On the lighter side...

So, even though my last post made it sound like everything is doom and gloom (and let's be honest, it pretty much was for the last several months), there is also a lot of exciting things happening in our life.  I'm a fan of lists (plus with 2 small children, it's faster and more efficient :) ) so here's a list of happenings in our life; past, present, and future.

1. Both kids are happy and thriving and doing different stuff every day. Ellie's language is just exploding and she cracks us up on a daily basis. Jonas is right on the verge of crawling. He can move himself around but has just started getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth and then lunging himself forward. It's hard to believe he is 6 months today.

2. We have dear friends coming in 2 weeks. I'm so excited to spend time with these friends, that I cannot contain it! It's been over 2 years since we've seen them.

3. Speaking of them coming, that also means in a little over 2 weeks, I'll be sitting in London with my friend, drinking high tea, paparazzing the royals, and getting uninterrupted sleep for the first time in 6 months. I'm excited to see London but I'm more excited to have 2 days of kid-free, girl time. Also, this will totally be me...and if you don't know what this is, I'm not sure we're really friends.

4. After we come back from London, we leave a few days after that for Mallorca, Spain. Our family, their family, and another friend have all rented a Spanish villa for a week and plan to spend our days soaking up the sun and drinking Spanish wine.

5. Dan is plugging full steam ahead to finish up his PhD. Which means we are also in full job searching mode. This is an exciting, yet scary time.

6. Since Dan is finishing up, it means we should be back stateside in the fall!!! It's hard to believe we've been here almost 4 years! We left as newlyweds with 7 suitcases to our name and will come back with 2 kids, a ton more stuff, and memories that will stay with us forever.

A lot of changes are headed our way but we're excited to see where our next adventure will lead us. I'm going to try and stay on top of blogging but you know how that goes so we'll see:)

An honest account

Deep Breath.

This has been a long, tough season. After my last post, things continued to spiral downward. Jonas got better (diagnosed with a milk allergy, put on special formula and VOILA! a new , happy, cooing, laughing, child!) but I continued to feel sad, angry, joyless, overwhelmed, etc.

I knew that I wasn't feeling like myself. I kept chalking it up to having a screaming baby and a young toddler, with no family support around. But things kept getting worse, even as Jonas got better and I had two happy kids. Dan and I would have huge arguments over crazy, ridiculous things and I would feel out of control.If I wasn't angry, I was crying. I had zero desire to do anything fun-wanted a break from the kids but didn't really want to do anything. My house was a disaster and I hadn't cooked a decent meal in months. Something was not OK.

I worked in mental health long enough to know that I had all the signs and symptoms of Post Partum depression. Part of me was briefly in denial and just wanted to keep waiting for my hormones to regulate again. But the larger part of me knew that I wasn't ok and needed to do something about it before I drove myself, my husband, and my kids, crazy. I thought about going on some medication but decided first that I wanted to try counseling. I felt like my hormones were still trying to regulate from the birth and I didn't want to throw new chemicals in there. I was/am in no way opposed to medication and felt that if I continued to get worse, I would go on them in a heartbeat but I wanted to try talking with someone first. I made a counseling appointment and went with a feeling of desperation but also with a glimmer of hope.

My counselor was/is fantastic. She helped me to see that it was ok to be depressed and more importantly, to need help. For those who know me, I'm more the helper, not the helpee...hence my work in social work:) But I was so desperate to get back to being me and to bring back a sense of peace to our house, that I didn't care who I told or asked for help.

One of the more difficult aspects of this time was being away from friends and family. We had a couple wonderful friends help us with watching the kids a few times and that was a great blessing.  But I needed more. I needed time to breathe, to think, to journal, to pray, to shower, etc. And had we been closer to family, it would've made that a lot easier. However, we are getting through it.

I feel so much better, especially over the last few weeks. I feel like myself again. I kept telling my counselor that I just wanted to hurry up and get better faster and one of the best things she told me was just to accept where I'm at, to realize I am where I am and to just be. I think that advice helped me to fully accept that I was depressed. I am taking steps to overcome it but for the time being, this is where I'm at and that's ok.