MÈRE Stories: Janie Purser
Why MÈRE?
My story about motherhood and trying to become a mom doesn’t feel all that unique or intense; but maybe that’s the point.
My first son was an unexpected, “Oh wow I’m going to be a mom!” and was a huge blessing.
Postpartum wasn’t as hard as I expected it to be and things just seemed “easy”. After about a year, my husband and I were ready to grow our family and similar to my first pregnancy, I got pregnant quickly.
After the birth of my second son, my expectations of postpartum were that of my first go around, and wow…That wasn’t the case at all.
I was drowning in feeling overwhelmed when being alone with the two.
Days seemed truly difficult and long and I felt embarrassed to say “I have baby blues”.
Being a provider , I knew how to treat it, but carried a sense of shame and guilt and felt very alone in my struggle.
It took 9 months of getting out of dark cloud to realize I was in one. I promised myself I wouldn’t let guilt and shame rob me from seeking care if this happened again.
Prior to having my third child, I miscarried at 10 weeks.
This was an experience that left me feeling alone yet again. I remember wondering if there was something I could have done to prevent it and reached out to another woman healthcare provider.
It’s hard to say what the cause was but I do know that I wasn’t as equipped as I thought in the field of fertility and TTC.
A note I wrote after my miscarriage:
That loss is what encouraged my functional medicine journey and gave me the desire to dig deeper and look at the root cause of both PPD (postpartum depression) as well as pregnancy loss.
“Nobody can predict the journey of motherhood, but what I do know is this: there is no reason to feel alone in it.”
— Janie Purser
