Happiness Lost

Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop this week. 

I'm going to write about losing things.  The actual prompt is: What did you once lose?  Write about your search to find it again.

After I had my first son I lost my happiness.  Oh, I was thrilled to have a healthy baby boy but I was not genuinely, deeply happy inside.  I was irritable, sad and gloomy.  I didn't really notice how I felt until my husband said one day that I just wasn't smiling much any more and I was so very irritable.  That one comment made me look at how I was feeling and try to make the effort to perk up and let the little things slide more.  Looking back I think I had some depression issues connected with postpartum.  They were never bad enough to take to the doctor but they were more than the baby blues.

It took some work, time for myself and soul searching to fine the happy inside me again.  I started to smile even if I didn't really feel like it and that helped.  Finding things I like to do and doing them helped.  Then I went back to school and got to be more than mommy (not that I didn't love being mommy but I was a better mommy for having outside interests and activities).

When I got pregnant with my second baby, we knew going into it that I might have the same issues again.  This time I knew what to expect so my happy didn't get as lost as last time, it was only temporarily misplaced a few times.  (The middle of the night was the worse time when Bruiser would not sleep).  Happily I am through the worst of it and am back in a balanced place.  Blogging has helped me get there.  It's nice to know that there are other's who lose it sometimes too, I'm not the only one.