observational rant

Just needed to put this out there. Raising a baby, is stressful. You don't get to sleep when you want to, just get up and go where you want to when you want to...everything revolves around a tiny baby. But don't get me wrong here, I'm not complaining! I love my little man! I just mean, its perfectly normal, for ANY mother out there, to get stressed out. Perfectly normal to have days where you break down and cry because you are overtired and stressed out. Perfectly normal to feel like you are doing a bad job, or any other types of frustrated sleep deprived fleeting thoughts you might get when you are having a little stressed out time. Luckily, for me, I have only had 2 really kind of meltdowns where I was feeling kind of depressed. And also, luckily for me, then the depressed feeling went away. For the most part, there were clear reasons for all of my feelings though. Not sleeping for a week for one. Being sick with one thing after another. Not being able to figure out what my son is allergic to...and feeling like I'm hurting him by giving him the food that is supposed to be the best for him. Issues with doctors offices and insurance companies. Car accident. These are all legitiment things to be worried about, or melt down about, in my opinion.
My two melt downs were one for being sick and overtired...and sleeping though my alarm (well, actually...kept hitting snooze...kept going back to sleep...and felt like an idiot when I hit it the last time and had noticed that it wasn't going to go off again...and then fell back asleep not on purpose) and woke up 10 minutes before Cole's 2 month well visit....when the office is 20 minutes away in good traffic and nothing was ready or put together. I felt so horrible, and it was such a reminder of the depression I used to have when I would miss apointments a lot, that I broke down and felt majorly depressed for about an hour...I was so mad at myself.
My 2nd one, was after Cole having a horrible diaper rash that was open sores...me putting him back on breastmilk to tide over a phone call to the doctor even though he was reacting badly to it....me getting through to them and them sending me a package of food in the mail....it being the wrong thing. This whole feeding Cole thing has been a long hard road. And I just cried and cried. Then went to the hospital and picked up the right stuff.
When I havnt slept for hours and hours...I get in a bad mood. I think anyone would...and I don't take it out on anyone. But, sometimes, like the other night while watching a TV show and Cole started fussing while I was holding him, I said 'hey, sshhh, quiet.' in a calm cool voice...but then was just like what? did I just tell my baby to be quiet? No I wasnt yelling or sounding angry...but really? Thats kinda weird. He only fussed for about 10 seconds anyways. I guess you just act funny when you are sleep deprived.
I think the reason for this blog post is though, because of a website I had joined while I was pregnant called cafemom. I see a lot of posts from women in there about how they are feeling who have tiny babies....and the topic of post pardum depression is a valid one. Honestly, with my history of depression, I thought for sure I might end up getting it before I had my baby. But...I don't. I think of myself as being lucky in that. A lot of women do though. Where they are depressed for days and weeks on end. Having horrible thoughts about their baby (and i'm not just talking about some flash thought through your head that you instantly feel bad for thinking...that only happened once or something like that---as in the post I had just read) I'm talking real I just don't like my baby at all thoughts. Not being able to enjoy anything going on.
But, what seems crazy to me, is how if anyone writes a post about how they are tired and havn't slept, and are cranky, and are feeling momentarily depressed because of sleep depervation, and just ranting about wanting to sleep or wanting baby to stop crying or whatever they are bothered by at the moment....that everyone else seems to jump at diagnosing someone with post pardum depression. I swear that if some of my blog ended up on there, I would have people telling me to make a doctors appointment to discuss depression. And, as much as some stuff kind of drives me crazy in my life right now....mostly the food allergy stuff that I just want to know about...I know I'm not depressed. I'm just tired.
Being in a stressed out state though....if someone had told me they thought I was depressed when I had happened to be in one of my two mini meltdowns....I think it would have made me crazier in that moment of time....thinking that then there was something medically wrong with me...and I probably would have tried to second guess all of my emotions and tried to find out if they were valid or not.
It seems to me, that most every mother out there has times once and a while where they have mini meltdowns. So, if this little mini meltdowns are so common....why is everyone pointing out post pardum depression...instead of just sharing 'yea...we have ALL been there...it will pass...it will be ok...your doing a great job'