I had an idea: I should publish my memoir Adventures With Postpartum Depression on my blog. So that is what I am doing. If you want to start at the beginning, start with The Prologue. If you want the actual book, it’s available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor and Borrow Box.

Nathan folded his hands as the waitress walked away with our menus. “I guess we should talk about kids.”

I burst out laughing. It was Monday morning, only a day and a half since my dad had walked me down the aisle while the DJ played the theme music from Star Wars. We were now having breakfast before running errands. There had been an ongoing issue with the front lawn’s sprinklers, and Nathan did not want the grass dying while we were on our honeymoon in Maui. I was more concerned with stocking up on sunblock and procuring magazines for tomorrow’s flight.

We had gotten married in Pasadena just a few miles from our house. My body was still glowing from the sheer joy of that evening: exchanging vows while my cousin Julia officiated; dancing the “Hava Nagila” with all our family and friends; playing with the boas and top hats in the photo booth; and twirling around the brick courtyard to a Bohemian dance number that involved lots of accordions.

“We don’t need to talk about that yet.” I patted Nathan’s hand. “Let’s enjoy the honeymoon first.”

I was not trying to dodge a difficult conversation. We had already decided we wanted to have children before we even got engaged.

“It’s just that we are not getting any younger.”

“I know. I’m not saying we need to wait until our forties.” I was thirty-two. He was thirty-one. “I just think we only get to be newlyweds once, so we should enjoy this before we leap into the next big phase of our life.”

“That makes sense. I don’t want to rush you. Besides, if you change your mind and don’t want to have kids, I will support you no matter what. It’s your body. I don’t want you to feel obligated to have kids for my sake.”

“Thanks, babe.” I peeled the top off a miniature half-and-half container. “Where should we go first? Home Depot or Walmart?”

***

“So what do you want to do today?”

“I don’t know. Anything. Except the Coke museum.”

My college friend Kendall laughed. I had dragged her and several friends to the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta during college. Dartmouth required all students to attend school during the summer of their sophomore year. Most students went home for the long Fourth of July weekend, but Los Angeles was too far for a weekend trip. Kendall had convinced a bunch of us to go to her hometown instead. I was excited to visit Atlanta but had one condition: I had to go the Coke museum. Kendall had pleaded for us to do something else, anything else, explaining the museum was a big boring advertisement for the soda brand, but I could not be swayed. Sometimes we can learn only by making mistakes.

“Let’s go wine tasting.” That was Jason, Kendall’s husband, speaking. Jason and I had met our very first day of college, when we were assigned to the same pre-orientation hike in the woods.

I frowned. “They have wine tasting in Atlanta?”

“Of course,” Kendall said. “Georgia is the wine-making capital of the South.

Sometimes I am gullible. “Is that true?”

Kendall laughed. “I have no idea.”

I had flown to Atlanta for a long weekend with my college friends. Nathan had stayed home because I did not expect him to fly across the country to listen to Kendall, Jason and me reminisce about our college days. The Aires, a Dartmouth all-male a cappella group, was performing at a local school. I swear, I did not schedule my trip around a college a cappella group, but Kendall and I had some serious feelings about the Aires. Nathan would be much happier in Pasadena having breakfast at our favorite Mexican dive restaurant and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

As we drove to wine country, I sat in the back of the car with my friends’ seven-month-old baby, Annie. I made silly sounds and played peekaboo to amuse her.

Babies usually left me feeling hollow and bored. Inevitably the mother wanted me to hold her baby, and then I had to feign admiration while wondering when I could politely pass the baby back.

But not Annie. Or more accurately, she had evoked the “hot potato instinct” when I first met her, but after a few hours, I’d found myself enjoying her babbling company.

Nathan had asked about kids only once after the honeymoon. I had told him that I was not ready to get pregnant and would let him know when I was. He had assured me that I should take all the time I needed and would fully support any decision I made.

I had plenty of time to think. The job with the small firm had eventually made me even more miserable than the job with the big firm. I had resisted the idea of quitting, terrified that people would think I had waited for Nathan to propose so I could stay at home all day and eat bonbons. Nathan, though, told me repeatedly to stop worrying about what other people would think and pursue my dream of being a writer already. A few months before our wedding, I’d finally quit. Since the honeymoon, I had been working part-time from home, doing legal writing for a plaintiff’s attorney and using the rest of my time to write a novel. Lately, my life seemed to be divided into three parts: part-time creative writing, part-time legal writing, and full-time worrying about whether I truly wanted to have a baby.

When I asked myself if I wanted to have a baby, my inner self jumped up and down and screamed, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” My lawyer brain thought that was too easy. Surely such a momentous decision required a little more thought.

And so I thought. I read all the books I could find that addressed the weighty matter of choosing to be a mother or not. Then I wrote, pondered, and reflected in my journal. Between my history major and legal career, I knew how to weigh and analyze evidence, but those skills were not helping me answer the question at hand. How would I ever know that I absolutely wanted to be a mother?

The Atlanta visit was a nice vacation from that nagging question.

One afternoon, we stopped by the grocery store, where I pushed Annie around in a shopping cart. I stopped in the produce section and dramatically picked up a pineapple. Her eyes widened in wonder.

Jason drove me to the airport for my flight home. One last time, I sat in the back with Annie. Before I left, I kissed her forehead and whispered, “Good-bye, Annie. I love you.” I had not planned on saying that but realized as I spoke the words that they were true.

I had my answer.

Except that answer gave rise to yet another question.

***

The hummingbird perched on the stick. I raised it a few inches off the ground into the air. It started to flap its wings.

“That’s it, little guy, you’ve got this.”

It hovered in the air for a few seconds and then crashed back onto the grass.

“That’s okay, maybe you need a little more rest and nectar.”

An hour ago, I had discovered the hummingbird lying on the sidewalk in front of my house. I assumed it was dead but, upon closer examination, discovered its chest was moving. A quick internet search suggested the hummingbird had fallen from its nest and was now stunned. It would need nectar before it could possibly fly again.

I had raced to the hardware store and procured a hummingbird feeder and a gallon of red nectar.

My neighbor Alice pulled into her driveway.

“What are you doing?”

“I found this hummingbird.

She gasped. “Oh! It’s so tiny and perfect.”

“I think it must have been trying to fly a little too early.”

“Poor baby.”

Alice dropped her purse and settled on to the sidewalk next to me. We had been neighbors for over a year now, and Alice often updated me on her pregnancy status. It amazed me how easily Alice spoke of her struggles with infertility. She was a breath of fresh air, but at the same time, her honesty made me squirm. Since she wanted to talk about pregnancy tests and IVF, her very presence made me think about babies.

Nathan and I had been married for eight months now. Ever since I had returned from Atlanta a month ago, I knew I wanted to have a baby, but now I was struggling with another dilemma: Should I be a mother? It did not seem fair to bring a baby into this world unless I would be a good mama.

Nathan got home a little before twilight. He made a nest at the edge of our garage, and I transferred the bird to its evening quarters. We went inside for dinner and Mario Kart. Every twenty minutes or so, I paused the game and went back outside to whisper reassurances to the hummingbird and offer it another sip of nectar.

The hummingbird survived the night and even managed to flop itself eight or nine feet away from the garage. I found the contact information for a hummingbird expert in Hollywood, and she told me to take the bird to the Humane Society. There was legal research that needed my attention, but this was more urgent.

A couple of days later, I called the Humane Society to see how the bird was faring. It had peeped on the drive over in its little shoe box bed. I knew it was going to be fine. I provided the case reference number and waited as the volunteer tapped it out on a keyboard.

“It died yesterday.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

I hung up the phone.

Lowered my head into my hands.

And wept.

When I’d first quit the small firm, I’d started writing a fluffy comic novel about a disastrous wedding. After a few months of writing, it morphed into a more serious story about a woman whose twin brother died in college. My grief over Kim’s death had finally found a way to bubble to the surface. By writing about a fictional character’s loss and how it affected her, I was able to come to terms with my own feelings.

As I wept for the hummingbird, I also cried for my cousin. My tears were not enough to cure my anxious tendencies. The anxiety was far too deeply embedded in my body, mind, and soul to be so easily resolved. But I did cry enough to answer the question of whether or not I would be a good mother. At least, that was what I thought was happening: that I truly needed proof that I would be a good mother and the fact that I could feel so much love for a hummingbird was the proof I sought.

What was actually happening, I realized later, was a little more complicated. The questions of whether I would be a good mother and whether I actually wanted to have a baby were delay tactics. So long as we weren’t trying to get pregnant, whether or not we had a child was in my control. As soon as we started trying, I opened myself up to the possible pain of infertility, miscarriage, premature delivery, and a baby with health issues. I lost absolute control. That was terrifying.

Something about the hummingbird’s death took away that terror. Less than a week later, Nathan and I started trying to have a baby of our own.

***

My general physician scribbled some notes on my chart. “I’d like to get an X-ray before I order physical therapy,” she said.

I had hurt my back while testing beach chairs at the drugstore. The pain had subsided after a couple of weeks of painkillers and heating pads, but after a cross-country flight, it had flared up again.

“Sounds good,” I said. “Oh, by the way, we’ve been trying to get pregnant.”

My period had come and gone three times since we started trying and was due again in a few more days. I assumed that since I knew so many women who suffered from infertility, I would struggle with it as well. At a recent checkup, though, my obstetrician had said we should try for a year before worrying about that.

“I don’t want to give you an X-ray if you are pregnant, so let’s do a urine test.”

I peed into a cup, certain that I would be getting an X-ray in ten minutes. Back in the examination room, I flipped through magazines and berated my heart for daring to beat a little faster.

A nurse opened the door. Avoiding eye contact, she said, “The doctor will be with you shortly.”

My heart sank. At least Nathan had promised I could have a herd of dachshunds if we could not have children.

The door opened again. This time it was the doctor, smiling as if she had won the lottery. She was waving something around in her hand, but for a moment, I could not process what it was.

Yellow.

Square.

Paper.

A yellow sticky note. It was a yellow sticky note.

And what was that scrawled on the sticky note?

Was that . . . ?

Could it be . . . ?

A plus sign?

I jumped to my feet.

“I’m pregnant?!”

“Congratulations!”

The doctor’s phlebotomist drew my blood to confirm the urine test.

“This is so perfect.” I had never been so happy to let someone stab me with a needle. “I wanted to get pregnant after a year of marriage and our anniversary is next week.”

“Ooh, you should wait until your anniversary to tell your husband, and then you can surprise him with a onesie for his favorite sports team.”

“That’s a great idea.”

As soon as I stepped out of the building, I called Nathan. There was no way I could wait a week to share the news.

***

“Wake up, baby!”

The image on the ultrasound screen stayed in the same place.

The doctor, a man in his sixties with a Caribbean accent, wiggled my stomach around with the ultrasound scanner. He was an obstetrician who specialized in ultrasounds. My regular obstetrician did not have any concerns about my baby, but she sent all her patients here during the second trimester.

Nathan had been excited when I called him with the news that I was pregnant. My excitement soon morphed into another feeling: awe. I had to drive home from the doctor’s office and realized I was no longer driving for one. If something happened to me, it would also happen to my baby.

My parents were on vacation in New York when I learned I was pregnant. My sister, who is ten years younger than me, was also in New York, studying art business. I decided to surprise them with the big news when they were back in California and ordered mugs that said “World’s Best Grandpa,” “World’s Best Grandma” and “Best Aunt Ever.”

I gave them the mugs on a Sunday in early August. I was seven weeks pregnant, and my mom nearly fainted when she realized what her gift meant. Everyone was so excited, we decided we had to call my brother Matt and sister-in-law Sara right away. No one bothered to calculate the time difference between Los Angeles and South Africa. Let’s just say that my brother was less than thrilled when I woke him in the middle of the night. (Even Peace Corps volunteers get cranky.)

“Your baby,” the specialist said, “do you want to know the sex?”

“She’s a girl.” During the first trimester, I had gotten an expensive blood test called the Ashkenazi Jewish panel because my mom is Jewish. It was a genetic test to rule out recessive disorders like cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs that are common among the Ashkenazi Jewish people. Insurance did not cover the test, so to make the $800 bill more palatable, my obstetrician made sure the test results included the baby’s sex.

“She is indeed. She does not want to wake up.”

“I didn’t realize babies sleep inside the uterus.”

“Oh yes, they sleep, and your baby seems very determined to stay asleep in this position so I can’t check her measurements.”

“That’s okay. I just like getting to see her.” Though I had no idea what I was actually seeing on the ultrasound screen.

As if reading my mind, the doctor pointed at the grainy blob. “This is her head.”

“Her head.”

“These are her hands.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“Come on, baby, wake up.” More jiggling.

“Do all babies do this?”

“Babies often get into the wrong position, but your baby is taking longer than usual to wake up.”

“Is that bad?”

“Bad?” The doctor chuckled. “She’s stubborn. Like my daughter. Which is good when she is a woman, but not so easy on the parents. Ah, there she goes.”

I felt awful—nauseated, constipated, and the pain in my back would not subside—but as the doctor measured my daughter’s limbs, all those crappy feelings faded away. I was going to be a mom! That grainy blob on the screen was my baby!

Besides, the first trimester was nearly over. Surely my hormones had done their worst. From here on out, it would be easy street.

My hormones, though, were just getting started.

Chapter Four is here. ! But if you prefer reading the proper book, Adventures With Postpartum Depression is available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor and Borrow Box.

I had an idea: I should publish my memoir on my blog. So that is what I am doing. If you want to start at the beginning, start with The Prologue. If you want the actual book, it’s available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor and Borrow Box.

“So you guys have season tickets?” I asked.

“Yes, we got them last year.” Nathan jumped to his feet. “What’s the flag for?! He wasn’t offside!” He sat back down and leaned closer to me. “When a player is offside, it means—”

“You can’t kick the ball to the guy playing offense if there’s no one from the other team between him and the goalie.”

“That’s right,” he said, turning to make eye contact. “I’m impressed.”

“I played soccer as a kid. Until eleventh grade.”

“Why did you stop?”

“I thought four AP classes and being editor of the lit mag would look better on college applications. When did you start playing soccer?”

“I never played. We didn’t have soccer in my town.”

Teddy had mentioned that Nathan grew up in rural Nebraska, but it had never occurred to me that a town could be too small for soccer.

We were not on a date. I was merely attending a soccer game with Nathan, his best friend Sean and my friend Teddy. Teddy and I had become friends during our first semester of law school when we bonded over a plate of french fries and a discussion of the cute boys in our section. This was her latest attempt to play matchmaker and end my dating drought, which was now on par with an Old Testament–style Egyptian famine.

Teddy had actually been trying to arrange this meeting for the past year and a half, ever since Nathan started working at her firm. She was a busy lawyer, Nathan was a busy lawyer, and I was a busy lawyer. Aligning our schedules was near impossible, especially since we all lived in different parts of Los Angeles County. During the time that Teddy had tried to arrange a date, Sean told Nathan, “If it turns out you guys actually are soul mates, you are going to be pissed that you missed out on having all this time together.”

But when I look back at it now, I’m not pissed. I’m grateful. If we had met any sooner, I would have subconsciously sabotaged any chance at a serious relationship. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to find my soul mate, fall in love, and live happily ever after. Emotionally, though, I was not ready.

That’s why I was giving therapy another go, this time with a licensed clinical social worker named Sheila. In college, my hypochondria had been glaring enough for me to realize that I might benefit from a little therapy, but I had only dipped my toes into the tide pools of my issues. A couple of years after law school, my failure to ever venture beyond a second date had made me so desperate, I was willing to wade into the surf and splash around with my feelings. Now, after more than a year of talking about all of the reasons I avoided dating—my anxiety, fears of rejection, and avoidance of messy feelings—I was watching a soccer match with a man my friend insisted I was going to marry.

He wasn’t my type.

The four of us—Teddy, Nathan, Sean, and I—had met for dinner beforehand. As soon as I saw Nathan, I knew it would never work: I preferred my guys tall and lanky; Nathan was tall but built for football. At least I would get to cross “attend a professional soccer match” off my bucket list.

It seemed pointless to make conversation, but Teddy was paying attention and would ream me if I spent the entire game sulking. Also, I had told Sheila about this set-up, and she would want to hear what happened.

Under Sheila’s tutelage, I had ventured into the world of online dating. According to her, going on dates signaled to the universe that I was ready and willing to meet the right guy. More than a dozen times, I had exchanged witty emails with a guy who seemed promising online, but then, we would meet for coffee or drinks and the potential would fizzle. I was starting to feel like maybe my fear of rejection was winning. Maybe I had met Prince Charming a dozen times but convinced myself the chemistry was missing so I could stay home and knit another scarf. Knitting never made me cry.

“So . . .” I took a big sip of my soda. “I hear the Galaxy signed Beckham.”

“Yeah, he starts next week.”

“Do you think he’ll be a good thing for the team?”

“He better be, for all the money we are paying him.”

“Isn’t he one of the greatest players?”

“Was. He’s old now. He and Victoria probably just want to hobnob with all the Hollywood stars.”

“That’s right, he married a Spice Girl. I nearly got expelled over an incident involving a Spice Girl act in our high school talent show.”

Nathan turned away from the game. “This I have to hear.”

I was on student council and in charge of the activities that created school spirit. My friends wanted to dance to the song ‘Wannabe’ and I didn’t make them audition. They were, of course, the grand finale. Some girls from a junior high school were visiting and watching from the back of the auditorium. My friends danced the way people danced.

I could feel myself getting angry at the memory. “It’s not like they were doing a strip tease but they were moving their hips, and the dean of students was scandalized.”

“Why? Did the guys get rowdy?”

“I went to an all-girls Catholic school.”

“Oh, so you were supposed to be prudish and virginal?”

“Exactly.”

As I continued the tale of how the dean thought I had ruined the school’s reputation, Nathan listened intently, ignoring the game on the field. This was refreshing. Every time I had gone on a date, the guy had just wanted to blather on about himself. Nathan and I were actually having a conversation.

While Nathan was distracted by Sean, Teddy whispered, “So? It’s going well?”

I blushed. Was it going well? I had never had such an easy time talking to a guy, but that was probably because Nathan wasn’t my type. I didn’t feel any pressure to flirt. Still, I liked the way I felt sitting next to him. I could so easily lean against him . . . But no, Teddy was just an overeager matchmaker. Nathan and I did not have that essential “spark.”

During the second half, a few players started elbowing each other as they scrambled for the ball.

“Woo hoo hoo.” Nathan clapped. “Things are getting chippy now.”

“‘Chippy’? What does that mean?”

“It means the players are getting a bit belligerent.”

“Huh.” I dunked a chip into fluorescent nacho cheese. “‘Chippy’ is such a fun, cheerful word. It should mean something good.”

“Yes, like, ‘This ice cream is very chippy.’”

“Exactly!”

We had our first in-joke.

A blob of the luminescent cheese dripped onto the cuff of my grey sweater.

Nathan pointed. “That stuff is probably toxic. You’ll have to burn the sweater.”

“Then you shouldn’t have spilled the cheese all over me.”

“Me?” Nathan feigned shock. “That was all you!”

“I’m sure you caused some sort of disturbance in the atmosphere that caused me to drip it on my sleeve.”

“So you admit it was you!”

What was happening? It was as if we were flint and steel, striking against each other, creating a shower of sparks. If this soccer match lasted much longer, a flame was going to ignite.

***

“This is Guitar Hero,” Nathan said.

“The guitar is the controller?”

“Pretty awesome, right?”

“Suuuuuure.” In college, one of my friends had had the original NES system with all my favorite childhood games. We spent as many Saturday nights playing Super Mario Bros. 3 as we did going to frat parties (probably more). The new video games, however, seemed too testosterone-driven for my taste. I avoided them at all costs, but Nathan and I had been dating for about two months now, and it was becoming more and more clear that Teddy was right. This man was my soulmate. For Nathan’s sake, I was willing to feign a little excitement as he jammed colored buttons in time with the colors flashing on the screen.

He handed me the big plastic guitar and showed me how to position my fingers. I sighed. How long did I have to pretend I liked this game before I could propose an ice cream outing?

The song started. The screen lit up with colorful circles and I pushed a button. My fingers were nimble on a keyboard when I was composing angry missives to opposing counsel and tapping out emails on my Blackberry, but now they felt slow and awkward.

“Don’t pay attention to the score,” Nathan said. “I was even worse my first time.”

“How can I pay attention to the score when I can’t even pay attention to the song?”

“Stop talking, just play. You’ve got this.”

I kept jamming the buttons, praying the song would end, but then I got into the groove. My head bobbed along with the music, and I got lost in the game.

I had forgotten how much I loved to play.

In my last year of college, when my anxiety was bursting to the surface through bouts of hypochondria, I still had fun. My friends and I went to bowling alleys and truck-stop diners; played whiffle ball, Frisbee, and board games; and went sledding on the golf course at midnight, wearing trash bags and flinging ourselves down the hill.

During law school, though, I forgot to have fun. Instead of hypochondria, I channeled my anxiety into studying and getting the best grades possible. When I took a study break, it was to watch a movie or log a few miles on the treadmill—relaxing, perhaps, but not the sort of fun I’d had in New Hampshire.

The song finished. I sat for a moment, savoring the tingling feeling in my chest, arms, and neck.

“What did you think?”

I leaned toward Nathan and gave him a kiss. “Can I play one more song?”

“Of course!”

***

One Tuesday morning in July, Nathan casually suggested a trip to our favorite botanical gardens. We had been dating for two years and fifty-one weeks. (Nathan gets defensive if I round up to three years.)

“Ooh, yes. The gardens are open until eight. You know I’ve been wanting to go.”

When I got home from work, it was a balmy ninety degrees in Pasadena. I assumed we would scrap the garden outing for something involving air-conditioning, but Nathan was still dressed nicely in his work clothes and eager to go.

An accident had turned the freeway into a parking lot. I touched my palm against the hot window. “Maybe we should go another night.”

Nathan gunned the car toward the off-ramp. “We can take surface streets!”

I leaned back and hummed along to the music. Life was good. A couple of months earlier, I had quit my job with a big law firm (about seven hundred lawyers throughout the country) and joined a firm of less than a dozen attorneys. I was willing to accept the smaller salary for a better quality of life. I still had my apartment in Brentwood but almost never went there. My mail was forwarded to Nathan’s house in Pasadena, and I had told my landlord that he could use my apartment to practice his electric guitar. It was a win-win: his wife got some peace and quiet; and I did not have to worry that vagrants had turned my apartment into a meth lab.

My car’s fuel light clicked on a few miles away from the garden.

“Oops, I forgot about that.” My stomach rumbled. “Maybe we should get gas and dinner.”

Nathan gritted his teeth. “We can get gas after the garden.”

I thought Nathan’s resolve to get to the garden was a bit out-of-character. He was the sort of guy who wanted to watch television and maybe float in the pool after work. I, however, did not pursue the thought for more than a second. Maybe my subconscious was trying to keep the rest of me in the dark so I could be surprised by what was about to happen.

The garden was unusually busy. Kids were screaming and running around as a band played music on the main lawn.

Nathan seemed concerned. “I had no idea it would be so crowded. I wonder if we can find anywhere private.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I clasped his hand in mine. “I just love being here.”

We walked over an orange bridge in the Japanese gardens. As we climbed up a steep hill in a wooded area, the din of the children’s concert faded to silence. We had the back half of the garden all to ourselves.

“I love this place,” I said, “it’s so magical.”

For the most part, our relationship was easy. I once knew a couple who took unicycle lessons together because they had nothing in common. Nathan and I did not need unicycle lessons. If anything, we enjoyed too many of the same activities, from wine tasting in Santa Barbara to gardening at home.

We loved to make each other happy. I cooked Nathan’s favorite meals and listened to his complaints about the Huskers. (My next book should be called So You Married A Nebraskan: How To Be A Supportive Wife During College Football Season.) Nathan was willing to try any restaurant that struck my fancy (unless it was sushi) and fully supported my move to the small firm.

We had talked about the future (usually while floating around the backyard pool) and knew we wanted to spend our lives together. Marriage, though, was still an open issue. I had been ready to get married since our first anniversary of dating. Nathan was moving a little more slowly on that front. I thought I was fine waiting, but one month ago, I had started crying hysterically while getting ready for work and ended up in Nathan’s lap, arms around his neck, sobbing that I could not take the uncertainty anymore. Nathan had already made up his mind to propose and had no idea I thought we might not get married.

Walking around the garden, I was no longer worried about our future. Crying on Nathan’s lap had made me feel a lot better. If Nathan needed a little more time to get his mind around the commitment of marriage, I could wait. He was certainly worth it.

Nathan steered me toward a spot that overlooked acres and acres of forest and, beyond that, the mountains. Looking back, I can see he was a little nervous, but at that moment, I was too content to think anything of it. He took my hand in his and started talking.

“Courtney, the past three years have been wonderful. You make me a better man. You are so sweet and beautiful but so strong. I never thought it was possible to find such an amazing woman.”

I smiled and nodded, touched but utterly oblivious to what was about to happen.

Nathan got down on one knee.

“Courtney, I can’t imagine living my life without you. Will you marry me?”

For a few seconds, I was speechless. Of course my answer was yes . I did not have to think about that, but I seemed to have lost the ability to speak. When I finally could, I stammered,“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes! Yes, yes, of course, yes!”

Standing over the gardens, I felt as if I had reached my “happily ever after.” The second round of therapy with Sheila had surely resolved all my issues. From here on out, with Nathan at my side, everything would be easy.

My adventures, though, had not even started.

You can continue reading Chapter Three right here. Or just buy the damn book already on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor and Borrow Box.

Is the pandemic over? Fuck if I know.

Will the 2021-22 school year be normal? Fuck if I know.

Is California done with shutdowns? Fuck. If. I. Know.

But I do know one thing: I am ready to heal from the pandemic, even if there is more trauma ahead. So how the hell do I do that?

Spoiler alert: I don’t know. It’s not like I can go to the library and check out Pandemic Healing for Dummies or The Idiot’s Guide to Healing After A Year Of Soul-Crushing Distance Learning.

However, I know that my first step to healing is simple:

• Pay Attention, and
• Get Super Curious About My Need to Heal

I first encountered this concept in The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. To be honest, when I first read about it, it struck me as total bullshit. But then I started applying the idea to various issues in my life, especially my bad habit of screaming at my kids, and I noticed profound, lasting challenge. Paying Attention and Being Curious is the tool I return to again and again. It’s the tool I’m going to use all summer to heal from the pandemic.

I do not know exactly how my healing journey will progress. I imagine that what feels right now in mid-June will be different from what feels right in early July, mid July, late July, etc. But these are my initial thoughts on healing:

• Fun and Play: Having fun and playing are essential to my mental health. I suspect they will be essential to my healing from the pandemic as well. I love bowling and video games, so this summer is going to involve a lot of bowling and Chuck E. Cheese outings with my kids. For more thoughts on fun, check out the May 31, 2021 episode on Glennon Doyle’s podcast We Can Do Hard Things.
• Go to Different Places: When I get into a rut and keep going to the same places, my soul gets into a rut as well. I get bored and feel depression creeping into my soul. This summer, I aim to visit a mix of places that were closed during the pandemic and places totally new to me and my kids. Maybe I will even take some solo field trips. Yes, I think that’s a grand idea!
• The Pool: we have a pool. Water is therapeutic. I am going to use the pool an ass shit ton.
• Getting Outside, Especially Into Nature: Pasadena gets Hot AF, but being outside makes me feel like a better human. Hello, beach days!
• Lavish Self-Care: This past weekend, I got my first massage since February 2020 and it was fucking glorious. I need more of that glory. Also I want a facial! Now that I’m vaccinated, I am excited to have someone hover above my face and poke at my pores.
• Declutter: I just love getting unnecessary shit out of the house. It’s so cathartic but I didn’t keep up with our decluttering the past 15 months because I prioritized my writing. I’m glad I prioritized my writing but now I’m aching to prioritize decluttering. In fact, I want to abandon these show notes right now and declutter some shit, but I love you, so I’m going to finish the show notes, m’kay?
• Crafting: J’aime crafting. For me, it’s a form of play.
• Humor! Spoiler alert: All the TikTok.
• Projects: Because I love projects. But also, I want to keep them manageable. There’s a fine line between “yay, projects!” and “fuck, this project is stressing me out!” I’m pondering a few projects, especially visiting all our branch libraries. Nothing big. Small and slow feels good.
• Exercise: Exercise makes me feel alive! But also, I want to be gentle with myself this summer. I’m aiming to do a bunch of Obe classes when possible while releasing my goal of walking 12,000 steps/day. With the summer heat and Julian’s short preschool camp days, it’s just not realistic.

Okay, now I can go do some decluttering! [insert evil laugh as I head for the toy closet]

I had an idea: I should publish my memoir on my blog. So that is what I am doing. If you want to start at the beginning, start with The Prologue. If you want the actual book, it’s available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor and Borrow Box.

“You have a cold,” the doctor said.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. But.”

The doctor flipped through my file. I waited for the death sentence. Cancer? A tumor? Something too exotic to diagnose?

“You seem to come here for a lot of minor complaints. Colds. Headaches. Food poisoning. A spider bite.”

It had been an impressive spider bite. A circle of skin on my left calf had turned pink and warm to the touch and swelled up to a diameter of at least two inches. My skin had never reacted so violently to a bug bite. I’d had to show the bite to a doctor just in case.

The doctor snapped my file shut. “I think you should see a therapist. Your student insurance covers ten visits.”

Therapy? Me? What if my friends found out?

Therapy was for bored housewives and people who could not get their shit together. I did not fall into either category. I was an Ivy League student, writing a senior thesis about the publication of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and headed to law school next year. I barely ever cried.

Clearly, though, I was doing something wrong if this doctor thought I needed to talk to a therapist. “Okay,” I said as he handed me a sheet of paper with information about the college’s mental health services. I felt like I should say something more to convince him that I was a normal, successful student who rose above her emotions, but the words got stuck in my throat.

Maybe I could use therapy to learn the right way to act so no one would ever again think my feelings were getting the better of me.

***

My new therapist ushered me into his office. He seemed old—in his early thirties, at the very least—and was wearing glasses, a white lab coat, and grey slacks. The blinds were drawn.
I sat down on a chair on the other side of the room and took note of the large box of tissues on a nearby table. Hopefully I would never need them.

“So why are you here?”

“One of the doctors suggested it. He said I’ve been coming to the student medical center too often.”

“Do you think you’ve been coming too often?”

“All my friends think I’m a hypochondriac, so maybe.”

“What do you hope to accomplish in therapy?”

“I want to stop acting like a hypochondriac.”

“Why?”

“Because hypochondriacs are weak and pathetic. People laugh at them.”

What I meant was that I thought hypochondriacs were weak and pathetic. I thought feelings were silly and degrading.

I have tried to understand where and how this aversion to feelings started.

Maybe I learned it from the movies. I watched a lot of Star Wars and Indiana Jones growing up. The heroes almost never took a moment to linger on unpleasant feelings. If someone important died, they got sad for 2.3 seconds before throwing back their shoulders and facing the next attack from Darth Vader or Nazis.

Maybe I gleaned it from books. I favored big fantasy adventures like The Lord of the Rings and just like the movies, those stories did not dwell on messy feelings like sorrow and loneliness. Even if a character cried, I only had to flip through a couple of pages to get back to the adventure. The message I internalized about life was that emotions deserved very little attention from a heroic character.

Then again, maybe my overdeveloped sense of independence contributed to the way I avoided crying. From an early age, I wanted to be able to do things all by myself. In preschool, I learned how to read. In kindergarten, my mom gave me Ramona and Her Father, a book with chapters and almost no pictures. We sat down on the couch and started to read the book together, but after a few paragraphs, I pulled the book away, insisting I was going to read it by myself. The girl who wanted to read by herself would have loathed asking her parents to help her navigate messy feelings. I had to handle my emotions alone.

Except I did not like the way I felt when I was sad, lonely, embarrassed, or rejected. I learned to shove those feelings away. It was better to listen to some cheerful music and do my homework than to let myself cry when I was dumped two days after my first kiss or when I found out my friends had dressed up in their fanciest clothes and had “prom” at a diner without me.

Whatever the reason, by the time I was in the office of my first therapist, I was determined to be strong and rise above any ugly feelings that might try to ruin my day. Even if that meant acting like everything was fine when my eldest cousin died.

***

After several sessions, the therapist observed that my medical complaints had started during the spring of my freshman year.

“I guess so.”

“Did anything happen before the spring that might have triggered your fear of dying?”

“Um,” I thought out loud. “I don’t think so.”

The therapist waited.

“My cousin Kim died.”

“Tell me about that.”

I took a deep breath. I had barely spoken of Kim’s death since it had happened. “It was January. I was a freshman. I saw Kim for the last time ever on Christmas Eve . . .”

On my dad’s side of the family, I was the fifth of sixteen grandchildren. Three of my cousins lived in Michigan, but the rest of us were born and raised in Los Angeles. Family gatherings, from barbeques to baptisms, were frequent and crowded with cousins. Christmas Eve was the most important. Since before I was born, everyone had always celebrated Christmas Eve at my Uncle Phil and Aunt Berta’s house. Aunt Berta made lasagna, there was this amazing pink Cool Whip “casserole,” and the house was crowded with about thirty cousins, aunts, uncles and family friends.

“Kim was sick. But not sick like she was going to die. More like sick because she had had the flu for a week.”

I was hanging out with my cousins Emily and Julie on a couch near the Christmas tree. As kids, we had played tag in the backyard with our brothers. When we felt too old for tag, we played poker with pennies and nickels. Now that we were in college, we just liked to sit and gossip. Emily, Julie, and I had gone to the same all-girls Catholic high school and our classmates were always up to something amusing.

Kim came into the living room. She was thirty-one, and I was not quite nineteen. Despite all the family gatherings, I did not know her very well. I had been the sort of kid who wanted to hang out with other kids. I was not interested in grownup lives, and with our age difference, Kim always seemed like an adult to me. I assumed I would get to know her better when I was older myself and we had boring grownup stuff, like mortgages and grocery lists, in common.

Kim was helping her mom get dinner ready. We chatted while she snapped open a tablecloth and smoothed it over a folding table.

“How are the college girls doing? Anyone have a boyfriend?”

“We bantered, and Kim coughed into her arm.

I winced sympathetically. “I heard you had the flu.”

“Had?” Kim laughed. “Try the present tense. This has been the longest flu of my life.”

“Christmas Eve with the flu must be fun.”

“Oh, it’s fantastic.” Kim smiled. “But it’s worth it. This is the first year that Timmy kind of understands what is going on.”

At two and a half, Kim’s son was the baby of the family.

“Then what happened?” My therapist dragged me back to the present day.

“That was the last time I ever talked to her. A couple of days later, she was hospitalized. I wanted to visit but my parents vetoed that idea. But the doctors discharged her and said she was doing better. I came back to Dartmouth for the winter quarter. I forgot about Kim being sick…”

I started to cry and reached for the tissues. I had rarely cried in front of anyone. Hell, I had barely ever cried in solitude.

My parents had called my dorm room on a Sunday morning, waking me up. Kim was gone, they said, she had died the day before, in her sleep. I remember crumpling forward into an origami position of shock—elbows on knees, head in hands, legs numb.

“But the doctors said she was fine. They discharged her from the hospital.”

“I know.” In the background, I thought I could hear my dad crying. He had been only thirteen years old when Kim was born and made him an uncle.

I sobbed so hard, my chest hurt. My roommate got out of bed and hugged me from behind.

“Can I come home for the funeral?”

“Of course. Dad already called the airline. There’s a flight that leaves Boston this afternoon. Can you get packed in time to catch the eleven o’clock mini coach?”

I disentangled myself from my roommate’s hug and forced myself to stop crying as I talked travel logistics with my parents. Then I got in the shower and sobbed alone. I was in brand-new emotional territory. My great-grandmother had died when I was seven; my childhood dog had been put to sleep shortly before my senior year of high school; and that was it. I was not prepared to deal with death, not when I was in New Hampshire, far from my home in Los Angeles, in front of friends I had known for less than four months. Especially not with my lifelong aversion to crappy feelings.

I did not cry for Kim again—not even during the funeral. But now, in my therapist’s office, I found I was crying and in need of the box of tissues. For a moment, my chest felt lighter, as if a darkness were leaving my body, but then my brain got involved and resisted the rush of emotions.

I sniffled and pulled myself back together.

“Sorry about that.”

The therapist shrugged. “That’s fine.”

I was horrified with myself. If I had to be a person who did therapy, at least I could be the sort of person who smiled and acted fine during said therapy.

By our next appointment, I had everything figured out and explained it all to my therapist. “I’ve been acting like a hypochondriac because Kim died suddenly and unexpectedly.”

“Oh?”

“She had been taking diet pills that damaged her heart. Fen-phen.” Kim died in January 1997. Less than a year later, the Food and Drug Administration pulled fen-phen off the market. “But at the time she died, we had no idea why she had been sick, so I became anxious that I too might collapse and die without warning. That’s why I’ve been running to the student center for every medical symptom.”

The therapist nodded and tapped his pen against a clipboard. I remember how smug I felt, coming to that conclusion about my anxiety. My conclusion, however, was just a rushed and amateurish attempt at concocting a psychological explanation to put a bandage on the emotional equivalent of a severed limb.

“The next time I get stressed about a medical symptom, I just need to remind myself that I’m being a hypochondriac. Then I can talk myself off the ledge.”

The therapist tapped his pen even faster against the clipboard.

“So I don’t need any more therapy. I’ve resolved my issues. I’m cured.”

With a completely neutral tone of voice, the therapist said, “You think you have resolved all your issues?”

“Yes. Now that I know what is happening, I can control it.”

If I had known the problems my hypochondria would create after I had my first child, I might have been willing to invest a little more time in therapy. Then again, I would never have believed how badly my efforts to conceal my hypochondria would backfire.

Continue reading Chapter Two right here. Or just get the entire book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor and Borrow Box.

I had an idea: I should publish my memoir on my blog. So that is what I am doing. If you want to start at the beginning, you have come to the right place! If you want the actual book, it’s available now on Amazon. I am planning to release it over the summer on other platforms but that’s aspirational. #MomLife.

If I raised my arms in the air and threw Pippa as hard as I could against the hardwood floor, her skull would crack open and her brains would splatter all over the floor.

I gasped and held Pippa closer to me, as if the very thought of throwing her could rip her from my arms. Why did this keep happening? I loved my daughter.

Didn’t I?

What a silly question. Of course I loved Pippa. I had loved her since the moment I learned I was pregnant.

Then why did I keep thinking about throwing her against the floor with all my strength? Why did I keep seeing images of her brains splattered across the room? And why was it getting harder and harder to push the dark thoughts away?

I collapsed on the pink glider in the nursery and patted Pippa’s back. “It’s okay. It’s okay, baby girl, it’s okay.”

Pippa continued wailing. Though it did no good, I kept patting. Maybe she just had an epic burp stuck in her little tummy. I could never tell when she was cranky and when she was just gassy. All her cries sounded the same: loud.

Maybe it wasn’t a burp. What if one of my hairs was wrapped around one of Pippa’s tiny toes and cutting off circulation? I had seen an article about that on Facebook. A baby cried and cried and her mother had no idea that one of her hairs had gotten tangled around a toe and by the time she noticed, it was too late. The toe had to be amputated.

I put Pippa on the changing table and bent over her hands. She was shrieking now, but I had to act quickly before it was too late. I checked her fingers and toes. No errant hairs. I checked them again. Still none. Pippa was wailing, but I could not stop. I checked her thighs, her forearms, her neck. Part of me felt like I was losing my mind, but the other part of me did not care.

I had to know.

I thought I was being extra-vigilant. My baby was only four months old. Anything could hurt her. Anything could kill her. Surely all new mothers took these sorts of precautions.

I was wrong, though. I was not being extra-vigilant to keep my baby safe. Of course, I wanted her to be safe and healthy, but that was not the reason I was checking for anything that might pose a threat to her safety.

I was checking to make myself feel better.

Most of the time, I vibrated and buzzed with anxiety. A ticker tape of worries constantly ran through my mind. My shoulders ached as if I were carrying around extra weight. My stomach twisted and groaned. The blood in my body seemed to be rushing faster than usual through my arteries and veins.

Except when I was checking. When I was examining Pippa’s body for stray hairs, or crouching down to check that the stovetop burners were lit, or unlocking and relocking the front door a dozen times in a row, I calmed down. For those brief moments that I was checking something, my body felt still and calm. I felt like myself.

Finally satisfied that a hair was not cutting off circulation to one of Pippa’s fingers or toes, I picked her up and tried to soothe her again. Her screams got louder. She was going to scream and scream forever and ever and nothing would make it stop unless I threw her as hard as I could—

No no no! I pushed the image out of my mind but too late. I had already glimpsed the horror of Pippa’s skull cracked open and felt the relief of imaginary silence.

I was a monster.

I blinked away tears and patted Pippa’s back, counting to one hundred and then back down to zero.

“It must be the insomnia. The insomnia had started a month ago. I could sleep only three hours at night. The rest of the night, I lay awake in bed, my skin crawling from the constant buzzing of nerves, my mind refusing to slow down. I wanted so desperately to sleep, but my body seemed to have lost the ability to perform that most basic of functions.

If I could stay strong for just a few more days, surely the insomnia would end and I would become the mom Pippa deserved.

Who was I kidding? The insomnia was never going to end. I had given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl but now my body was broken, shattered into a thousand pieces. No one could ever put me back together.

Thank God, I was wrong about that too.

***

A few days later, I finally made an appointment with my doctor. She told me that the dark thoughts, the compulsive checking and the sleepless nights was not something that all new mothers experienced. She gave me a diagnosis – postpartum depression – and asked me to admit myself to the hospital for psychiatric care. I agreed and in less than seventy-two hours, I felt like a new person, a phoenix risen from the ashes.

After four days in the hospital, I was ready to reclaim my life. I worked with a cognitive behavioral psychologist to dismantle my anxiety and confront the traumatic parts of my illness. Within a few months of my hospitalization, my psychologist and I decided I had made a full recovery from postpartum depression.

But I was not done.

For almost my entire life, I had forced myself to live within narrow parameters that I thought would make me successful, like studying hard, going to law school, and working at big law firms, but the things that were supposed to make me feel happy made me miserable. Looking back, I know now that my sensitivity to hormonal fluctuations all but guaranteed that I would experience postpartum[…]”

“Looking back, I know now that my sensitivity to hormonal fluctuations all but guaranteed that I would experience postpartum depression. The way I had been living my life, however, turned an illness into a crisis.

During my recovery, I did some intensive soul-searching and discovered new ways to feel like my most authentic self. I stopped worrying about what everyone else thought and started listening to my intuition. I filled my life with joy, meaning and fulfillment.

This is the story of how postpartum depression was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Want to keep reading? Chapter One is posted for your reading pleasure. Would you rather read the actual book? Head over to Amazon for your copy of Adventures With Postpartum Depression: A Memoir.