Dear New and Beautiful Mom,

Today and yesterday and tomorrow you come into my clinic, barely on time. Sometimes with the baby in your arms or in a stroller, stuffed to the gills with teethers and toys and patterned cloth diapers and your new iPhone bursting with apps (sleep apps and breastfeeding apps and white noise apps). And sometimes you have no baby at all. She's with grandma, or daddy or a visiting relative and you thought you would feel happy that you finally have some time for yourself, even if it is for pelvic therapy. But your breasts ache and your arms feel empty. Or, you don't feel anything at all and this makes you feel, somehow, worse. Sometimes you have on a little mascara, but most times you've barely washed your face. And yet you make it.

And you thought you were coming in for pelvic therapy, to bounce back like a celebrity, to erase those scars and reclaim your abs, get back to sex and get on with it like that blog mom you follow. But when the door to the treatment room closes, you collapse on the table or sink into the chair. Sometimes you cry, sometimes you are silent because there are no words for feeling like this. And with this long pause, I know. And I tell you my story, because maybe it will help. Or maybe it won't. But at least you can rest for a moment and know that you are not alone.

-postpartum depression week 2019, #bluedotproject #hawaiipelvictherapy