Part 2 of “YOU ONLY HAVE LITTLE KIDS FOR 4 YEARS” mom guilt: the newborn baby phase. I couldn’t even go downstairs to get myself a piece of toast for breakfast some days. Neil brought meals to me in bed more times than I can count, because my body had about 2% of the energy I was used to. I had to WILL MYSELF to get up to feed my crying baby, and give myself pep talks, like, “it’s okay corrine you can do this. Just feed the baby and you can go back to sleep.” I slept for hours a day. Depression isn’t about just being sad. I know because I WASNT SAD! I love the newborn baby phase more than anything in the world!! But my body was betraying my heart’s greatest desire - to show up as my whole self, the best version of me, for my baby. Instead I had the capability to be about 2% of myself. I knew something was wrong and I wanted to fix it so badly. The lessons I learned from bi-weekly and weekly therapy, from trying different medications, asking for + accepting help are too lengthy to fit in a caption, but you can go listen to podcast episode 119 where I share everything about it. What I will share now is my greatest takeaway: depression is not a cop-out, it doesn’t only happen when someone is extra sad, and it doesn’t mean you’re broken, or a loser, or defective. It means you have a condition just like diabetes that in my case then, and in many others, you could die from without proper help and medication. You are NOT ALONE, and you’re not doing anything wrong. You are still exactly the mother your baby needs, and you will get through this. And yes, I feel sad when I think about how I wasn’t able to fully enjoy and savor the newborn time with Harry. But I also know God makes it up to us in His own way of giving us magical blessings and tender mercies, even if that means learning to be a stronger and more compassionate mothers than we ever would have been if it all had been easy 🤎🤎