How to Identify and Cope with Postpartum Adjustment (Depression)

Our Expert Mommy, Shellie Fidell helps us figure out when postpartum sadness is more than the Baby Blues.

Mom Confessions: Postpartum Depression (part 3)

This VIDEO (2:39) is the third in a series of three in which Heidi shares how it feels to have postpartum depression. One of the challenges of PPD is that it goes unrecognized by many women who suffer from it, making it challenging for them to reach out and find support. It is very rare that a new mom says, “I think I have postpartum depression.” More often and very often, women feel what Heidi describes in her videos.

“That’s the hardest thing to remember when you’re in the thick of feeling so awful: that this too shall pass! And on the good days, remembering that THIS too shall pass… that I must be grateful for this good day right now and not take it for granted and pour my love out for my children because this day, this GOOD day may not be here tomorrow.” ~ Heidi Howes

Can you relate? Please leave a comment, audio or written and share how you felt after your babies were born.

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Mom Confessions: Postpartum Depression (part 2)

This VIDEO (3:06) is the second in a series of three in which Heidi shares how it feels to have postpartum depression. One of the challenges of PPD is that it goes unrecognized by many women who suffer from it, making it challenging for them to reach out and find support. It is very rare that a new mom says, “I think I have postpartum depression.” More often and very often, women feel what Heidi describes in her videos.

“In the weeks prior to going to the hospital, I was very emotional, very down. Crying a lot. I had stopped being able to take care of my newborn daughter. I was nursing her still but there was no eye contact and when that happens with a young baby, they start to become despondent.” ~ Heidi Howes

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Mom Confessions: Postpartum Depression (part 1)

This VIDEO (3:06) is the first in a series of three that we will be publishing over three weeks in which Heidi shares how it feels to have postpartum depression. One of the challenges of PPD is that it goes unrecognized by many women who suffer from it, making it challenging for them to reach out and find support.

It is very rare that a new mom says, “I think I have postpartum depression.” More often and very often, women feel what Heidi describes in her videos.

Please…

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Mom Confessions: Infertility

“This site is a great place to be able to tell your story, hear other people’s stories, feel understood and help others.” ~ Maria Carella, Licensed Professional Counselor.

If you have a story to share, we encourage you to leave a written or audio comment below. This is the strength of community and connection… where those who have shared experiences can support each other and meet each other, understand and be understood.

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Maria Carella has a private psychotherapy practice in St. Louis, Missouri. She has focused her work on helping women with the emotional challenges of Infertility, Pregnancy, Parenting, Miscarriage and Infant Loss.

Mommy Confessions: Where You Can Share

How Have You Violated the Good Mother Rules?

MONDAY, MAY 18, NOON EST… the ladies of Looking Glass Lane reconvened our online discussion following our talk with Ayelet Waldman’s about her memoir and latest book, Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace.

Listen to the RECORDING! Um… yes, the rumors of [a__ slapping] are true! Thank you, @MissIve!

But I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised considering the color of last week’s conversation! Evidence of “bad mothering” ran rampant, including Morgan’s swollen-belly-with-no-ring and Ayelet’s Dead Baby Club, and “acts of service” that keep marriages alive!!!

Ayelet says, “People bring everything of their own experience, of their own life into [what I write] and they end up responding to their own anxiety rather than to me.” So what are YOU bringing? You can still download the FREE chapter from her book here. You can watch our segment… click more! Read more

BADMOTHER: How to Stop “Should-ing” on Yourself!@#

Author Ayelet Waldman’s newest book, Bad Mother, inspired this video on “mother guilt” and the tendency we all have to “should” on ourselves. I hope you’ll watch, rate and comment. Let’s get this conversation G-O-I-N-G!!!

What conversation?! We’re having a book club discussion on THIS book. Practical Mommy has all the details HERE. Sign up here and the #badmother crew will send you Bad Mother’s Chapter One for FREE. Then join us… we’ll be TALKING May 11, 11am CST.

First Name:
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(no spamming, renting or selling of names, per usual)
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How to Lay Off Other Moms

Today is THE DAY!

I’m reading Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace, the new book by Ayelet Waldman that officially hits bookstores on Tuesday, May 5. Ayelet has been gifted with wit, audacity and dare I say it, some serious balls! This new book follows on the heels of her highly controversial essay, Mother Love.

I want to discuss this book with YOU. It is at the core of our experience as moms and women… yeah, that’s YOU! Download a FREE copy of Chapter One below and let’s talk!!!

Waldman minces no words that Bad Mother is a reaction to being raked over the coals in mommy blogs and mainstream media and essentially being condemned (along with others like Britney Spears) as a “bad mother” herself. Note that not unlike the Salem Witch Trials, judge and jury in Waldman’s case were other moms!

“They speculated publicly, down in the toxic mud of the comments sections on blog pages, that I was crazy, evil, a menace, that my children should be taken away from me. They cross-examined me on the set of Oprah. And New York City’s elite Bad Mother SWAT team, the warrior shrews of urbanbaby.com, sank their pointy little incisors into my metaphorical ankles.”

What inspired such vitriolic reactions from the Mom Police? Waldman’s confession in the New York Times that she loves her husband more than her kids. That’s all. Read more