Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

*Bold letters and strikethroughs indicate David’s corrections when Liz accidentally asked him to look this letter over before sending it out

Hello All Friends and Family! (and potential detractors… you know who you are…)

This year we’ve been blessed to have many adventures. From backpacking .25 miles in the beautiful Sierras, to our first trip together to Yosemite, to visiting family in Washington. As a former East Coast girl, I’ve been amazed at the wonder and beauty of, what David has demanded  accurately suggested it be referred to as, “the good side of the United States… or really anyplace (in both time and space) incomparable to any other location. As such it is and will forever be unnecessary to travel to or acknowledge the existence of anywhere else.”  

Eilee just turned nine conquered her eighth year of existence and is pretty sure she is on the brink of adulthood will be turning 27 next year... She loves pokemon, enforcing others acknowledge the superiority of pomeranians, comic books, creating beautiful art, and writing stories. We have watched her grow a great deal this year in intelligence and maturity. She is a wonderful benevolent older sister, and a great example to all who know her.

Cora is a six years old female dwarven barbarian, skilled in both fists and battleaxes and is very happy to announce that she has lost her two bottom front teeth and that the experience was only mildly traumatic. She loves to dance, collect pokemon cards, hew through the raiding parties of goblins, and is obsessed with kittens. She continues to be a loving cuddle bug and skips wherever she goes to and from battle.

Both girls recently begun playing D&D with their dad (who is very proud).

Wren will turn two in February. Despite being small for her age she is a force to be reckoned with will make with the slapping if you don’t get get your butt off her blanket and bring her a graham cracker. Wren would very much like to spend every day dedicated to watching Moana and Boss Baby back to back while eating California’s entire supply of mandarins or an entire head of raw broccoli thus keep her alkali levels at peak performance, but has acknowledged that playing outside kettlebells, deadlifts and krav maga is are also an acceptable activityies.  Like her sisters before her she is strong willed will vanquish the enemy hordes but is also loving and silly.

Eilee and Cora were very excited to perform in the Nutcracker this year, and were even more excited when they discovered they’d be in a scene together. Eilee was a soldier and Cora was a mouse. In the Nutcracker the soldiers and mice fight, so having Eilee and Cora play those parts proved that art does indeed imitate real life.

David and I just celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary and came to the conclusion that we really are quite fond of this whole marriage business and are glad we selected “forever” as our prerogative.

We love all of you and hope you have a wonderful Holiday Season!

Much Love,

Liz, David, Eilee, Cora, and Wren

Living With Postpartum Anxiety

I dreaded writing about this. I barely found the strength to admit it to others in person. My dad is a clinical psychologist, so I was accustomed to the idea that if you think something might be wrong, you do something about it. You tell people. You seek help. There's no shame in that. None at all. I knew the signs of anxiety and depression; I had read about them plenty of times before, but I had no idea what a burden it can be and the shame it brings until I experienced it myself. 

It started with nightmares. Of horrible things happening to my baby and other children and I did nothing. My brain couldn't make the connection that something was wrong until I woke up feeling ashamed and terrified.  Then the anxiety took root. I felt distant from my baby. The blissful quiet in my heart that I experienced when my second child was a newborn wasn't there. It was like another person, a miserable person, was trying to take over my body. I'd wake up with a sore jaw in the morning because I spent most of the day and the evening before clenching my teeth. 

Several times I had to call my husband to come home because I couldn't cope. I'd sob in his arms the minute he'd arrive. Finally I called my OBGYN, came in for an appointment, and told him how I was feeling. He prescribed me medication, and I slowly felt things returning to normal. I could hold my baby without feeling like I was the wrong mother for her. I could say "I love you" to my children without wondering if it was a lie. The miserable person trying to take over me shrunk, until it got so small I barely acknowledged it at all. The anxiety makes a mild return when I talk about it, so typically I avoid even thinking about how it once made me feel, but women need to know about this. They need to know that postpartum depression and anxiety is real, and nothing to be ashamed of. Please seek help if something doesn't seem right. There are some things in this world that we weren't meant to bear alone.