does on facebook. I post the good pictures and post about the good things so people probably get the image that my life is flawless. Well, I want to let people know that my life is full of flaws. The last three months have been hard. If there is a time you are feeling so tired that you can't keep your eyes open but your baby is wide awake, your baby has eaten, been changed and slept but is still crying or you are just feeling like you aren't a good enough mom, know you are not alone. Tell yourself, " I just need to make it through today", because even if that isn't true and you continue saying it for a very long time, eventually it will get better.