By Rebecca Link
It is Tuesday morning and I am rushing out of the house after getting into a petty argument with my husband over socks. I escaped with no baby puke on me, had time to throw on a little makeup so as to not look as awful as I felt, and managed to yet again defy the fat gods and stuff myself into something appropriate for work. I am convinced that the corporate world will come around to yoga pants someday.
As I am driving to work, I contemplate what would happen if my car fell off the side of the windy road I take that has no guard rails and drops almost 100 feet to a creek bed in a Fairfax County Park. Not that I am planning on doing this… just contemplating how long it would take for someone to find me and if I could survive it. I quickly dismiss the thoughts and wonder why the hell I am thinking of such morbid things.
I then turn my thoughts to my husband. Why does it sometimes feel like his goal right now is to piss me off as much as possible? Doesn’t he know how emotional I am? And why am I feeling EXTRA emotional? The last couple of days flood through my mind and I regard how irritable, tired, and off I have felt. That old, familiar feeling of things spiraling out of control, that I can’t get a handle on my responsibilities, and that my emotions have gone haywire. I toy with the idea that I may be experiencing Post-Partum Depression (PPD), a common ailment for many mothers after they give birth, but these feelings of no control seem to have materialized out of thin air. I don’t think PPD has an onset in this fashion.
I’m scouring my brain and looking to place the blame for my hysterics anywhere that makes sense when it dawns on me. There is a reason this has such a familiarity to it. I have felt like this countless times before… but not for a LONG time. I am PMSing. As soon as I realize this, it’s like a lightbulb goes off and I think, Oh! Hello, old friend! Quickly remembering that I become a nasty, hormonal monster when I get my period. So THAT’S why I wanted to throat-punch everyone?! But wait, I think. Aren’t you NOT supposed to get your period while you are breastfeeding?? Didn’t the all-knowing woman who birthed all her babies naturally who taught our 12 week birthing class that I HAD to take because it would prepare me for EVERYTHING go over this in one of her sanctimonious lessons?
Well, clearly there is something wrong with me and I need to Google this as soon as humanly possible. I do what I can to not fulfill my morbid thought and careen off the side of the road as I break multiple laws digging for my phone. I yell at Siri to search “breastfeeding and menstruation” (pretty sure this is the second time I have ever used that word) and lo and behold, the Google machine does not fail. I read everything that comes up (while driving cause, yeah, so much more important than safety) and find that this is totally NORMAL. When your baby reaches certain developmental milestones like eating more solid food and sleeping longer stretches, your hormones can change and your milk production can change, too.
For good measure, I poll a Moms Group I belong to when I get to my desk and a few brave women respond and say that they, too, had gotten their Monthly Guest back and some even got it after 2 months post-partum! Confused why so many women in the group are so eager to tell me what kind of food I should feed my child but choose to ignore my post, I feel a little grateful that I made it as long as I did. I accept the fact that this is what I am going to have to deal with now (because breastfeeding and dealing with a six-month-old is apparently not enough) and dig in my desk drawers until I found a dusty old tampon (those don’t expire, right?) to wait for the inevitable flow of evil to come pouring out of me.
I think about calling and apologizing to my husband for the sock “miscommunication” but then I say, fuck that, I’m on my period and everyone can kiss my ass. I then go and make myself a cup of coffee.
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About the Author
Rebecca is a #millennial living outside Washington D.C. with her totes adorbs baby, a naughty Puggle, and a husband who graciously puts up with her shit. When she is not rotting away in her cubicle, she is usually eating snacks, drinking wine, or wiping baby puke from her clothes. You can find her leading a pack of wild women at https://www.facebook.com/groups/AMBIMOMS/.