Flirting with PPD.

So, newborns are hard. Let me be the first one to break the bad news.

Adelyn has spent the last two days in some sort of growth spurt. That or she's made an early decision to train as a champion eater. I've spent the last two days with something attached to my chest nearly 90 percent of the time. It feels like a celebration when I'm not hooked up to the pump or attached to a baby.

It's been sort of frustrating and trying, but I'm proud to say that Adelyn did gain 9 ounces since her last doctor's appointment, putting her at 7 pounds, .2 ounces. Still not up to her birth weight. Almost, though. So we'll continue with the extra supplement until she reaches her birth weight then I'll hope my body can keep up with her sometimes unbelievably insatiable stomach.

I can finally understand why postpartum depression is such an oft-talked about topic with pregnant women. After I had Adelyn, it seemed like every single nurse and doctor and pamphlet that crossed my path had some sort of warning about PPD. And for all of my health problems I have never, ever had actual problems with depression or anxiety. Thankfully. Because I think if it was something I'd even flirted with in the past, it'd be rearing its ugly head with full-force right about now.

The sound of this thing you love more than you could ever love anything crying--frantically crying--when you, the mother, can't stop it, combined with a lack of sleep, and the tenth month of not feeling like yourself, and overwhelming, uncontrollable hormones and a body that's still hanging somewhere in the purgatory of not-pregnant but still flabby and normal yet recovering with doctor-prescribed pain killers all add up to a general sense of delirium and way-too analytical introspection. I've had countless moments these past two weeks where I sit and doubt myself and my abilities, my body and my emotions, but no matter how potentially hopeless it might seem for a fleeting second I'm always lucky enough to be interrupted. For all the women who are not so lucky, who don't have an innate off-switch that keeps your mind from totally submerging into darkness, I truly feel for you. Simply teetering into depression is bad enough.

And now Adelyn has fallen back asleep, and so I must follow suit.