I am going to try something new this month. I’m only going to use cash. The only exception is gas. I’ll use my debit card for gas. That is just too much trouble. Everything else though is going to be payed for in cash. I’ve seen this idea many times. I know for a fact, I didn’t think of it. In fact, someone else posted about it this week as well. One of my best friends does this too. I’ve just never been brave enough to try it. What I know though? Is I’m getting behind. I’m using my credit cards for stupid things at the end of each month, just because I flat out run out of money.

I’ve thought about this before. I’ve just never been willing to try it. Truth is, in previous years, it wasn’t an issue. You know, pre-getting divorced. Ahem.

To save time and energy, while on vacations, I only use cash. I’ve always done that. Most likely because it gets tiring writing down receipts while on vacation. While in NYC last month, I didn’t use my debit card for anything, except on cab fare on the way back to the airport. I came home with money. If I’d used my card all weekend, I’d of come home to an empty bank account. I know this about myself. If I have cash, I consciously think, is this a need. I actually did that while on vacation in NYC. I saw a purse that I loved. Such a pretty blue purse. Ahem. Yet, I didn’t buy it. Kari probably thought I was nuts. I kept picking it up and putting it down. Ha.

If I can do this on a vacation, I can do this in regular life.

My girls don’t need anymore Silly Bandz, just because they are conveniently located right next to the check out. I don’t need to eat out for lunch each day, when I have perfectly good food right here. I don’t need to go to Target when I’m bored. I can walk the dog instead. My son doesn’t need any more Cars paraphernalia. He has too much of it, as is.

I still live like there are two incomes coming into this house. And there just isn’t.

So yesterday I took the plunge. When my paycheck was deposited, I paid all my bills. I wrote out my checks for my share of daycare/after school care. I then went to the bank and took out cash. Cash for groceries. For Costco. For Target. For the eating out, although I’m attempting to curb that as well. Cash for my therapy. For mine and Bailey’s prescriptions. I will still do certain things. I will still do some fun things with the kids. I got a pedicure last night. This evening, I will go and pay for September dance classes for Morgan. But I’m doing it all with cash.

It’s a bit scary. A bit daunting. I think I can do it though. Any money left over at the end of the month, will go towards paying off credit. My goal? To stop using the dam things.

My great-grandpa only used cash. I remember hearing that my uncle made him get a checking account for all the cash he had hidden in his house, when he was 80 freaking years old. The man paid cash for his home. For his car. If he didn’t have the cash, he just flat out didn’t need it.

I think I’d like that to be my goal. If I don’t have cash for it, I don’t need it. Might take me awhile to get there, but it’s a goal.

I can’t write to the science of Postpartum Depression. I am not a scientist. I can’t write about the chemicals in your brain when you have it. I am not a chemist. I can’t tell you what a shrink would say. I am not a shrink. I can not tell you about anyone else’s PPD or how they should deal with it.

What I can tell you, is about me. My story. How postpartum depression changed my life. That I can tell you.

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We named her the night we had the ultrasound. Saw her little butter bean self swimming along all cute and peanut looking. It’s a girl I said, we obviously don’t make boys. Yeah, but been there done that, was his response, we need a boy name and a girl name. Piper Isabelle. Tristan Gabriel. We came up with those names in an hour. It was simple. It was easy. No name decision, prior or since has been easy.

We’d just moved to Colorado. We’d been here literally a week. 12 week ultrasound. Three little peanut pictures to take home.

Few weeks later, I was hanging a picture. I was up on a ladder. I was being impatient. Logan had said he’d do it when he got home. I hadn’t felt that great in the morning. I did it anyway. I HATE walls with no pictures up on them. I was also afraid of the girls running into them and breaking glass and yeah. Anyway.

I woke up in the ER. I have no idea why. I have no idea why I didn’t have to feel it. But it may have been easier if I’d…I don’t even know. I woke up and it was already done. D&C. She was gone and they removed her parts I guess. Whatever else. I try not to think about it. I was in some form of shock and they don’t know why. They don’t know why I passed out. My blood pressure was through the roof. But still it was all a guess. All I knew, was I woke up and Logan was there and he had to tell me she was gone. (They did generic test her. Gotta love doctors. Trying to find an answer for everything. Guess they thought it would be easier on me, if something had been wrong with her. Sadly, there was no answer. Just that I was right. She’d been a girl.) I knew it though, that she was gone. I felt so empty. When I looked at him, I knew it. I know he told me then, but I don’t think I heard anything. She’s gone, I said. Yes, he answered. That was it. That’s all I remember. I couldn’t even tell you how much longer I was there.

Went home with a prescription for pain killers, a shattered heart and no hope in the world.

I couldn’t understand. I don’t know that I do now. No one I knew at the time had ever had a miscarriage…or that was what I thought then. People tend to come out of the wood works later with their own stories.

I couldn’t understand how the world could keep moving. I could barely breath, yet the world kept moving. Logan asked me on the way home if I wanted to stop and get dinner for the girls. I couldn’t even answer him. The world moved on. People kept breathing. My cell phone rang. My children had to eat. The dog wanted to go for a walk. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered.  Nothing ever would again. She was gone. I was dead inside. That was all I knew.

One of my first regrets…I destroyed the ultrasound photos. I walked in the door and went to the fridge to get water to take more pills. I hurt. Physically I hurt. It’s painful, a D&C. Not as painful as having a miscarriage and having pieces pass, but still it hurts. Anyway, I went to the fridge and saw her photo and I remember screaming. I put it in the drain and hit the button on the disposal. I went to bed after that. I didn’t even say a word to the girls. I just walked away and went to bed.

I stayed in bed for three months. I tried to will myself to die. To stop breathing. To just die. I didn’t want anything except her. The first month my mom came to stay, she took care of me. She took care of the girls and Logan. She tried. Oh man did she try. At first she  made the girls come in and try talking to me. After about a week she stopped, because I couldn’t handle it. Because they couldn’t handle it. I ignored my own daughters. All i did was cry. I cried for three weeks straight. Then I just stopped. The girls would come and go. If they got in bed with me, I’d cuddle with them. Couldn’t make myself talk though. Logan would come and go. I barely ate. I only showered maybe once a week and only then because my mom threatened me.

I shut down. I completely shut down. I basically stopped living. Ii was there but I wasn’t there.

At some point, my husband and mother made me see a doctor. I thought it was after two months, my mom says it was only about three weeks. The meds didn’t help. Not at first.

After a month, my MIL came to switch places with my mom. She babied me a bit more. Made me every sweet she could think of. Force fed me cake. I started eating again.

The third month my mom came back. At that point, she made me get on new meds. She told me if I didn’t, she’d have me committed. That she had the power to put me on a psych hold and don’t think she wouldn’t do it.  tTruth is, a lot of it I don’t remember. I shut down. I folded into myself.

So I took the new meds. Not because I wanted too, or cared really, but because they forced me too. She made me get up. Made me at least do some of the day to day stuff with the kids. After a while I got used to it. A while after that, I started enjoy my girls again. I remember the day I found myself laughing again. I laughed until I cried. A bit more time passed and my mom went home.

I regret a lot of things about that time. So much so. It pains me to write this out. It physically exhausts me. I feel so broken. So damaged.

The things I thought are bad. I will be completely honest with you guys, I wanted to die. They suspected it. I wasn’t left alone for months. Logan took my meds with him to work every day. For months and months. Heck, there probably wasn’t anything stronger than baby Advil in my home for months.

Would I have done something. Nah. I don’t think so. I was too something for that. Numb maybe.  I just didn’t think I could ever be happy again. I didn’t think I could ever breath again.  I didn’t know that I wanted too.

I know how this sounds. Trust me I do. Is why I haven’t talked about it. I think it’s time though. Time to say it. Time to deal with it.

I abandoned my kids for nearly three months. Someone else made their meals, changed their clothes, bathed them, sang them to sleep. Someone else read to them, kissed their boo boos, bought them school clothes, took them to school, took them to the doctor for three months. I was there. But I wasn’t there.

This? Is my reality of PPD. This is what it did to me. To my family. To my babies.

When I am sad and Bailey makes jokes I know this is why. She remembers that only she could make me laugh for months. When I’m stressed and Morgan steps in and takes over small things with the little kids. I know this is why. I forced her to grow up too much without even wanting too. I can’t undo these things. I would if I could. They worry if I stay in bed or don’t shower. So unless I am sick I always shower. I always get out of bed. For them. But I hate that they remember it.

Truth? Harrison was not planned. It was too soon. I’d only lost Piper six months earlier, when I got pregnant.

I didn’t believe he’d make it. That I was being punished. That I’d loose him. Until I was seven months pregnant I tried to ignore the fact that I was pregnant. I talked to him. I took care of him. I even talked normally about him to everyone else. But I felt like I was carrying an alien. I felt none of the joy that I had with the girls. I wanted him more than anything but I didn’t believe in him. I’m sure that it did him harm. To not feel wanted in utero. I love him more than life itself but I can’t undo any damage I caused him.

I blamed me for the loss of Piper. If I just not done this, if I’d done this, if I’d been better, been more something. I blamed Logan. For moving us across the country. For telling me it would be okay. For stressing me out so much that I lost her. Do I know neither of us are to blame? Yes. Now.  But I hated him. I hated him and he stopped loving me. I am to blame for that. I am the reason my marriage failed. That whole time I pushed Logan away. I didn’t let him near me. I didn’t let him sleep in our bed. I wouldn’t talk to him. I wouldn’t look at him. Afterwords when I got better a bit, I knew he didn’t trust me fully. He didn’t. Not for months. Maybe never. I don’t blame him for that. I can’t blame him for that. That is on me. That is on my disease. Not him.

I lost my friends. For awhile I lost my sanity. I lost my husband. I lost a piece of myself. My innocence. My heart maybe.

Some called it a nervous breakdown due to PPD. Due to stress. Due to PTSD of loosing the baby. Some say, I’m just crazy. There has been a lot of talk this week, that PPD isn’t really a chemical thing. That it’s not real. That it’s just new mom’s not liking their new role in life. That the act of creating a child, is just plain too much for some women. Mine came from losing a child. That doesn’t make it any less real. Postpartum Depression is real. I had it while pregnant with Harrison as well, and after. However I was under constant watch and on continuous meds. The words being tossed around this week, feel judgmental. But reality is no one can judge me as much as I judge myself.

Postpartum Depression wasn’t a figment of my imagination. I’d never had any depression issues prior to it. I’d already had two children. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. I also, had no control over it. It was real. My PPD was real.

***This post was written, because of an article on AOL. If you want more specifics on that, Her Bad Mother wrote a great post on PPD as well.

I’ve always had trouble taking compliments. I have a theory on why, but let’s just leave it at, when you’ve been abused as a kid, you tend to think you aren’t worth much. Part of it, I think I’ve gotten better at. Some of it may be a life long struggle. I try, I really do, but I tend to think I fail.

When people say something nice to me, I tend to come up with a million reasons in my head, as to why it’s not real. I berate myself. In my head. Sometimes outloud. Although I learned long ago to keep most of that to myself, because people then get a bit yelly. It’s not easy. To take a compliment as just a compliment. To hear the words and believe what people are saying, when you sometimes hate yourself. I know someone will yell at me for that. But a lot of times I do hate myself. I feel that I’m worthless. I know logically why I feel that way at times, yet, I’m not always able to stop it.

This past week has been a challenge for me. To go to a conference and have people want to meet me. Little ole me. Just because. Last year, I was able to tell myself, well I did that keynote, so they know who I am.

Yet there was 2,400 hundred people at the Hilton this past weekend and some people wanted to meet me. For the key reason, that they just wanted to meet me. This year, people said hi to me in elevators. Just because. People hugged me in the hallway. Just because. I didn’t do anything special this year. I was just me.

Do you know how strange that is for me?

I’ve cried about 12 times this past week, reading re-caps. You know why? Because people have said nice things about me. People who didn’t manage to meet me have said, I wish I’d met you. Some people told me, I was a reason they had a great time, I made their experience better. It warms my heart to hear that.

It’s strange for me though. It’s awesome and I love it, but it’s strange. I don’t always find myself worthy of this community. I generally feel like I don’t bring much too it.

What I do know? These past few days, instead of reading nice things about myself through a filter, through my filter, I just read them. I absorbed them. They made me smile, they made me cry. I believed them.

Progress. Small progress. But it’s something.

This year? I see photos of myself and I think, I truly love that photo. I haven’t picked apart how I looked in any of them.

I just love them.

So thank you. You and you and you. All of you. Just….thank you.

First, hi. I’ve missed you all. I’ve missed my little spot over here this past week.

I had the most amazing four days. Truly. I figure, since I’m me…and I’m completely exhausted…I’ll make you all a short list of reasons why I will be at next years conference.

1. I have the greatest friends in the entire world. People like my roomies Kari and Stacey who make me feel like I’ve known them forever. People who I can’t imagine my life without. People who I was so incredibly sad to leave after four days. I am already planning out how to get to San Diego just to spend more time with them. This is why I will be there. To see them. To hug them. To spend days talking to them.

2. I met some of the most amazing people ever. Jill, Jodi, Betsy, Maggie, Kim, Jessi, Kat. I know there are so many people I will be forgetting….please to be forgiving me. But hugging in person, people who you talk to daily? Is just a huge reason I do this every year. People who crack you up. People who make you think. People who make you feel okay about continuing to do this. People who help you remember why you stay in this crazy online world, despite the drama that goes on. Each year the group is a bit different, but it so far has made me realize, it’s just a chance to spend time with new people.

Meeting people who you immediately wonder how you’d never run across them in the community. People like Lisa. Wendi. People who are so nice and funny and genuine and you wonder how in the world you haven’t been following them this whole time.

Finally meeting people who you’ve talked to for years but never gotten to meet before. Liz, Kristen, Carmen.

Meeting all of those people? So worth my trip.

Seeing, hugging, eating with people you already know? It’s why I keep doing this.

3. Meals that somehow just work out. Meals with ten people. Four who you invited, four more who others invited, two who you managed to pick up in the lobby. Meals that were planned by basically inviting people and then inviting more people, until you get the random amazing group who ends up going. Because we all know, people are busy. People are trying to fit everything in. Meals, where it’s great whoever shows up. Meals, that you aren’t wanting to end. Because the conversations are so stimulating. So fun. So entertaining. It makes it worthwhile. It makes you trip. Inpromtu brunches and lunches and dinners at new restaurants? Are why I do this.

By the way? Serendipity? A life goal I have now accomplished. Frozen hot chocolate? Worth the airfare to NYC alone.

4. Watching your friend give a phenomenal keynote and watching all the other amazing people up there share their words, their stories.

5. Late night conversations in bed the last night. Sharing secrets, sharing stories, catching up with your friends after the lights are off. When after 2am, someone finally says, no matter how late we stay up, we still have to leave tomorrow, so maybe we should get a bit of sleep.

6. Sparklecorn. MamaPop managed to out-do themselves this year. I love that party. In fact? It was the only one I actually managed to attend. I would like to RSVP for next year. Like now. Can I do that please? Tracey? Amy? What do you say? Ha. You all did an amazing job with that party. I can’t even imagine how much work went into it. DUDE!!!! That cake. So good.

I tried to get to other parties. Something about BlogHer though? You just have to go with the flow. The flow for me this year? Was just have fun. Not feel stressed. There’s just no way to do it all.

7. Conversations about you. Yes you. You too. Oh and you, hidden in the back. We talk about you. In good ways. We talk about friends we wish were there. Best friends who weren’t able to make it. People we met last year. People we love. Blogs we adore. Blogs we read every day. We talk about how we wish you could all make it next year. How we sometimes want to hug every person who is lovely in our comments, especially on hard posts. We talk about you. We remember you. We miss you.

8. Hearing a friend, someone who you adore say: I was ready to be done. But this has helped me see, I’m not done. That makes it all worth it.

9. A day spent wandering New York with one of your best friends.

10. Seeing a new city. It really is a fun thing to explore a city you’ve never been too. I’d never seen NYC. I have been to San Diego many, many times. But exploring it with my friends next year? Will be awesome.

BlogHer 10 was amazing. I loved it. I did what I wanted. Enjoyed my friends. Saw a new city. Had an absolute blast. I am sure there was drama, but I wasn’t involved in any of it and I’m not willing to give it the time of day. BlogHer is what you make of it. I made my BlogHer experience a great one. The staff of BlogHer did a fabulous job and I want to thank them.

So, yes…I will be at BlogHer11 in San Diego.

So many days I crave quiet. My children are not quiet. Never. They even talk in their sleep. The dog? Soooo not quiet. She barks so much, that her nickname is barks-a-lot. I crave it. Quiet.  I wish for days of quiet in a row. I wish for days where I don’t have to pick up toys, clothes, yell at kids for leaving skates and cars and balls on the stairs. I sometimes wish for days where I don’t have to argue with kids to brush their teeth, beg them to eat just one more dang bite, explain why one must sleep at night. Yet here I sit, on my third day of fifteen with no kids and I’m wanting noise. Even the dog is gone, on a two week trial period at my ex’s house.

I haven’t tripped over a toy car in days. I haven’t stepped on a Littlest Pet Shop Death Trap in days. My wii remotes are next to the wii, my tv remotes on my coffee table. My couch pillows are all on my couch. There isn’t a single sippy cup on my bedside table. I Haven’t broken up a fight in days. There are no shoes to locate. No tiny underwears in the floor of the kitchen. I haven’t walked into the bathroom to see a single unflushed toilet in days. Haven’t heard my son scream, mine do it!!!!!

It’s too quiet though. Strange the things you miss.

They are having a blast. Almost too much fun to really want to talk to me. The phone goes from kid to kid in minutes flat, so they can get back to whatever they doing. Two weeks of being spoiled by grandparents. Two weeks of non-stop pool time. Of amusement parks and treats and the entire content of Target purchased for their benefit.

I remember weeks spent with my grandparents when I was a kid. Every summer, we’d go for three weeks. Grandparent time. I loved it. I always had a blast. I doubt I wanted to spend much time on the phone with my mother either. I wanted this for my kids. I know I’m blessed to have it. I know my kids are blessed to have two sets of grandparents who want as much time with them as humanly possible.

I will go see a movie today. I may read an actual book, that doesn’t involve Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. I will work. I will sleep in. Next week I will go to BlogHer and then the following Saturday, they will be home. It really is okay.

It’s awfully quiet though.