And just like that, working part-time with not enough care.

Just like that I’m working. A month ago I was feel rather gloomy about working  here in Northampton. I couldn’t quite find my feet despite all my skills, experience and training.  We moved. It was hard to start over. It felt for a while like my work didn’t come with the rest of our stuff. What turned the tide? Social media, prayer and hunger most likely.

So just like that, I’m moderately busy. The more work you have, the more work you get – and it must come from clients. There is no one like a satisfied client to send more business along.  I’m not quite as busy as I’d like to be, but busy enough considering that like most working moms I don’t have enough affordable, quality childcare and we are running full speed into the Holiday Season. As an aside,  we generally call it the Season of Croup for lo, as long as we have been parents (11 Christmas this year), there hath been croup at the holidays. We inevitably end up with someone sleeping between us with the windows open to the cold New England breeze in dark December because nothing is better for a swollen larynx than your own mothering’s teeth chattering as you sleep on her chest.

I find myself leaning into next fall as I scramble to keep my work life flowing with a 4-year-old in tow. He is in very part-time preschool. It is very nice and very affordable. The only three moves we can make are

1. Very unaffordable preschool/daycare

2. Very not nice daycare

3. Wait it out til all day public Kindergarten.

We are waiting it out. He is in the school’s preschool program. He will be happy at the Kindergarten is 10 months away. Summer will be a whole different animal – every working mother stares that beast down pretty hard right at the end of February break.Next September everyone will get on that bus and stay there til 3 – though 4 would be better.

Waiting it out has been our family policy on the day care conundrum though for 11 Christmases now we have doubted and reevaluated that decision. We’ve always ended up picking high quality, affordable part-time care. We are not alone in our confusion. I had a chance to hear Sharon Lerner, author of The War on Moms, spoke this morning at the MotherWoman breakfast here in Northampton. I learned that 62% of mothers report wanting to work part-time and 26% are actually working part-time. This means 36% of women are working way more or way less than they want to be working. We aren’t getting enough help here. I feel it everyday. I’m aiming for the 26% mark. It’s a teeny bulls-eye to shoot for from a great distance.

 

 

cross-posted at needs new batteries

Remarks from Elizabeth and David Oakes at the MotherWoman Breakfast

 

The powerful words of Elizabeth Oakes

Anger.

Desperation.

Fear.

Confusion.

Terror.

Helplessness.

Guilt.

Hopelessness.

 

My anger pushed me. I was desperate to find the proper solution.

I was scared I wouldn’t ever find it. I was terrified that I would hurt myself or my children. I was confused about why I wasn’t deliriously happy with the perfect family we had created. I found no one who could help me. I felt incredible guilt over failing as a mother, a wife, a person.

But when I felt hopeless,  I knew I was in territory that I might not survive.

My name is Elizabeth Oakes and I am a survivor of severe postpartum depression. I live with my husband, Dave, our daughter, our son, and a dog and cat in Berkshire County. I’m a New York City girl who chose the rural life. I am a Licensed Massage Therapist with my own business. I hold several college degrees. And I consider myself self sufficient, resourceful, and well informed.

After our daughter was born, my husband recognized my depression. I spoke with a therapist, but I never told anyone about the terrifying intrusive thoughts I was experiencing. No one ever asked. No one noticed that I hadn’t used a sharp knife for six months. Gradually the depression and anxiety faded, and life was better.

The second time around was worse from the very beginning. I was asking professionals for advice soon after my son was born. The ONLY advice I was given was to “Take Zoloft”. Not being comfortable introducing pharmaceuticals into my breast milk, I didn’t, and I got worse. I tried supplements which helped but I went off them too early. After weaning my son my moods became so unstable and unpredictable that Dave took me to our local hospital. The psychiatric ward was full so I was shuttled to a “crisis house”. There I was relieved to just sleep.

After I left I still felt very unstable so I called the MD I had met there to see what else could be done. “Go to the “urgent care” group” I was told. Great, ten days later when the “urgent care” group met, I asked of the clinician in the largest provider of mental health services in the county, “Does anyone here specialize in postpartum conditions?” “No” she said, “There is no difference between postpartum mothers and anyone else”.

I was so angry and frustrated. The medical professionals I dealt with were not bad people but they did not have the knowledge nor training to help me. None of the psychiatric professionals I consulted identified my postpartum depression accurately or responded appropriately.

The one thing that did help me through this whole dark time was the post-partum support group in Northampton run by MotherWoman. There I found knowledge, caring, and support all free from any kind of judgment. Every week I could get there I found other women like me, and even when I couldn’t get there just knowing that another woman was probably up worrying at 2am just like I was, was incredibly comforting. Sharing our experiences with people who really understand is priceless.

However, the worst was yet to come. I was taking medication but the miserable days I was experiencing got worse and worse. I could not recognize myself. I really believed that my husband and children would be better off without me. I had strong impulses of not wanting to be alive so I wouldn’t have to feel anymore. I was terrified and so was my husband. He put the emergency plan into action and I went to the hospital, again.

I had lost trust in the medical community but I had nowhere else to go. I had to trust them if I wanted to live.

Almost a year later, I am well on my way to a full recovery, and I have a deeper understanding of post-partum mood disorders, various treatments, and the medical model of care in my area. Most of all I have a deeper understanding of myself.

I have been able to let go of the desperation, fear, confusion, terror, helplessness, and hopelessness. But I am not yet ready to let go of the anger. Anger spurs me to action. I want to make sure that no other woman in Berkshire County ever has to go through what I did.

Enter MotherWoman again.

With the incredible leadership and support of MotherWoman good changes are happening for the mothers of Berkshire County. I will be attending MotherWoman’s facilitator training this winter in order to start a postpartum support group in Pittsfield. MotherWoman has arranged a meeting with psychiatric specialists at Berkshire Medical Center in January. We will schedule training for medical and mental health professionals. And we are on our way to creating The Berkshire County Pregnancy and Postpartum Support Coalition. None of this would be possible without MotherWoman.

My daughter is now four and my son is two. They are wonderful children which must be due to the amazing care of my husband and to some higher power. I hardly remember the first year of each of their lives. I don‘t know that I will ever be able to let go of the sadness and guilt over that. But thanks to MotherWoman, there is a light on the horizon for mothers and families in our region.

Thank You.

 

And the heartfelt words of her husband, David Oakes

 

I am David Oakes, and that beautiful woman is my wife.

The hardest thing I have ever had to do was walk away from Berkshire Medical Center with my two kids and without my wife, their mother. — When I brought Elizabeth to the Emergency Room the first time I thought “what the heck is going on? and how could this be happening?” We have everything in life anyone could hope to have!

Yet an hour before that she was curled up in a ball on the floor crying uncontrollably. — She looked up at me like a lost child and said “help me Dave I don’t know what to do.”

As I walked away from the hospital in a daze, I felt like I had let my whole family down.  What could I have done to prevent this?   I love my wife, and would do anything for her, yet I felt so defeated and lost. — What was I going to do about my full-time college responsibilities?  What about my internship starting this week?  What about day-care?  How could I fulfill both of our responsibilities while she was getting help? Several questions filled my head, and I came to terms very quickly that my family needed me more than ever.  Post-partum depression doesn’t only affect the mother, it affects the whole family.–

I had watched week after week as Liz struggled with her depression.  She eventually isolated herself from friends, family, and even me.  –We had a strong marriage and it was eroding before my eyes.  The woman of my dreams was snapping at me one minute then offered a tear-filled apology the next.  Dealing with our children became more of a burden to her, than a joy.

As her depression worsened, so did my frustration, I became resentful, I was sleep deprived, accommodating her any way I could, and cautiously walking around on eggshells.

During this time, Liz found out about Northampton Wellness Associates, where she ultimately went for a natural and supplemental approach to her condition.  Luckily, she also found out about Mother/Woman and began attending groups held in Northampton once a week.  Finally, she started feeling better, and actually got to a point where she felt good enough to stop the regimen of supplements she was taking.  Unfortunately, after she did, she started backsliding into depression faster than before. Only this time when she started the supplements again, they didn’t work.

One dark December night Liz told me through her tears and despair that she was thinking about suicide,– without hesitation I brought her to the hospital again, and called my sister-in-law to see if she could come up and help us out again with our crisis.

All I could think about at that point was my wife was going to kill herself, how that would forever affect our family, and how alone I would be without her.  After several medication trials, Liz’s profound relationship with the Mother/Woman groups, and some time, –we are now on the better side of these events.

Liz and I both learned a lot about each other during those troubled times; especially during couples’ therapy. We are 11 months removed from those days and Liz is very involved in advocating for post-partum mothers. She is the best kind of advocate this organization could ever hope to get. Intelligent, well-informed, articulate, and passionate about helping Mother/Woman bring its goals to fruition– (did I mention beautiful too?).

I can tell you that when Liz had no one she felt she could turn to for understanding, not doctors, not therapists, not even me, she went to the Mother/Woman groups and came home feeling validated and energized. The very real support Liz received from the Mother/Woman family was without question the single most therapeutic component to her recovery; I have yet to see a husband or a pill that can match that.

 

 

Remarks by Aida Ruiz-Batiste at the MotherWoman Breakfast

Good morning. My name is Aida Ruiz-Batiste and I work at the Baystate Brightwood Health Center/Centro de Salud. Brightwood Health Center is located in the poorest community of Springfield known as the Northend. I have the privilege of working with the whole life cycle, from infants to elders. I love working across generations in this community on a broad range of issues, from the medical and psycho-social aspects of life, to advocacy and community development.

I am a mother of 4 children, 2 biological and after my sister died of AIDs in the early 1990’s, I raised her 2 children as my own. I have three grandchildren. I was a very young mother and had my first son at the age of 14. I suffered from post-partum depression.Not only was I young and unaware but I was also very alone, afraid and many times discouraged.  As I matured and my life came together, thank God, it became clear that my purpose is to provide help and support to the Latino community, to those struggling in poverty. This purpose takes many forms, professional, volunteer and personal.

When I was introduced to MotherWoman, I quickly saw how this amazing model of support could benefit the women and families I work with. This could be one of the solutions I have to offer the local Latina community. It provided me with a new way to serve the Latina teenage mother.  I took the MotherWoman Group Facilitator Training in the fall of 2009 with my colleague Donna Jackson Kohlin, a nurse midwife at Brightwood Health Center.

MotherWoman has touched one of the most profound and sensitive parts of my being a woman. Through MotherWoman, I learned that we really, really do have permission to be women, to suffer and also recover through a miraculous partnership of support that says, “I will meet you where you are without judgement or fear” and for that I thank MotherWoman!

Mothers and grandmothers are the center of the Latino family. These matriarchs hold their families together by loyally supporting each other and sharing their resources in the face of many difficulties, often as single parents. They believe in family and are willing to work multiple jobs and share childcare to secure a healthy environment for their families.

Many people assume that Latinos are Latinos. But we have two separate latina communities in Springfield, immigrant women and Puerto Rican women who are citizens of the united states by birth. Great disparities and animosity exist between these two communities due to fear and often misconceived notions around citizenship and culture. Sadly, prejudice exists everywhere.

Immigrant woman and families make a commendable sacrifice, leaving their native country, language and culture to the come to the unknown and the cold northern winters with the hope of providing a better life for their children and grandchildren. In many ways they are like every other wave of immigrants to the U.S.

My vision is to bring a MotherWoman support group to Latinas in the North End of Springfield, to establish a place where women can share their humanity and experiences as mothers and find common ground. I see this powerful support group model as a way to help break down prejudice, enhance resourcefulness and create stronger community among immigrant and native Latina women.

We are all in this together.

Understanding this makes us stronger and builds our bonds with each other. Starting a MotherWoman group in Springfield will be a step for my community of latina women toward sustainable support, health and viability.

Thank you, MotherWoman, for giving me this opportunity.

Changing Policy

MotherWoman 2010 Fall Fundraising Breakfast – Remarks by Sharon Lerner, author of The War on Moms – On life in a Family-Unfriendly Nation

I first “met” Annette Cycon, the founder of MotherWoman, on the radio. Before I went on WMUA to discuss my book, the host, Leo Maley, suggested bringing the director of a local non-profit into our discussion. Fine with me, I said. I was clear about what I wanted to say. I had just crisscrossed the country talking with mothers about the difficulties they face in the workplace and at home.

Listening for the Truth

MotherWoman 2010 Fall Fundraising  Breakfast, Remarks by Liz Friedman

Good Morning.

MotherWoman supports and empowers mothers to create positive personal and social change for ourselves, our families, our communities and the world.

At MotherWoman, we listen to mothers through free support groups, we provide training to professionals and lay leaders so that those of us who work with mothers can listen in ways that fully support them. And thru our political arm, MomsRising of the Pioneer Valley, we advocate for changes in policies so that mothers and our families can thrive.