Update Abbey is no longer publishing new content on this site. Her new web “home” is now
Welcome to gentleleading.com! My name is Abbey and I am incredibly humbled and thankful that you’re here. I started this blog when my son Will was about 7 weeks old. It was created first and foremost as a form of accountability for me to apply the truth of the gospel to my experience as a young mom. It’s second purpose is to be an encouragement to fellow struggling mamas. I hope that you will find this to be the case! I would love to hear from you as you interact with what you read here. Click the “contact” tab to introduce yourself. Thanks for giving me the honor of sharing your motherhood journey.
Nothing to Prove: Gospel Encouragement for the Mom Who Suspects Postpartum Depression or Anxiety
I have experienced post partum depression and anxiety. It’s one thing to type that as a sentence. Its another thing entirely to welcome someone into the actual experience during the rawness— not wanting to care for your baby, the triggers for lostness and loneliness, the irrational thoughts that have been causing your heart to race. Sharing specifics in the thick of it is difficult because it’s messy. Each time I divulged a detail to a friend I feared losing their good opinion of me. I was afraid of being “too much” and changing the relationship. I just wanted to be “fun” and normal.
The experience of post-partum anxiety began for me at 37 weeks pregnant with each of my children. Often without warning or an identifiable trigger, my mind would begin to race in a panic, certain that my baby was no longer safe in my womb. Whether or not my intuition was correct (they were both born in the 38th week after failing their biophysical ultrasound tests), the anxiety was debilitating. After giving birth to both of them, I was in a sort of manic state while in the hospital, unable to sleep for fear that the baby would stop breathing. My body reacted strongly to their cries, grunts, and gurgles. Once we brought our first son home, I worried after moving him our room to the nursery that someone was going to climb through his window and take him away. I began to feel paranoid about being abandoned and deserted by friends. Sometimes my fear and worries were specific. But often, I simply suffered from feeling unsafe, relationally or physically, and felt a general feeling of instability. This manifested itself physically through sudden experiences of heat or nausea, the inability to complete a task before me or decide what task to begin, and an incredibly limited attention span or ability to focus.
My experience with post-partum depression has come in two distinct waves, once when my second son was four months old, after his first big sleep regression, and once when I weaned him. When my children would wake up, I felt paralyzed. When they would emerge from afternoon naps, my eyes would water. My body felt too heavy to stand, and their bodies felt too heavy to lift.
Nursing exacerbated this experience. Each time we cut out a feed as my boys grew more dependent on solid food, I would get TMJ and wrestle with anxious thoughts for a few weeks. Two weeks ago I weaned my 14 month old completely, and had a terrible few days of paranoia and insomnia. My body was used to the steady flow of oxytocin. But then, suddenly, I felt like myself again. Its like a fog has lifted. I can focus. I can complete tasks. It suddenly doesn’t feel quite to overwhelming to go through the mail or fold a load of laundry. The ease and energy that I feel since this sudden shift have caused me to recognize how truly difficult the hormonal shifts of the past few years of pregnancy, miscarriage, and breastfeeding have been.
Amid and between all of these experiences were moments of pure delight and joy where I just “couldn’t even” about our life and family. I love my kids. I think they’re the two most beautiful children I’ve ever seen. I love to laugh and play with them. But the lows were low.
Sitting in the Tension: Shocking Sorrow, Sweet Surprise, and Sacred Invitations
Two of them announced the news about their daughters on social media on the same day. A local friend posted a photo celebrating the safe arrival of their surprise baby girl after two boys, and right beneath it in my feed was an announcement from my dear friend Emily that their baby girl after two boys was delivered still born. I knew that both of them were coming. I had already seen both of the photos. But seeing them on top of each other took my breath. The tension was thick that day for me. And it would only grow thicker.
I went to the hospital with my husband to hold this little unexpected blessing, holding hurt in my heart for the loss of one little girl as I celebrated and delighted in the one I held the other in my arms; So thankful to be with this friend in her moment of joy and so longing to be with the other as she wept.
A few days later I received that longed for invitation, and made the four hour journey to be with Emily. Her husband was going back to work, and I was there to shoulder some of the burden of caring for children, cooking meals, doing the dishes, and just deciding what to do next. Mostly I was there just to be there; to be present in the pain. I played with the kids one afternoon while she took a shower, and she came back downstairs holding a memory box the hospital had provided for them. I love their boys like my own, and this was all of their precious Lily I would ever see or know. I touched the blanket she had been wrapped in. I held in my hands a tiny hat stained with blood and amniotic fluid that had been placed on her beautiful premature head. I fingered a tiny beaded bracelet a nurse had made with her name, and stared through tears at her baby doll sized hand and footprints beside her recorded height and weight, too small and too soon. Emily quietly slid her lap top over and we clicked through pictures of her tiny hands and feet, covered with delicate, breaking skin. We delighted in images of her beautiful face, pointing out features that looked like each of her brothers and laughing through tears that God had spared her from her mother’s inherited childhood uni-brow.
Those tears spilled out as I took in every detail of the photos my friend had intentionally captured: the rain on the window, one of Lily with just her mama, one of Lily being held by her daddy, one of both of them seated on the hospital bed holding their sleeping daughter, and one with her tiny hand between both of theirs, donned with rings promising faithfulness for better or worse. 86 photos. All the photos they would ever have of their daughter.
While I was there, I received word from my closest local friend, Rebecca, that she was in labor, they made the decision not to find out gender, but I heard not long after that she had given birth to a baby girl. Her desire was that I would be able to meet their baby in the hospital, and by God’s grace the timing of this trip and their release worked out that I could. I drove home, after a painful goodbye, filled with prayers entrusting my friend to the Lord, and sat in thick tension for that four hour drive of the eager expectation of meeting the surprise miracle daughter of one best friend and the bitter grief of never getting to know or love on the daughter of another.
Pediatric Well-Checks and the Sovereign Care of God
He took a while to get his shoes on and make his way out to the car. As we pulled out of the driveway I heard him start to sniffle.
“Will, what’s the matter, buddy?”
“I don’t want to go to the doctor.”
“What are you afraid of, sweetheart?”
“I don’t want them to stick anything in my nose!” he burst in to tears. Clearly the flu test he was given at our last visit to the pediatrician was slightly traumatizing.
I took a deep breath. “Will, do you trust mama?”
“Yes.” He whimpered in about sob-separated syllables.
“No one is going to put anything up your nose today. I promise.””What if they try?”
“Mama wont let them, buddy. If I tell them not to, then they won’t. Do you believe mama?”
“Yes.”
“Then you don’t have to be afraid.”
Silence filled the minivan once more.
I thought back to what I read in God’s word this morning. Moses was giving a pep talk to the generation of Israel whose parents had not been allowed to enter the promised land. He was rallying them to go in, pushing back their fear with reminders of God’s sovereign care over the last 40 years in the desert. His deliverance, character, trustworthiness, control, and love for them were put forth as reasons they could walk forward without fear instead of shrinking back as their parents had done, terrified by the size of the enemy and forgetting the promises and ability of their God.
INDIVIDUATION, A FRACTURED ROUTINE, AND THE HOPE OF JESUS
Bathtime and bedtime are the times of day that I find my mama heart is most full and thankful. Beyond being a sort of finish line to the back straining marathon of lifting and transporting and bending and monitoring, It is the sound of my baby’s feet splashing and his squeals of delight as he reaches for and rakes bath toy animals, the smell of his baby-shampooed head coming out from under his hooded towel, the feel of baby oil on his soft squishy skin, the smell of dreft on his warm footed PJ’s, and the little indentions in his cheeks as he is reunited with his beloved paci. Sensory overload. I can’t even.
We’ve had a really good thing going.
An exertion of the will has begun on the part of this tiny human with whom we share our home. He has… preferences. And he also has a very loud voice, which he effectively uses to communicate those preferences. Shouting. All the shouting.
He doesn’t want to contentedly sit in the bath and rake his toys, he wants to stand… and break his neck and my back in the process. He doesn’t want to look at each other as we sing “jesus loves me” and have his nightly baby oil rub down (hello, first time mama over here). He doesn’t want to lie still and turn over a “little people” farm piggy and sing to it sweetly while I put on his pj’s. He doesn’t want to stay on that page of the story until all the words are done. “Turn the page woman! I’ll turn it myself,” he communicates with his one syllable, super loud, repeated utterance of “AHK!”
I used to lay him down, quietly close his door, and wanna go back in and snuggle him. Lately I’m closing that thing and letting out a big heavy sigh of relief.
The Grace We Need: Reflections on my first year of motherhood
Have you ever been to a week long summer camp? You know the days when you first get home and you just can’t tell your mom all about it yet because you’ve got to figure out what happened and try to remember back to Monday by looking through all of your photos…? That’s how I feel right now about the first year of motherhood. I looked through pictures on Will’s birthday and almost felt as if I was watching someone else’s life… I can barely remember much at all of the first six months without the assistance of photos and videos. I feel sort of strange when I see or hear myself in them.
Becoming a mother changed everything. It changed my body, my hormonal makeup, the way I thought, our intimate life as a couple, the way I loved, the way I spent my time, my anxiety level, my attitude towards other people, my friendships, the way I experienced the news, the way I looked to the future and reflected on the past, the way I thought about my own mother, the way I saw my sin, the way I related to God…
I could go on and on.
Motherhood seems to have turned my life into a series of simultaneous antitheses. This year held within it concurrent bliss and despair. Its moments felt eternal and yet they slipped right through my fingers. It gave me everything I’ve ever wanted and plagued me with emptiness and anxiety. It left me terrified to miss a moment and wanting to run away and escape it all. It felt like a perfect use of my gifts and found me completely ill-equipped. I’ve never been happier to be alive on earth and longed for heaven so much all at once. It lasted forever and it flew by. The first year of motherhood was one giant juxtaposition. No wonder it’s hard to sum up.
I don’t want to underplay that sheer wonder and joy that came with being Will’s mom. He is amazing and my heart could just about explode I love him so much. I find myself playing and laughing more than I ever recall doing so in any other season. And I love watching my husband be his father, and seeing how much they favor in looks and personality. I love how he slows me down and makes things so much more simple. I simply adore being a mom… and without a doubt it is my favorite life stage to date…. but it is most definitely not what I expected. I thought the whole thing would look like a newborn lifestyle photo session… with everyone gazing at each other lovingly and in perfect harmony all the time. I thought it would look and feel effortless. But it was hard. As exquisitely wonderful as it was… this year was hard.
When Breastfeeding Isn't Easy: 10 Encouraging Thoughts For the Mama Despairing Over Nursing
When I was pregnant with my first baby, my sweet friends threw the most precious baby shower. It was all of my 20-30 something girlfriends. The hostesses organized a trivia game where each girl had to guess the answers to some questions specific to our pregnancy. The question that generated the most laughter was “What is Abbey most looking forward to about being a mom?” I got nervous and wrote something appropriate feeling like “bath time” or “gummy smiles”… but every girl in the room knew the real answer: “nursing.” I couldn’t wait to nurse our baby and evidently it wasn’t much of a secret.
I read all the articles and books. We went to the class (yes, “we.” I asked David to come… and pretty much regretted it as soon as they played the ethnically diverse and completely uncensored video). I just thought breastfeeding was the most beautiful, natural, and amazing thing. At this point maybe some of you are thinking I’m a total weirdo… but if you are… this might not be a blog post for you…
This is a post for those of you who felt like me. Who had the idealistic post birth expectation of your baby instantly being placed on your chest, latching the first time they were given the chance, and nursing like a champ. This is a post for those of you who thought you’d be fully capable of providing your baby with all the nutrient rich fatty goodness it needed for the first few months of life. This post is for those of you who thought it would come naturally… and for whom it turned out to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. I’ve got some words for you mama.
