i’m just not ready

4 months. 120 days. 2,880 hours. 172,800 minutes. 10,368,000 seconds. AND. IM. STILL. NOT. READY.

I return to work in less than 24 hours. I have spent the last 4 months with you. I have gotten to see you grow this far and haven’t missed a single thing with you.

Life is so selfish. Summer is ending. Soon, you’re big brother will head back to school. You and your sister will stay with a sitter. And I will be back at work. Counting the hours, minutes, seconds that I can leave and come back to you.

My heart is my children. I want to be with them but yet society has made it to where I can’t be with them in order to provide them with necessities.

I thought with each child this would get easier. But it never does. I am so very sad. I feel like I am going through a break up and my heart physically hurts. I’ll even be honest…I’m depressed. Postpartum depression and now depression kicking in from having to leave you when I am all you know.

I am not my best self right now and it’s a shame. Why do mothers not have better maternity rights? Don’t get me wrong, I am very much so grateful for the time I did get off with my new baby. But why are we forcing mothers who are not ready to leave to go back sooner than we want?

Postpartum, depression, anxiety — all characteristics of a mom, new and old. Yet we are expected to throw our feelings aside and leave our baby in the arms of someone else.

I carried my children. I birthed my children. I nursed my children. Why am I the one spending less time with them!

I am angry! Outraged! Sad! Anxious! And most depressed.

Angry because I don’t belong in this era.

Outraged because mothers deserve better.

Sad because of the time I’m losing with my kids.

Anxious because of all the what ifs.

Depressed because I just can’t handle it and I’m not ready.

The sadness I feel, the emptiness. I am on the verge of drowning with my head barely above the water. And while doing so, I feel nobody cares.

I need grace through this. Grace and compassion. Hugs. So many hugs that I want to vomit because people are touching me.

I want to be overly selfish with my kids. I want people to see me, hear me, and know me.

I don’t want this. I want to stay home with my kids. I want to raise them. I want to be there for every moment.

Because when I leave them soon, I won’t see them until the evening. I won’t even get updates, pictures, nothing. I will be working and wondering about my children all day. Worried about them. Yes, they’re in good hands but a mother always worries. I’ll be wondering if the sitter will ask me before letting them do something. Wondering what they’re doing. Wondering if they have thought about me or maybe even forgotten me.

I want someone to understand me right now. I want to trade heads with someone else so they can see how I feel and the thoughts going through my brains because this isn’t fair.

I just want to be a stay at home mom until my kids are big enough for school. Why is this the way life is?

I am depressed and I need grace. I need the time to cry and the time to heal.

4 months is all I got to spend with my infant before having to go back to work and they grow up on me. I was not ready to do anything after I had my son 7 years ago. I was not ready to go back to work when I had my daughter 2 years ago. I am not ready now when I had my daughter 4 months ago.

I am just not ready and it’s literally slowly, killing me.