I did not have the perfect example of motherhood, my mother was damaged.  She's a great grandmother and she's grown, but most of my adult life I've tried to deal with my anger with her and her shortcomings.  

I never met my father, he was just as damaged.  He came back from Vietnam a heroin addict and he was bi-polar.  Great combo.  My mother left him when I was still an infant and she didn't look back.  She moved us to the west coast and made the same mistake over and over again, choosing men that were not good for her and sadly not good for me.  She is an alcoholic and drug user.  Much of my childhood was spent taking care of her.  My step father, whom she married merely to make a "whole family" was abusive and also an alcoholic.  I grew up with many you're stupid, you're fat, you're worthless.  I've tried hard to work on these, very hard but it's a huge part of my insecurities.

I got pregnant with my daughter Charlotte five years into my marriage.  The pregnancy was hard and I had some scares and the last few weeks were plagued by PUPPS, worse thing ever, until labor started.

I went into labor at about 8pm on a Monday night.  By four am my contractions  were consistently close together to warrant a trip to the hospital.  They made me comfortable and then upon being examined let me know I was about 10 percent effaced.  That's it.  Go home.

So I went home and continued to labor for another day at home.  My contractions were never more than fifteen minutes apart and they would get closer together and then further apart.  I got home at six am that Tuesday morning and kept going.  

I called Kaiser many times not really knowing what to do.  They kept asking me if I was drinking enough water.  Yes, tons, I hated having contractions on the toilet, they were just weird.

Finally I gave up.  I went in again at 6am on Wednesday morning (I called the hospital I was supposed to go to and they asked if I could wait, no.  So I went to the Kaiser Hospital in Anaheim).  I remember sitting and waiting and wondering, it was scary.

SO I get checked again, this time not in a labor or delivery room.  I'm 1 to 2 cm's.  Yes.  Two days later.  They hinted they might NOT be able to admit me before they even checked how far along I was.  It was awful, I don't know what they were thinking.  I was making labor up?  My husband was of no help, he played video games while I was in labor this whole time.  Yes, we took a class, oh well.

So, what did they do?  They knocked me out.  Drugged me up.  I just wanted to sleep.  I hadn't slept since Sunday night and I was so worn out.  After being out for a couple of hours I woke up not able to move much and having to PEE, I had to call out.  I got yelled at because I didn't push the button, but I didn't care, I HAD TO PEE NOW.

At that time they checked me again and I was 4cm!  Woohoo.  They moved me to the newest labor and delivery room, it was nice, it was big.  Wow.  They hooked me up to pitocin and monitors and off we went.  (I think I should have done what my gut told me to do and had a doula).  

The contractions got much harder and I was done, seriously.  Time for an epidural.  It was good.  I could still feel the contractions and move my legs.  They did all those other lovely things that come with an epidural.  I had left things open, that if I felt I needed it, I would have one but I wanted to try without.  I pretty much had had enough.  I'm a wuss when it comes to pain.  

So, I'm following the contractions, her heartbeats and the process and all of a sudden all the alarms go off and there are five people in my room telling me to roll over, move.  The midwife was lovely as was her intern and I was so grateful that they were there.  I needed it then.

So, her heart rate is going down with the contractions, decels.  They got Gary and told us both that a c-section was the next option.  They checked me and I was only 6cms.  Yes, after 44 hours of labor I was six centimeters dilated, that's it.  I begged to let me labor on my own a bit longer and they took me off the pitocin.  Her decels stopped and we thought we might make it, until she started to decel with my pathetic contractions.

I was so scared and it was so strange.  I was an only child and I had not had any friends who had children.  I was strange to this world and it was hard.  They said I was going ahead of three other women waiting for a c-section, we had to go.  It was a good thing I had the epidural, the same lovely anesthesiologist came back to prep me for the c-section.  They gave me some good stuff.

I remember being so afraid of panicking during the c-section but I've never been so calm in my life, I was floating.  Yes.  Good drugs.  And I wasn't scared for a little bit as my husband held my hand and I felt the tugging of the surgery, but nothing else.

It was quiet when the pulled her out and then a scream, a crying.  The doctor said, well her lungs work, really well.  She was born stubborn.  She wasn't going to come out.  Her little head was not pointed, she hadn't even gotten very far, she was stuck.  She had to be pulled out.

Charlotte was born with bright red hair and a pair of lungs that worked.  They took me away from her and to a recovery room.  I had to be able to lift my ass up off of the gurney in order to see her.  It was rather awful.

The next couple of days in the hospital were hard and humiliating for me.  For one, I couldn't hold my urine (They took the catheter out the next morning).  It was hard to get out of bed on my own and then once I did I had to rush to the bathroom.  I missed a couple of times.  I just felt so helpless.

Breastfeeding didn't go well either.  A lactation consultant came by with a pump.  Charlotte wouldn't latch on (I took a breastfeeding class too) and then found out that I have "flat nipples".  What?  I don't even want to go into the time I struggled with breastfeeding, it was hard.  It did not come naturally and I was stubborn, I was going to breastfeed this little girl, I had read so much about how good it was for her and for me.

I went to many consultants (by the way, my doctor told me vicodin was fine, a couple in fact and then I was told no.  Could they work this shit out before telling me things?  I mean, I said I was breastfeeding.  And the look a woman gave me in a nursing clinic made my ovaries wither, I felt so small).  

I breastfed here and there, she had good times and bad times.  I pumped.  When I kept track of my breastfeeding, I would spend eight hours a day.  She took her time, that's for sure.  I was chained to my boppy.  I felt very alone, not one friend of mine had kids and I didn't feel warm and fuzzy about parenthood.

She cried a lot between 11pm and 3 am for a few weeks, that was hard.  My husband became a heavy sleeper after she was born.  I was so sleep deprived I don't remember some of it, it was a blur.  And looking back, I was depressed.  I had a history of depression so the idea of Post partum was not far fetched.  I also had migraines etc.  Health problems just kept coming and I couldn't lose weight.

After I weened my daughter I started having really bad migraines to the point of vomiting, shaking etc.  I was back to work and I had some other issues transpire, such as the first daycare Charlotte was at smacked her so hard there was a bruise shaped like a hand on her face.  She was 15 pounds and five months old.  We put her into another daycare the following week.  I felt like I failed her.  It was painful.  And I kept going.

I've struggled with depression and health issues since.  I was diagnosed with PCOS (but it wasn't until I'd seen four doctors who looked at me and said I didn't have it, there was nothing wrong with me, it took a blood test to see that my hormones were indeed way off), I thought I wouldn't even be able to get pregnant due to my irregular periods.  We had sex twice and I got pregnant the second time.

The journey has led me to here.  Charlotte is four years old (as of the end of May) and she still won't go poop on the potty (I never used the word potty before I had Charlotte).   This is a conundrum in itself.  She knows when she has to go, she gets a pull up and goes.  It's a control issue.  Part of me feels like I'm being punished for deciding to have just one child (four years of diapers!)

I've been diagnosed with bipolar II disorder.  I even thought I might have had Post traumatic stress disorder because of the impact of the labor.  Yes, I know, many people have difficult labors, that's why I said, I'm talking about just me.

My marriage has suffered a great deal.  How people have more than one is beyond me.  Everyday, I feel like a failure as a parent because I can't handle it all.  When I get home I want to bury myself in my bed and I have days where it is hard for me to be around my daughter and I feel so much guilt because she truly is a beautiful soul.

My husband works as a teacher and he has Fridays off.  He also works Monday through Thursday but just a few hours.  So he has a lot more free time than I do.  Tonight it was an argument about taking Charlotte to daycare.  I want to get to work very early and I don't think it's fair to make her go in early.  I just don't.  So if I can get in at 7:30 am I can leave at 4:30 if I want or even skip lunch and leave an hour earlier I can spend more time with Charlotte.  

Now when my husband had to finish his disseration, I stepped up and took her in and picked her up.  I struggled to make my hours with my exhaustion and my health issues.  I've had so many awful ups and downs and I know I've not been easy to live with.  During the summer when he had to work from 9:30 to 4:30 Monday to Thursday I picked her up and dropped her off.  I was good, I did housework etc.  He complained about how hard it was to work a full day, which is what I do every week end on end.  Why doesn't he see that?

Now when I need this, I can't seem to get it.  He asked me to take Charlotte to school Monday because of his office hour.  Then he said that again tonight.  You have two?  He's never had two before his 9:30 class.  And the thing is, he doesn't leave the house until 8:30!  So is it too much to ask?  He expects me to get up much earlier to make my hours but God forbid he do the same.  I know these struggles are not rare, my husband and I are fighting to keep a part of ourselves to ourselves but I resent that he gets so much time to himself and I rarely do and to top it off, he takes it for granted.

Yes, I'm at my ropes end.  I fell asleep last night at 7pm.  I worked 11 hours today.  Why can't I ask for this?

My daughter laughs at me when I ask her to go to bed.   She runs from me.    I'm so tired and she knows it, it's like she smells weakness.  And many times my husband was gone and I was having such a hard time at something that was supposed to come naturally.  

I snapped tonight.  I yelled and I told her that was it.  I put her in her room and closed the door (my favorite is her yelling "I WANT TO LISTEN, I WANT TO LISTEN NOW).  She freaked out of course, but I said that was it.  There is no excuse for treating me like that, none.  After a bit of yelling and crying I went to her and talked to her.  She went to bed pretty easily after that, but I felt so bad for snapping.  Of course I told her that I loved her very much and I was sorry for yelling.  

So I just keep asking, what is wrong with me?  How can other people handle this and I can't manage one child?  The guilt, the questions, all of it wears on me.  And when I ask for help from my husband it's impossible.  We almost battle to not have to deal with her.  Everything is hard with Charlotte, nothing is easy and everything is a fight, a struggle.  We've tried so many different things and they work for a bit and then she spirals back into disobedience.  She runs me ragged and wears me out.

And I love her so much.  She's sweet, she's loving and caring (on the nights I go to bed before her she makes sure I have a friend to sleep with and gives me a kiss and hug goodnight, she will also make sure my glasses are on my bedstand).  She's an amazing little girl who makes me laugh and cry.  Her teachers love her, they love how she makes them laugh, how she takes cares of other children (one of the other parents told us that Char had taught his son how to ride a bike) and how she so easily gives everyone hugs and kisses.  A teacher in her new class told me that a couple of teachers come and ask how she is and how they miss her in their classroom.  I've been told she makes friends so easily and when she needs to move to kindergarten she will do fabulously.

She is loved, we may not do the best thing all the time, but she is most certainly loved and she hears it all the time.  But I can't help but think, why can't we do better?  Why does this have to be a struggle.  Why do I have to fight for what I need?

This is long.  I'm sorry.  I need to get it out and put it down.  My journey has been so hard for me.  I want to go back to school and I hate my job.  I'm bored beyond my mind and when I look in the mirror, I don't know who I'm looking at anymore (I've never been this big and my headaches, cravings, pms etc has made it so hard to continue exercise and stick to a routine.  I get lectures from people about how if I did this or that it would be better.  And I get better for a bit and then have another episode of depression.  It's like a black pit).

Well, if you made it this far, you are a saint and if you've held back from judging you are a good soul.  Thanks for reading.