u s e y o u r h a n d s

I’d been looking forward to Heather “Dooce” Armstrong’s book for a long time. Before I got pregnant, I liked her writing, thought she was funny, etc. But as a pregnant person with deeply depressive tendencies, I looked at the stories of her first pregnancy and the subsequent post-partum depression more like foreshadowing.

When I heard that Heather would be reading tonight in Oak Brook, I knew I had to go not only to support a blogger I’d been reading for longer than I’ve lived in Chicago, but also to see that she had, indeed, gone through a crushing depression and managed to emerge a better person. There were many, many pregnant women at Heather’s reading. I do not often see pregnant people, so when I do, I stare at them and want to ask them questions. But what I really wanted to ask, I didn’t. I wanted to ask them if they also were there to collect Heather’s words as a talisman against what they felt was inevitable, the battling tides of post-pregnancy hormones and new-mother anxiety.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been struggling with feeling very, very alone in the pregnancy experience. I work for myself from home, so I don’t have colleagues who tell me personal or second-hand stories. I don’t have many friends with children. I don’t have close family and I have no nieces or nephews. It’s just me and Brian, the cats and a growing blogroll of mom bloggers whose words I live for.

When I feel alone, I get sad, which makes me purposely isolate myself. Not a great recipe for post-baby bliss, and I know that, which is why I need to be extremely vigilant in the first few weeks and months of Gus. To watch myself, to always monitor for the signs that there’s a cliff approaching. However, when you already feel alone and there’s danger looming large, you also feel that there is nobody you can ask for help.

And when that time comes, I’ll read Heather’s book. Again.