Speed blogging

Hello, Internet. It's been a while.

Here is an important thing that happened in the past six weeks:
I gave birth to a little boy. Because of Internet Privacy Paranoia, photos and name will not be published here. But here are some "fast facts:"
1. He has ten toes the size of Smurf jelly beans.
2. The top of his head smells like heaven.
3. Thank you for asking, yes, he is The Most Gorgeous Baby On The PlanetTM.

Because he is here, all blog posts shall heretofore be written in ten minutes or less. (If they are written at all, but you assumed that based on the three months radio silence. Internet silence, that is.)

Even considering every week with a newborn is a big week, as they are changing and growing by leaps and bounds, this is a big week. Today the Cat left. Those of you who know the Cat will know what kinds of mixed emotions roiled as she departed, with the kind woman who adopted her to us thirteen months ago. She'll be tested for feline leukemia virus, live with the kind woman for up to a few weeks, and hopefully be adopted to another family. (If she's not snapped up, she'll be back here after a few weeks to await adoption, as the Kind Woman is going to Mexico for a long vacation.) As clear-cut a decision as it was to send the cat away, it is still a really heart-wrenching day when you send away someone who's been living with you for a year and is soft, purrs, and is cuddly and loving at certain times a day. And never intended to do harm and has NO IDEA why am I in this crate, hey that lady looks familiar, hey where am I going, why are my treats in a bag HEY!!!!! But you know, there's the biting. The Pros and Cons list looks something like this:

PRO: Softest Cat On PlanetTM
CON: Could innocently hop into the babe's crib and smother him (I know it's unlikely, but it's not like we're about to take a chance. She likes to curl up on people's necks and practically cover their faces, so you do the math.)

PRO: Cat is very sociable, snuggly, and gives kisses.
CON: Cat attacks lower legs at least every other day--progeny will soon attain size of lower leg.

For the record, she never acted aggressive toward the babe--she licked the top of his head a few times (wouldn't we all like to), once his feet, and at other times acted completely indifferent, and did not react when MSH put his little piston-kicking feet against her kitty head. We were hemming and hawing until a week ago, when we shut the door to the nursery (the babe was NOT in it) and unwittingly shut the Cat inside. When we opened the door, she was in the crib. This is what is called a Visual Aid--it aids learning, and like that *snap!* it was time to seriously get the ball rolling. Or the cat rolling.

All this is made harder by the fact that I may have postpartum depression. We called my midwives yesterday morning and after a phone chat, they scheduled me an appointment with a counselor for tomorrow. The counselor specializes in women's issues and postpartum issues. The bad news is: I feel like shit. Seriously. I don't know how anyone is sleep-deprived for this long and isn't depressed. (It's a form of torture, after all.) The good news is: I have excellent support and medical care, and I'm addressing it promptly.

This doesn't mean I don't love my son, or that I regret that he's here. I love being this baby's mommy, and the days since he's been born have been the most meaningful and joyful of my life. I once caught myself thinking, if I die tomorrow, these weeks are what I would want to remember in the next life. This love. But being the mother of a newborn is Incredibly Challenging, and you can usually count the hours of sleep in a 24-hour period on one hand, and you forget to eat and pee and replace your maxipad and finish your sentence. And because I'm healing from a Cesarean, I can't exercise yet beyond short, easy walks (read: no yoga.) And I am brittle and sometimes have irrational thoughts and cry four times a day and I'm anxious and Overwhelmed. I feel like shit and I need help.

Even if I don't have PPD, our family needs additional support, and friends and family are stepping up to the plate gangbuster-style. That's really good news. I am being very open about this because mental illness is illness, and I wouldn't hush up about pneumonia. Our society stigmatizes mental illness and that makes it hard to get treatment, so if there's even a remote chance that by blabbing my mouth (and let's face it, I'm good at that) I might encourage someone else to seek help who might otherwise suffer silently, I gotta be loud about this.

This wouldn't be complete without saying: if you feel comfortable doing so, I need your help, too. This is a little exercise for me because: I have a hard time asking for and receiving help. (Like Sandra Bullock's character in "28 Days" who is required to wear a sign around her neck in rehab that says "Don't believe me if I say I don't need help.") At first I only called the friends who after offering help early on looked me in the eye and repeated "Seriously. Call. Me. If. You. Need. Anything." So! Help can mean a lot of things. I would love a supportive email. I've received a few already and I like to reread them. They make me feel strong.

Dammit, that was twenty minutes.