Fast forward, three to four months PP, starting to feel like I’m killing it…. mental health issues arose in the family that I also witnessed as a child but, this time I was a mom and experienced it through that prospective and more.
My milk supply was all over the place, and at one point it started dropping from all the stress. I panicked. I was so determined to keep going for Mateo that I went into overdrive. Pumping every three hours, to power pumping, to pumping every two hours to then every single hour, drinking all the teas, eating all the oatmeal, trying every trick I saw on TikTok. I became OBSESSED with watching those dumpings of milk, it was my guilty pleasure haha. It was my goal. Honestly, it became a full-time job on top of already being a full-time mom.
There were days I felt like all I did was feed, pump, clean bottles, repeat. And the pressure? So real. It wasn’t just about feeding him—it felt like my ability to nourish my baby defined whether I was a good mom. The guilt was crushing every time I felt like I wasn’t “enough.”
Looking back, I can see that I was in straight survival mode. My body was healing, my hormones were everywhere, and yet I was putting so much pressure on myself to push through like nothing was happening.
I’m grateful I had almost 5 months of maternity leave because if I didn’t, I don’t know how I would’ve handled it. But even with time off, I remember feeling like I was barely keeping my head above water.
✨ Did anyone else feel like they lived by the pump, or that survival mode just swallowed those early months? How did you push through?
