Unintentional rant.

I tried to make today a better day. I don't know how to feel. I don't mean I can't decide how I want to feel - I mean I literally don't know how to feel. It's weird. I let myself truly feel everything when I was in the hospital, the day I left the hospital, and in the week up to when I signed the papers. I was just myself. I didn't act happy, didn't act angry, didn't act sad, just acted how I felt. But I feel like I've learned to tune it out now, to the point where I don't know how I feel anymore. I don't regret my decision - at least not in my head. My heart, of course, yearns for my little girl with every moment of every day. Probably when I'm asleep, too. How could it not?

I took the Prozac my OB gave me for post-partum for a month or two, until I took myself off of it. I don't want to need anti-depressants for the rest of my life. I don't want to depend on them. I figured now is the time, at least for the first year or so, to let myself just be sad. To just be depressed, and learn to work my way through it. If I'm chemically tricking my body into thinking I'm content and happy, when and if I ever come off of the medication, I won't know how to deal. I could be 25, 30, hell, I could be 45 by the time I weaned myself off of them. And then I could crash, and have to deal with all these emotions that are much better processed in the here and now. It's acceptable for me to be sad and lash out right now. Who would understand if I held it all in, faking it for years and then one day I cracked? So, the long and short of that is, I no longer take the antidepressants any more, and don't know if I should or shouldn't. There are days I feel depressed, days when I literally, for the life of me, cannot get out of bed. And not due to laziness or being tired, it seems like I physically can't get myself up. I hate that feeling. I want to get up, go out, do things, stay busy. But I can't get out of bed. I can't find a happy medium. I feel like I'd be so much more happier if my daughter were with me, but I know that's only a temporary fix and it would only heal my heart. Realistically, I think life would be a lot more stressful. Dealing with work, babysitters, her father, the whole nine yards. But don't think I got off easy - my life is filled with almost an equivalent amount of stress created by missing her, seeing babies EVERYWHERE, hearing babies cry ALL the TIME. I get so agitated when I hear ignorant people say "take care of your responsibilities. you got pregnant, suffer the consequences." These people don't know how much I would have LOVED to "suffer" the consequences. I feel guilty about sleeping through the night, because I should be getting up to feed and change MY daughter. Think before you speak. I didn't "hand off" my baby to someone else because I wanted to be able to be on my own schedule, to go out and party and just be selfish. I hate when people say things like that. I feel like I'm being judged when people see that my parents have a decent house and I have decent things. I have a "nice" car, but it's 9 years old and I struggle to make my payments every month. I have a "nice" Coach purse, but it's the first one I've ever owned (at age 23) and I got it as a gift from both of my parents. I just hate when people judge others, and I will not deny that I am guilty of it, too.

I guess the point of my rant is, I hate people who categorize women who have made the choice that I have made. People who act as if I didn't take sex seriously because once I got pregnant, I gave my responsibility to someone else. Because I didn't want her. That's the furthest from the truth. I would have sacrificed anything in my power to have raised my little girl. Okay, I could have gone into a shelter with her and waited a few years on a waiting list to get into section 8 (as her father, a few times, tried to 'push' me to do), but what kind of life is that for a baby? No, she wouldn't remember those first two or so years of her life. But I would. How could I take a stable, warm, loving environment with two parents away from her, to keep her in a shelter that's seen God only knows what, just to then move her into low-income housing (nothing against it) only to watch her mom and dad fight constantly, be shuffled from one parent's house to the next every weekend, and be kept in day care all day while I worked as many jobs as needed just to put food on the table? Personally, that's not right. Kudos to all the moms who do it, I admire you as well. I know it's a struggle, I'm not even parenting my daughter and I know it's a struggle. Just please, don't ever think I took the easy way out. This is hell. Every day, this is hell. I worry constantly. I have this overwhelming maternal instinct that I should be near my child, maybe even more so than those moms who are by their child's side. I've found out, or should I say realized, that being a mom, no matter how motherhood comes to you, isn't easy. I'm sure it's not easy to be an adoptive mom. To wait and wait and struggle to conceive your own biological children, only to realize that you can't. I know it's not easy to be a first mom (side note: I don't like the term 'birth mother,' never have, never will. I was not just good enough to BIRTH my daughter. I created her, she is my own flesh and blood, half my DNA, and all of those facts did not go away when I gave birth to her and didn't take her home from the hospital....thank you), I'm living it. It can't be easy to be a mom who never got to meet her baby that was growing inside of her, nor can it be easy to be a mom who met her baby outside of her body but the baby had already gone back up to heaven. Those women are all moms, we are all moms. People say I don't deserve to be in this group called "motherhood," because in the eyes of society, I am not a mom. I have no car seat in my backseat, no crib in my house, no baby clothes, no bottles strewn all over the kitchen. But no one has the right to give me a title, whether it's mom or not mom. I know the job of a parent, any parent, is to put your child first and foremost, even before your own needs and feelings. I couldn't think about just myself when I made my decision; had I done that, she would have come home with me, no questions asked. I had to think of her and ONLY her. Of what was in her best interest, in the best interest of her future. Isn't that what all moms do? What all dads do? Yes, it is. So tell me how I am any different.

I have my own opinions and they vary at times, but deep down I know I am a mother. Not mommy, but a mother. So many can't understand that, and I understand that. Before my daughter, I probably was one of those ignorant people who thought some of the things that I've said here in this post. I honestly don't know, because I honestly never thought of it. Adoption was never part of my life, never talked about, so I don't know how I felt about it. I remember saying "I could never have my baby, see my baby, and then give my baby to someone else," whenever there was talk of adoption brought up. Maybe in health class? Psych class? I don't know.

Anyways. No one in particular set me off today, I guess I just felt like ranting because I overheard something small earlier today and it just snowballed into this. Tomorrow, or whenever I post again, I promise it'll be on a more positive note!