Before I forget.

You know what would be wonderful? To be able to afford a top shrink, the psychoanalyst kind, that sits there and hardly say anything, while you just vomit words for one hour straight. Twice a week. Fact is I wouldn't have time anyway, even if I could - $$$$$ - go. Sometimes I think I'm getting crazy, little by little. My mood these days is like a rollercoaster. I can go from serenity to rage in a matter of minutes, from happiness to depression even faster. Nothing seems to help, of course I've tried opening up - to my partner, one close friend - who happens to live overseas, as I have no close friends in Denmark, a couple of health professionals, strangers in a therapy group… nothing helps. NOTHING.

I've become a mother. I should be happy-happy according to everyone in the world and the cover of mommy/baby magazines. "Isn't it lovely?" - I've been asked more than once. I hesitate to answer, but always bluntly answer what everyone expects to hear.

There's a pattern of feelings that turn to explode like a H bomb. Feelings I've not quite experienced before, not that way. A mixture of guilt, pride, joy and sadness all at once.

With motherhood it comes frustration. Frustration because you can hardly control anything in your life anymore, and I'm more or less the control freak kind. Example 1 - after another sleepless night and a day that starts at 6am, a typical day, where your high need nearly five month year old baby girl won't nap, unless you stroll around the boring surroundings of your neighbourhood while she peacefully sleeps in her pram - for one hour - and you're hungry - cause it is soon noon and you should get some lunch, considering you didn't really have a decent breakfast (who has the time?), but there's no left overs and again - there will be no time to cook something - so you just starve for one hour, after all it is worth it, and she can have some sleep, instead of those power naps in the crib or sleeping in your arms as she pleases, while you cannot go and pee, cause if you do, she will wake up, and if she does, you will have to start all over again - nursing her to sleep, because baby uses me as a human pacifier. So you're home, and you play together, because she cannot play on her own without crying of frustration for losing her toy and not being able to hold it again, so you're there to hand it right away in order to not hear that piercing crying once again. And then there's feeding, the third poop nappy change of the day, and more feeding, and more "I don't want to nap" crying-screaming, and more nursing, because now it is not only about soothing, it is about teething, and mommy has become a human biding ring as well (ouch, mommy's breast is indeed the best). And in the meanwhile you haven't eaten properly again, you haven't vacuum-cleaned, you haven't done the goddamn Tracy Anderson post-natal workout, your home looks like a living hell, and all that mess and dirt makes the cheap furniture looks even cheaper. So you're frustrated.

But then it is Friday, it is weekend, you have something to look forward too. Hubby is coming home, 630pm, later than you expected, but what the hell. Baby is really upset of tiredness. So you ask: "Can't you go for a walk, so she can nap?". He goes. 15 minutes later (maybe it was more, but it sure felt like it), he is back, baby is sleeping. Takes the lift off the pram and places it at the balcony. A lift on the ground doesn't move. Baby wakes up - surprise, surprise. Not really. From frustration I go from rage in a matter of minutes. What could I possibly have accomplished in 15 minutes? I send husband and baby away. Go away, come back in one hour and a half, I say. I was harsh. So it is almost 9pm and they aren't back yet. Baby should have a bath, and who knows today she goes to bed earlier than the other days. Her schedule changes insanely no matter what I do. And she won't take a pacifier, like ever. Or a bottle of expressed milk. Frustration, and with it a sense of failure. And then you compare yourself with others, whose babies are so easy in so many ways. With motherhood it comes frustration, and with frustration it comes a lot of other feelings - rage, sadness, envy. It sucks.