Birthday Time!

Well now I get to put all my excitement into a post. My daughter's birthday is coming up and this week I'm planning her birthday. I'm planning a "Duckie" themed party and we ordered her personal cake already. I'm so thrilled! I think that she'll have fun, Jeff is going to make her breakfast for her and wake her up. Its hard to believe she's going to be a year old....

On a more disappointing note, Jeff told me he only wants one baby. I want to have lots of kids. like maybe three, but...I know that won't happen...oh well....

I just hope everything works out....I love my family...but I want a big family.

Valentine's Day

I am actually looking forward to tomorrow. Jeff has somethings planned for our family and ourselves for the evening. Hazel loves her giant stuffed bear that Jeff and I found at Wal-mart for her.

Tomorrow morning Hazel is spending time with us, and we're all going to play, as a family.

Now, Jeff has me excited and nervous for the evening, I don't know what we're doing.

A Night Out

Well, tonight Jeff, Hazel and I got to go out to dinner with one of Jeff's guy friends (yes. he has guy friends :P not just me and Hazel). We had a nice dinner, and since I started my new meds, no breakdowns, or panic attacks.

Hazel loved Jeff's friend, and she was all smiles and giggles all evening in the restaurant, and in the car. She fell asleep on the way home from dinner, and woke up in time to play with the puppy before heading to bed. Tomorrow I'll be hanging out with one of my good friends Alisa.

We've already planned to start an anime marathon, something I've wanted to do for a while, and we just need to sort out how long she'll be able to stay over since she lives about an hour away. Today has been pretty great, no breakdowns. I had time to take a bath together (BUBBLES!) and had some time to use a mint mud mask that really helped me relax. I even had the motivation to straighten my hair.

Okay, so my challenge for the moms out there: I WANT YOU TO TAKE THE TIME TO PAMPER YOURSELF! EVEN IF ITS JUST A MINUTE MORE OF SLEEPING IN, OR EVEN JUST PAINTING YOUR NAILS. EVEN DOING YOUR HAIR IN THAT DOWN HAIRSTYLE INSTEAD OF THE MESSY MOMMY PONYTAIL!

My challenge to all the dads out there: I WANT YOU TO SPEND TIME WITH THE GUYS THIS WEEKEND! YOU GUYS NEED SOME FUN TOO!

My challenge to all the norms out there....screw you (kidding!!!): TRY SOMETHING NEW! WATCH A NEW MOVIE YOU NORMALLY WOULD NEVER PICK OFF THE SHELF! TRY TO CUT LOOSE!

My challenge for the great grandparents/grandparents: I WANT YOU TO SPEND AT LEAST A DAY WITH THE GRANDKIDS! HAVE FUN WITH THEM, SPOIL THEM (NO DON'T! WE ALL KNOW HOW THAT GOES!) AND JUST ENJOY THEM!

Beginning to Forgive

When I told my grandma on my dad's side that I was pregnant, not even a second after I told her, she had said, "You ruined your life," and still has not apologized about it. Yes, I understand that she's my grandma and I should respect her and shit, but excuse me. I deserve some respect too. So I automatically told her, "I DID NOT ruin my life. I WILL graduate high school. And I WILL keep my baby."

I hardly speak to her now, but last night I spoke to her and attempted to be civil and hold a decent conversation with her. It didn't last long, but at least I didn't wind up yelling at her. I still hold a little bit of anger towards her, but I will try to be better about it in the future.

I have never had a very close tight relationship with my father's side of the family. That's probably because they are all alot older than me, and there is always a lot of fighting. I hide from drama. I don't like it.

My mom's side of the family is the side I love hanging with. I had a very close relationship with my Papa, who died last spring, six weeks after Hazel was born. I found out when I woke up in the morning that he had passed around midnight the night before.

My grandpa was the most accepting person on my mom's side of the family, and I was so happy when they all followed suit.

But near the middle of my pregnancy he was taken to the hospital and was struggling with blood clots and a high white blood cell count.

We had taken sweet little Hazel to see him the day he died, because he was asking for her. That day we had taken a picture of Hazel holding his thumb. He loved her so much, and he had been waiting to see her one last time.

I did not get to the cemetery on time to be there for his burial, and that made me dive deeper into my depression. My family is pulling together now to try to get over the loss of Papa, and we miss him so much. Hazel has taken his seat at the head of the table for Thanksgiving, and she even fell asleep like he used to.

As a family she is making things easier, and now I am willing to go to grief counselling to help me get through this. Its going to be a long road, and my panic attacks are getting better, and even little Maddie got adopted, so that gave me quite a bit of relief.

First Step

I should probably explain why my blog is named “In the Shadows of Daylight”. No one talks about the dark side of being a parent, or the darker side of teen years. I am a teen mom. I got pregnant when I was sixteen by my seventeen year old boyfriend, who ran away from me but later came back. Yes, I’ll get to that later. Yes, we’re still together (not without its challenges, like every relationship). I delivered when I was seventeen. Now at age eighteen, I have post-partum depression. If you don’t know what that is, go look it up in the dictionary, I am not a dictionary.

I kept my beautiful baby girl, who is now ten months old. I used to be fine with touching her when I was breastfeeding and over the summer until school started. I started withdrawing after I got out of the hospital, I’d break down crying when I was away from my baby for longer than an hour. Sometimes I didn’t even make it to half an hour. My wonderful man Jeff (her daddy) tried to take me on a date to Subway and I wound up freaking out in the corner of subway about money and how to take care of our sweetheart.
In the past month, it has done a complete one-eighty. I am afraid of my darling baby girl with huge smiles and hugs for everyone. I cannot touch her without having a panic attack, I want to touch her, but I freak out, I mean, yeah, I love the little sweetie, but hell…I just cannot touch her. I don’t push her away, I just get tense and freak out on Bingo Blitz on Facebook which helps immensely. I have been playing it non-stop for the past two days while trying to figure out how to cope other than bingo.

Sometimes, I can not let my little one go, I’m scared she will run away. (she’s already walking, it’s a legit fear) We already have two kid-gates, and we have them up constantly, the dog now exercises constantly as well between trying to get away from baby and leaping over the gates. I can barely change her diaper, I can’t really give her a bath, and I struggle to feed her (there is NO lack of food for her! Its just me and my battle).
Now, I know what you people are thinking, “That’s what’s wrong with teen parents! Irresponsible! Lazy! Facebook! Abusing their babies!” or something along the lines of “GRAAHHH!!! CPS!!!” (If you don’t know what CPS is…something is wrong with this picture.)

Well I have something to tell you.

Fuck you, old person. I do not abuse my baby. Her dad is the one who takes care of her when I’m having break downs. Don’t like it? Go to a cooking/sewing/house décor/haters of teen parents blog!
My big accomplishment for the day was being able to get my daughter dressed without help, it may sound small…but it was huge, I was so proud of myself. Then she fell and started crying, I freaked out and yelled for Jeff, too scared that I hurt her or that she’ll run from me.

I am not going back to high school this quarter, but I will finish this year, and graduate with my class, it’s going to be a battle, but I will prevail. I want all teen parents to know that its okay to be scared, or be depressed, I’m going through it, but I’m also trying to get better. Somedays I don’t even want to get out of bed because I’m scared of everything. All I wanted to do a while ago, was cuddle with puppies at the humane society, where I found an adorable little one year old griffon puppy named Maddie who had just arrived.

And yes. I asked my parents (begged) and Jeff (he’s a cat person and big dog person) if we could adopt her.

The answer was no. But hey I tried, and I get to volunteer there now and play with the puppies there! One good thing done.

I have never been comfortable around people, I sometimes even freaked on my best friends growing up. But with animals I am fine. This was my therapist’s idea to try to get me to relax since I have always had a knack for writing stories.

No matter what happens to me, I’m going to try to endure for my baby.

Even though I attempted to overdose once, I told my family to lock up all meds in a safe, which might help other people going through depression (ANY FORM OF DEPRESSION!!) and have a family member or trusted person give you what you need to take. You yourself should never have the key, it defeats the purpose.

My name is Kendra, and I am a teen mom, with a strong family and wonderful boyfriend, and beautiful daughter, and this is my blog about being a mom, post-partum depression, and I have no clue what else to put but…I have cookies to eat, and I think I’m good for now.