Self care! That seems and feels impossible.

I have had depression and Anxiety for as long as I can remember. I have dealt with in may ways over the years. Some of which have not been the best approach but as a child you do lots of thing to cope and to be able to function. I also have had lots of sleep issues over my lifetime and still deal with them now. Before Ken and I had kids my goal in life was to be as mentally healthy as possible. I did therapy and took a lot of mental heath classes and Ken and I did marriage counseling for 6 months before we got married. So a year after we were married we started trying for a baby! Needless to say it took almost 8 years!
After Kaylee was born I suffered with postpartum depression and anxiety really bad. I started taking medication again and went to a support group for postpartum depression. By the time Kaylee was 6 months old I felt like normal me again but stay on the meds. My support group helped me set goals for self-care and time for myself. Which was awesome!
Then in late February I was really sick and in and out of the doctors not sure what was going on. Finally they did blood work and guess what I was pregnant with baby #2! (Just wanted to mention that my doctors told me that I would never ever get pregnant on my own!!) I was completely supersized do to the fact that I was bleeding at the time. My whole pregnancy was stressful. I was put on hormones right away and still bleed through most of my pregnancy! I was sick all the time and was running after a 1 1/2 year old. Ever since that time there has been no time for myself!
After Michael was born the poor child has had nothing but health problems. I can tell you for the first 4 months of his life he never slept longer that 45 minutes. I was able to get through it though and for some reason able to function and still work as a nanny. My depression and anxiety came back full swing between never sleeping and having a sick child on top of an awesome 2 year old. I went back to my support group and the first thing they said is that you need to take care of yourself so you can then take care of them. I loved the sound of that but I could never make it happen and still can't. Randomly I can go have dinner with a friend or maybe go to church by myself but other than that I suck it up and deal. Signal moms I have no idea how you do it!

So why am I going of about self care. Well there are 2 reasons

One is that: It’s World Maternal Mental Health Day

Two is this blog post. It really hit home for me so please read it!

http://revolutionfromhome.com/2016/04/absence-village-mothers-struggle/


I love my life, my family and I am so thankful for all that I have. Yes I need to have some self care and I am hoping that time will come. For now I hold on to knowing that I will pull through this time in my life. I will post with an update on Michael soon. For now I ask for prayers and good thoughts for him as in the next few weeks he will be going through a lot of testing.
I never ever would have guessed being a mother would be this complex. I never knew how much that it would affect my total being. I knew that it was life changing but it was so much more. I would never change it for a moment though and it has helped me see who and what mattes.