Denial is not a river in Egypt.

It is, however, something I've been doing of late. I'm pretty sure that my dear husband is going to either be upset with me for not telling him before now or state that he's known the whole while but didn't want to say anything to avoid upsetting me. Either way, it feels like I'm in trouble and I hate that feeling. Feeling like I'm in trouble, however, is nothing compared to feeling depressed.

That, Reader, has been what I've been denying over the past month. The fog of the baby blues lifted and I'm not as bad off as I was before. But I'm still depressed and I'm doing very poorly on the coping end here. I don't know what to do because the horrendous feelings of inadequacy that hit me are surrounding my interactions with my child in a huge, ugly way.

Baby talk, I can't bring myself to do it. I feel like a flaming idiot for it and I worry that he won't learn proper English if I do it. The games where you rough house a little bit (for one this small, it's stuff like razberries on the belly, but you get the picture), I'm afraid of hurting him. No, not afraid, positively petrified of the idea. Sitting down and playing with him and his toys, I feel guilty because the house is a disaster and I shouldn't be goofing off when it needs tended to. And when I do tend the housework, I feel guilty because I'm not interacting with my baby.

I can't stop worrying over damn near everything. I think my husband is sick of my asking him if everything is going to be ok. I'm anxious that we don't have enough money to buy diapers after all the bills are paid. I'm anxious that I'll keep forgetting to pump, have my milk supply dry up and then we won't be able to feed the baby because of how expensive formula is. I'm terrified that I'm a bad wife because I'm not spending as much time and attention on my husband as I did before the baby was born. I'm terrified that I'm a terrible mother because I'm not spending every waking moment showering this kid with attention, playing with him, and doing everything in my power to see that he never cries for want of anything. I'm afraid that I'm going crazy and that I'll be shipped off to an institution, not able to see my family again for many years.

I feel guilty for pretty much everything. Even eating, because of my anxiety over having enough food in the house, I'm afraid that I'll eat too much and we won't have enough food to last till the next paycheck. The only thing I don't feel guilty for is breathing, aside from that I'm having a hard time listing the other things that don't pop up when I'm alone with the baby. I'd love to have some one come over and spend time with me. Because that's when this is really bad.

I can fake it and almost believe that I'm perfectly fine when I'm not alone with him. There are times where I really do feel happy, like everyone tells me I'm supposed to. More often, however, I feel like I need to clean the apartment and get everything done. I never can manage to clean everything, and when I try I forget to pump and the baby gets fed late. I try but I can never manage to get past treading water on the cleaning front.

Now that there's more stuff here since my trip out with my aunt last night, I've moved back several paces. I just want to cry in fustration. I can't take care of all this. Hubby gets home from work and he's exhausted. And I damn near throw the baby at him sometimes because I'm afraid that if he starts crying again, I'll actually act on the urge to drop him. Like the other times I've been depressed, destructive thoughts have been coming to mind. I've been managing to stave them off by telling myself that I can't entertain them because people depend on me. I have an obligation to take care of myself and not do something stupid, like hurt myself. And then I justify skipping meals or not doing my hair by saying that I got busy. When I looked at it and I just didn't have the energy or I felt too wretched about myself to even try.

I can't call some one up and ask them to come over because of how much of a disaster this place is. I am just too embaressed by it all. I'm staying at home, I should be able to keep the dishes clean and most of the stuff around here put away. My mother managed to do so with three children. I should be able to do this, shouldn't I? I should be happy right now, shouldn't I? I'm a mother, like I always dreamed I'd be. I have a wonderful baby boy that I always wanted. I don't need to put him in the care of some stranger and pray to god that he's ok at the end of the day. I get to be home and watch him grow and learn about the wonderful world we live in every day. I get to teach him things. I should be happy, I've had my dreams come true.

But I'm not. I still feel wretched about the fact that I delivered via C-section and I can't get this kid to latch on at the breast and nurse despite anything I try to do. I still feel like I'm somewhere between a failure and a walking catastrophy waiting to happen 80% of the time. I still want to just go walk off away from everyone and everything in my life and hide, that it'd make my inadequacy fade away from their lives and how I'm bungeling everything up. I still feel just as scared as I was in the hospital that I'm going to do something horribly wrong or make the wrong decision and absolutely destroy this precious little life entrusted to me.

Am I a lazy, crybaby wretch who just doesn't want to do the "grown up woman" thing? Am I over reacting and I don't know what the hell I'm talking about? Am I going crazy? Or, are my fears legitimate? Am I not a wimp for taking the drugs offered to me at the time of delivery with the first of the real labor pains? Is my stating that the decision to take said drugs for the sake of not causing complications due to fetal distress later in the pregnancy something other then an excuse? Am I not a failure for these things or the difficulty with feeding the baby at my breast?

I don't know. I just know that I'm terrified and I feel like a boot-scraping from a muddy cow field is worth more then I am right now. And I've felt that way for several months, which is why I wasn't as giddy as I probably should have been up until it was time to give birth to this baby.