It’s hard to believe that I gave birth two weeks ago. It’s hard to believe our beautiful daughter is two weeks old. It’s hard to believe that I feel inadequate, like I’m not enough, like I’m not good enough for her.

The first week was spent mostly in the hospital. It was great getting home. I felt good for the most part.

Week two and daddy has to go back to work. We put on a brave face and send him off with love. The first few days alone were difficult but manageable. Pumping while she’s fussy and gets fussy every time I step away is difficult. Being alone with her during the day has made me very clingy. It’s hard for me to watch others hold her. When my family comes by to help, and I’ve gotten everything done, I just stand and watch them hold her because I don’t know what to do with myself.

Everybody will tell you not to sleep with a newborn in the bed, but good luck to you if you’re trying to leave a newborn in a crib and get any sleep yourself. She slept in her crib twice and then I made bumpers for her a section of the bed to herself. She also hates all her receiving blankets, preferring the ones mommy and daddy use. So my favorite blankets have become hers. The really soft plush throws that feel like nothing, yeah those. She refuses to keep anything else on her. She sleeps beside me in bed, and I can’t sleep without her there. If she chokes or anything, I have the comfort of knowing I’m right there and I can help her immediately instead of walking across the room and looking to see, and then helping her. I can hear her breathe. I can hear her coo. I can have peace of mind and get some sleep myself.

After carrying a child for 9 months it’s not easy to be apart. I’m gonna try Tuesday to let her granny watch her while me and daddy go do some adult things and catch a nap hopefully. I’m nervous about it. I don’t know how we’ll do. Me. I don’t know how I’ll do. Daddy goes to work. She snuggles with anybody really. I just don’t know if I’ll be okay.

Bills are stacking up, so I will have to return to work after the 6 weeks, after the doctor clears me. Daddy says he’s got us, but I’m not the type of person who can sit at home and be okay. I’ve worked since I was able. Sitting at home with no work makes me depressed, I feel like a burden.

Last night I just had fed her, she had burped, and was drifting off to sleep, then she suddenly spit up half her bottle and I was so depleted, so tired, so upset. I got up and changed her diaper, went and got another bottle ready for her, and came back to her asleep on daddy. I lost it. I broke down. I felt inadequate. I felt like I was failing. I felt like I wasn’t enough for my family. I try to let daddy sleep at night so he has enough sleep to make it through work. We’re both tired I know. Maybe I’ve taken too much on myself watching her during the day and getting up at night, too, but daddy has to rest for work. I just feel at a loss.

Some days it’s hard to tell when I’m hungry and when I need to eat. I forget to eat and I forget to take my prenatal vitamin. I drink water, but not as much as I should. I shower when I get the chance. I guess everything that society tells you to do, you have to do, you have to be, it’s just too much for me. Can I get a round of applause for doing sit-ups with a sleeping baby? Could someone tell me I’m doing a good job because I’m feeding my baby instead of telling me I need to breastfeed, I need to get her to latch? Can someone please ask me if I’m okay and not expect me to say I’m fine? Could the person I called my best friend care enough to say more than “congrats” when I tell her I had a healthy baby?

Fuck it.

Maybe I’ll just let my milk dry up and feed my baby formula because I’m still feeding my baby.

Maybe I’ll let daddy get up at night because I’ve been up all day.

Maybe I’ll be clingy for as long as I can because it won’t be like this forever.

Maybe I blocked my best friends number because I deserve better than “congrats.”

Maybe I’m doing my best and my best should be good enough.

Maybe we should be more supportive to new moms.

Fuck it.

Until next time,

WitchyMomma out

It’ll be a week tomorrow since I had our sweet baby girl. She was born weighing in at 8lbs 2oz and measuring 21 1/2 inches long. During the last part of delivery, mommy ran a temperature and baby came out with one. We were given antibiotics and kept to make sure we were both okay. Her umbilical cord was wrapped around her throat twice. The night she was born the moon was orange. Nobody else had noticed. I had asked Freyja and the gods to watch over us.

On day two she was lifting her head and looking around. She was holding her own paci in. I had tried to breastfeed and she latched on immediately. There wasn’t a struggle.

At 5 the next morning, she had been latched and feeding for an hour and a half and still hungry. At that point momma was in too much pain to let her continue, so we asked for formula. She devoured the formula and fell asleep right away. She wasn’t getting enough from mommy. The nurses on night shift knew we’d been up all night with her and were very understanding. The nurses who came in for the next shift wanted to tell me I needed to breastfeed. I needed to try to latch her on. I had blisters on both nipples. They made me feel like I was failing. I continued to formula feed until the day we were leaving when daddy brought in my breast pump because my milk had come in. I pumped and fed her. It still wasn’t good enough for the nurses or the pediatrician. At that point, a mother is emotional enough about everything. Why tell her she’s not doing enough? Why make her feel like she’s failing? My baby is eating and I know she’s getting enough to eat, where’s the harm? She still got the colostrum, she’s still getting breast milk, she’s still getting the good stuff, just in a different way. Where’s the harm?

We were discharged from the hospital Wednesday night. We had been admitted Friday night. I was induced Sunday morning.

We have a healthy happy baby and now that’s she’s down for a nap, I’m going to do the same.

Until next time,

WitchyMomma Out.

So this is a tough one to write, and probably a long one, but it’s necessary to get this off my chest.

Over the period of my pregnancy I’ve had people ask me if I would be getting an epidural. As an honest and open person, I’ve told them how I feel on the subject. I don’t want medicine if I don’t have to have it. I would like to do this as naturally as possible. I don’t like needles and I don’t like the idea of one being inserted into my spine. I don’t take anything more than Tylenol on a normal, unpregnant day, or smoke a joint when shits unbearable (but I quit when I realized I might be pregnant as well as quit cigarettes a month and a half prior to finding out). Hate me for it if you will. I need more haters.

My choice to do this without medicine if I’m capable has gotten me so much backlash and hate. “You’re gonna want the drugs as soon as you’re in pain.” I’ve heard so much bullshit about all of this and I’ve had a total of 3 people to tell me “You’re strong, I believe in you. You’ve got this.” Those three people have been my fiancé, my granny, and my cousin.

First of all, last February (2018) I cut off the end of my left middle finger on a meat slicer at Macados. I picked up the end of my own fucking finger off the meat slicer and told my manager, who proceeded to freak out and had me hold it under HOT water. (Does anybody realize HOT water makes you bleed MORE?) I was bleeding everywhere and he was rummaging through the first aid kit. He starts to panic about it and I’m like, “hey, just do what you need to, I’m okay, but I’m gonna sit down for a minute, I’m a little light headed.” So, I sit down, he calms down enough to find what he’s looking for. I tell him, “I’m okay but I can’t look at it right now.” So he wraps it up and NOBODY is willing to take me to the hospital. So I called the guy I was with at the time who lived an HOUR away to come get me and take me to the hospital (which is not even 10 minutes from my workplace). He gets there and takes me. So far, I’ve cut off the end of my finger and waited an hour for a ride because my workplace wouldn’t take me, ate some crackers and had some Dr Pepper to keep my sugar up. I’ve taken first aid classes, so I kind of know what I need to do until someone with a license can help me.

Then, we get to the hospital and I sit in the waiting room for 3 and a half FUCKING hours before they try to take me back for an x Ray. I showed the guy getting ready to do the x Ray the end of my finger and explained I don’t need an x Ray, I’m gonna have to pay for this myself anyway because I work fast food and smoke weed. (If you work fast food and don’t smoke weed or have babies at home, I don’t know how the fuck you get up and go to work every day). Workers compensation won’t pay for it. He’s cool about it, agrees with me, and takes me back to the front. I wait a while longer and get fed up. Everyone in the waiting room has cleared out. It’s just me. And I’m still fucking waiting. So I walk out. I leave. I go to the family dollar and get gauze and peroxide and bandaids. My cousin (aforementioned) gave me some iodine solution because she had just done almost the same thing 3 months prior, but she smashed hers off at the middle knuckle in a car door. Fun shit, right?

I got back to my apartment with my ex and I went to unwrap my finger. HE almost passed out. I hadn’t even unwrapped it yet. I had just begun. Fine. I’ll do it my damn self. I unwrapped, cleaned, and re-bandaged the shit myself. I kept it clean and healed it myself over a 3 month period. Now I have a scar and it’s finally healed fully. The nerve grew back really close to my fingertip so it still hurts when I knock it on shit, but I did it. Through the nightmares about having no fingers. Through the nightmares about being pulled into the meat slicer and dying. Through the trauma. I did it. Myself. No medicine. Just some weed to calm the fuck down when I couldn’t take it anymore at night when I’d wake up alone.

My manager wanted to ask me (2 months later) if I was high when I cut my fingertip off. It was my second day on the job and I was unfamiliar with the machinery, left unattended, got everything done, and was cleaning the damned thing. I wasn’t high. I was stone cold sober. And NEW at the job. Training was ONE DAY.

Anyway, the point is, I’ve been through a lot of shit and bounced back without too much effort. I skateboard. I’ve gotten pretty beat up doing that. I’ve poured fryer grease down my leg and didn’t bat an eye at it, though I went to my manager and told her, went to the bathroom and checked it out. It was blistering, but I finished my shift, no tears, no complaints. The guy who saw me do it goes “you’re a little dangerous, aren’t you?” I’ve had tattoo artists tell me I’m one of their best customers because I sit so still through the tattoo. I use physical pain to cope with other pains I suppose. Maybe that’s not healthy, or maybe that’s the raw truth, or perhaps it’s both, but that’s human nature.

Physical pain doesn’t affect me the way it does other people. Yet here I am, still being mocked and laughed at for my choice. “You’ll change your mind about that epidural.”

Why? Because you can’t do it means I’m incapable? You don’t think you could go through that and be okay? That’s fine. Don’t push that on me. Don’t make your pain tolerance mine. Don’t assume that just because you can’t imagine being in pain like that means I can’t tolerate it. Women have been doing this SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME or WE WOULD NOT BE HERE.

“Medicine has changed and evolved and you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

It’s not because I want to be hard on myself. I am fully aware that child birth is not painless. I’m fully aware that there are medicines to help with the pain. There are also people out here who don’t need those things. I’m not saying that if I go in and I’m in unbearable pain that I won’t take something. I’m not saying that if it comes does to it I won’t go in for a c section. I’m just saying that maybe we should be a little more supportive and uplifting rather than telling each other we can’t, we won’t.

But do you know what hurts the worst?

When the person you call best friend laughs at you and tells you “you’re gonna change your mind.” The one person you should be able to get support and backup from. The one person you’d trust to say “you got this.”

I didn’t really know how to deal with this, but I’ve decided maybe it’s just time to move forward. If the people around me aren’t going to support me or back me up, maybe I’ve not been wise with who I’ve surrounded myself with. Perhaps the common ground we once shared that made us best friends is part of the past, part of our story, but perhaps it’s time to move forward, to the next chapter. Maybe my chapter is having a baby and her story will never have a chapter like that, so the connection we once had is fading.

Maybe it’s time to move forward and become who I’m supposed to be. Maybe it’s time to stop letting anyone and everyone impose their self doubts on me and my life. Perhaps it’s time to move forward.

Until next time friend…

WitchyMomma out.

So for all the other moms out there thinking it, and for all those who won’t say it, I will.

Fuck you Braxton Hicks.

Sincerely.

I was up until 6 this morning unable to sleep. Every time I’d drift off, I’d get a punch or a kick to one organ or another or another friggin contraction. Love it.

My granny says she’ll be born either the 13th or the 21st according to the moon.

My neighbor says I’m gonna pop next week because I’ve dropped so far.

My best friend says the 7th or the 19th.

I’m like, please, any time you’re ready, you are more than welcome to evacuate the premises!

Not that I don’t love being pregnant.

Fuck that. I hate it. I’m done. It was all nausea and gummy bears for the first trimester. Emotions and “awww how far along are you?” in the second trimester. Now if one more person asks me how far along I am, I’m gonna lose it.

Maybe you’d like to check my cervix and see??????? Maybe since my last appointment, I’ve dilated some!?!

No, let’s be real, I’m civil when I’m out, I don’t lose it on anyone at the grocery store. But when I see girls younger than me on a scooter in Walmart, pushing with their fucking feet to go faster, I do want to punch them. I want to flip the scooter over and beat them with a bag of potatoes. Do I? No, well, maybe in my head.

I’m just ready to have this baby so I can get cry through the first few weeks and then start walking again. Get back on my feet, and start getting my body back. I realize it’s not gonna be what it was before, but I’d like to be able to button a pair of jeans. I really, really would. It’s a dream at this point. Jeans. Ahhhhhhh

But yeah, fuck you Braxton Hicks.

Sincerely,

Every mom ever

Yes, yes it is, but it’s not anything you imagined it would be.

No pointy hats. No flying brooms. No abracadabra.

I don’t mean to disappoint.

Mainstream media has made a big picture that isn’t accurate at all-but that’s the Hollywood effect on most things.

My craft is a peaceful one, I’ll tell you how it comes into my daily life to give a more…realistic picture.

In the morning, I get up and open my blinds. I talk to my plants, make sure they’re doing okay. If you think talking to plants is strange, see if there’s not scientific evidence of it helping plants grow. I let the light in and open the windows to let my home breathe, the wind to cleanse and renew the energy within.

I make breakfast and talk to my cat and my Guinea pig. I tell them good morning, feed them, give pets, and check the moon cycle and effects on today (I check my horoscope).

I decide just what today will bring and I begin my day. If I don’t like the horoscope saying I’ve let an opportunity pass me by, I get on it. Today it says meditate. I meditate via writing. It’s how I get everything out in the open.

I often journal in my book of shadows about what’s happening. Yesterday I saw a “1” in the way the sunlight was hitting the floor, and took it as a small sign.

I was wearing my cats eye, which enhances awareness and intuition, also worn for optimism and happiness. I don’t believe I would have noticed the “1” otherwise, as I usually don’t pay attention.

I had recently set my intentions (via the law of attraction-also science-and a poem) that going forward, I would be a little ball of positivity and hope, letting go of my anxiety.

The “1” means that new beginnings and new things are coming. Changes.

I’m about to have a baby. In less than 3 weeks. That’s a pretty big change if you ask me.

Now I’m gonna go have a cup of tea.

That’s all for today I suppose, check back for more everyday witchy things.

Momma Jojo out 👏✌🏼

So, throughout the year and a half I’ve been living out on my own, trying to be a healthy fucking adult, I’ve bought some foods that just sit…. and sit….. and sit…….. Like me. Never moving unless we have to. 🥔

Like what kind of food though?

Like a box of cereal I liked but didn’t want any more of after a couple bowls. Cheerios… plain Chex… rice crispies… the list goes on for cereals.

Like the sunflower seeds I bought (in a big fucking bag) for my salads… which I think I had 2 or 3 of…. so healthy, huh? 🥗

Like the cranberries I bought (in a big bag) also for my salads… and I’ve grown tired of moving out of the way when I need sugar or want to make some damn coffee. Outta my way cranberries, I need caffeine. ☕️

Like chocolate chips that need to be used before an expiration date but they’re white chocolate and I don’t know what the hell to use them for…?

Like the apples I buy and never actually eat… 🍎

How about jello? Anybody buy jello and then it sits in the cabinet taking up space until it’s out of date? Yeah. Me fucking too. There goes $0.60 of my hard earned minimum wage. 🙄

So, what to do with all this mess? Well here’s some short, simple, and sweet things to try:

Puppy chow: throw some peanut butter in a bowl, microwave that shit until it’s liquid gold and toss some Chex mix in there (or you can do rice crispies). Toss that shit until it’s all sticky and clumpy. Throw in some powdered sugar and toss it again. Now stick it in a baggy or a bowl and go. Quick. Simple. Easy. Kinda messy, but it’s not good if it’s not messy, right? Throw in some chocolate chips or honey while the peanut butter is still liquified for a subtly different but oh so good flavor. Maybe some peanuts if you’re feeling fucking fancy. 👏 Go you.

Now, what to do with the damn Cheerios? You can drizzle honey over it and eat a bowl of cereal if you want to actually use the product you fucking bought. Or. Make some trail mix. Throw those cranberries, white chocolate chips (if you already ate all those glorious m&ms), sunflower seeds and some peanuts all together and have a quick healthy sweet and salty snack when you’re fucking hungry (really good for hot, outside, sweaty jobs). Throw in some puppy chow if there’s any left, it’ll be delicious.

The apples you can dip in peanut butter and sprinkle with cinnamon to be a healthy you or you can say fuck it and use that jello you won’t ever use otherwise. Get a bag or bowl, throw some jello mix in it, chop up those apples, throw it all together, shake that shit up, and voila. An unhealthy but oh so delicious summer treat.

Wham bam, now my kitchen is clutter free. Thank you, and thank you ma’am.

Please, come again to momma Jojo’s kitchen where we throw shit together and hope for the best. Until next time. 👋

Welcome to WitchyMomma!

I hope to post once a week for now, maybe twice, we’re expecting a sweet baby girl on August 21st, so bare with me!

Thanks for reading!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton