Being Human from Jennifer Twardowski

In the first few months of my son’s life he loved being swaddled. In fact, we couldn’t get him to sleep unless we took this very specific swaddle and wrapped him in just thr right way (my husband was far more skilled at that then myself). Somewhere around 2 or 3 months I grew worried about transitioning out of the swaddle when the time comes. After all, he was so reliant on it to sleep. Swaddling was an absolute must in the bedtime routine.

The day my son was born was a magical day. I describe it as a magical day for many reasons, but one very special thing in particular that stood out to me was: seeing the placenta and umbilical cord. I had seen photos of these things before so I had an idea of what they looked like, but I had never seen one right in front of me. My son and I’s placenta was fairly large and round -- so perfectly and beautifully shaped. In a weird way, I kind of wanted to keep it to have it to display.

The other day I saw an article on NPR that reported that depression rates doubled in teens between the years 2009 to 2019. Over the past year, the article stated that nearly 1 in 3 teen girls report suicidal ideation. Additionally, about 1 in 5 teens who identified as LGBTQ+ say that they have attempted suicide. The article, essentially, focuses on social media and its psychological impact on teens.

The other day I was talking with my husband about some of my observations so far about how our culture treats parenting and how that connects to what I’ve seen in my therapy work. My husband reminded me of this Portlandia sketch that had two first time parents going through all these books trying all these different methods only for them to not work. By the end of the sketch, they basically gave up trying to follow all the “methods” and just asked the kid what he wanted.

My son has turned 7 months old recently and with that he has also started to become more active. Despite moving a lot and enjoying tummy time and his play mat, he will fuss whenever he is trying to move a certain way but can’t quite do it. Sometimes he wants to roll over. Sometimes he wants to turn. Sometimes he wants to sit up.

This past week has been particularly challenging in the whole “new parent” department. My son has been getting his first tooth. Plus, he’s in a developmental stage where they recognize that mommy and daddy can leave them behind. So with that comes a lot of fussiness and — you guessed it — not a whole lot of peaceful and easy sleep. The other night I felt like I was running on fumes. It was about day 4 of lots of night wakings and fussiness as well as day 4 of a migraine.

There’s nothing wrong with you for feeling tired. There’s nothing wrong with you for moving a little slower when it’s cold outside. There’s nothing wrong with you for resting. You’re not “lazy” for feeling the need to rest. You don’t need to do more. You have nothing to prove to anyone. It’s okay to rest. Sometimes we just need to rest because our body told us to. Sometimes our bodies just feel the need to rest because the weather outside is communicating to us that it’s time to rest and recharge.

This New Years Eve day I’ve been reflecting on my experiences of this past year. Being pregnant. Giving birth. The struggles that have occurred during my first 6 months postpartum. I’ve been asked by people in passing questions of “Are you enjoying parenting?” and “Is parenting what you’ve expected it would be?” The answers have been: “Yes and it’s been really hard”, and “Yes and I wasn’t expecting feeding to be such a struggle”.

Welcome to a new section of my newsletter that I’m calling Therapy Thoughts. This section is meant to provide a little snapshot about some of the mental health-related issues that I spend time thinking about and exploring when I’m not in the therapy room. Consider this section to be a little snapshot of what a therapist might be reflecting on and thinking about in between sessions.

It is now officially rainy season here in Northern California. The leaves have all turned colors and are falling to the ground, the temperatures have cooled, and the rain has been coming down fairly frequently the last few days. It’s December. And it feels both as if it has arrived very quickly this year and also that it has taken a long time. I suppose having a baby does that to you. The days can feel really long and they can easily start to blend together due to the lack of sleep.