Lights Will Guide You Home (Or at least through your next sleepless night)

Note: This essay was written in late October 2025 and has been resting since then, unpublished. I decided to post it today as I started working on another essay. Writing is still a passion and love of mine, but as priorities have shifted in 2025, I've spent a little less time putting words on the page. 

My Biblical counselor says writing is good for me, and I believe her when she says it. I know it deep in my bones, that I am a better version of myself when I am writing, that the world makes more sense to me when I am using this reflective practice.  Taking time for myself in postpartum days feels hard to do; yet, I think of the advice I often give patients who are parents-- you have to put your own oxygen mask on first, you have to prioritize your own health if you want to be around for your kids.  Why does it feel impossibly hard to now apply that head knowledge to my actual life? 

Maybe it's because we do not have an easy childcare scenario, so it's just me running the show from day to day.  We chose to live somewhere that, it turns out, is half a days drive from our parents.  I now understand why people move "to be closer to grandparents" in the days of growing a family. This week I was over scheduled with medical appointments, work, a hair appointment, etc. all because my mother-in-law was here and was such a joyful help to me in spending time with Josiah. Some of our family and friends have a large capacity for this, are willing and able to help in this way. Others either have no interest or don't feel able to-- holding the baby for ten minutes while I shower is about the limit. And for some, even that is too much. Letting us know that they are praying for us is their way that they can serve us, and we will take that just about any day of the week.  All to say, we are grateful for the help and the encouragement in any form it comes in, but it is hard to come by people who can provide tangible, hands-on help. I spent the greater part of a week interviewing potential candidates for a nanny type role and was so overwhelmed with both the cost and lack of candidates who actually wanted to take care of an infant.  

This week I've been thinking a lot about the helpers in our lives and how meaningful it is for them to have stepped into this season with us.  Let me be so clear- we are currently walking in a season that we have prayed for, longed for, and desired for years.  We are walking in a season that felt forbidden, like we might never get a taste of the fruit growing from the tree on this side of the fence. I promised myself that if we ever arrived here, I would not complain about the challenges that came our way.  And yet, there can be good and hard things all at once.  I was reminded of this in pregnancy when my ultrasound technician would ask how I was feeling. "Oh I'm tired but good.  I'm a little nauseous but I'm not complaining." Having also walked a journey of infertility and loss years before, she kindly said to me one day, "It's ok to feel both things-- to feel really grateful for this healthy baby after your other losses while also acknowledging that this part of pregnancy is hard." I heard her, but I still couldn't bring myself to utter any words besides gratitude for where we were. I felt I would have endured almost anything to meet one of our children Earthside. 

And yet, we are now in this prayed for, desired, ever-hoped for season, and we are encountering the difficult days.  I have told a few friends recently that four months postpartum has been harder for me than the fresh newborn days. I can't quite explain this-- the newborn days were hard in their own way, and those first two weeks with Josiah rocked my world. But I think I expected that, and so it didn't surprise me when it felt hard.  We also had so many people checking in, driving over to help, feeding us, holding Josiah, taking me to appointments when I couldn't yet drive, texting to see how we were, staying with us to do loads of laundry and put meals in front us. The helpers were all here, and we loved them so much for how they loved on and provided for us. 

Four months in, I think there is an assumption that you've got it. Most parents, at least in the US, are back to work and into new rhythms by 3-4 months. Most moms are getting back into exercise, are getting out more with the baby for activities and outings, are maybe attending more social events again.  Most are stepping outside of the newborn bubble that you live in for the first few months and starting to feel like "we've got this." I certainly assumed that things would play out this way for us. 

But it hasn't really been quite like that. It's still really hard for me to get a meal on the table-- some days during nap time, I only have time to prep one component of our meal (rice, quinoa, the base of our meal) and never get to the other part of it, so our meal looks sad and horribly incomplete by our appointed dinnertime.  Some days I get the whole meal on the table but it's cold by the time we get to eat it, and I've also spent every nap time since the day began getting us here, neglecting laundry and exercise along the way. Our freezer meals are gone, I think we might have one left that we are saving for a true emergency.  The other day I thought, "maybe I can just batch prep a ton of meals again and freeze them for winter!" And of course, I could, but it would require extra hands for the baby, extra hands that don't live within the walls of our home-- extra hands that I would have to text with the barely one hand I have available to ask for help. 

My counselor reflected back to me that she felt I was struggling with postpartum anxiety recently, and possibly postpartum depression. She has said this to me once before, and I kind of clammed up and said "oh but I'm doing ok-- it's just really hard right now, but I'm fine.  The baby is so cute! I am so grateful for him. We are ok. Things are kind of hard hard right now, but I think it's normal hard." This time when she said it, I cried.  And when she asked if I felt like I needed medication, I said "no I'm good.  I just am not writing, and I'm not exercising as much because of my foot/wrist injuries, and my friends are all busy with work, and we can't easily make it to small group to be in community because of the drive and his bedtime. All of my tools for my anxiety feel like they're gone." I am so for medication for my patients when they need it, but I resist it myself.  I have always been this way-- I will suffer through headaches, body aches, joint pain, wisdom tooth removal, and apparently even recovery from a C section with minimal if any medication. Yet I'm quick to offer it with a dose of grace to patients that need it, even when I know it's just something to help them get over the hump of their disease, their grief, their illness. 

I titled this essay "Lights Will Guide You Home" after the Coldplay song, Fix You. Because, for some reason, this song has played repeatedly in my head this week, even though I'm not sure if I've heard it in years (maybe it was on in a grocery store recently?).  I have been thinking a lot about the people in our lives who are lighting the way for us-- friends, family, who have gone before us in parenthood who are quick to remind us of the hard things in these days.  When we encountered our first significant illness this week, I reached out to friends who I knew had been in the thick of this before, and they sent really helpful tips and encouragement.  Maybe they can't offer me anything novel for our illness, but just knowing "you will survive this, we've been there before" feels helpful.  I used to feel so left behind in the years that we desired children and didn't have them-- I worried about being an old mom, about all of my friends having teenagers by the time we got to be parents, about maybe never even getting to have children at all. Now, on the other side, I see that we are in good company with friends around us having kids, but also that those who have gone before us are the lights that are guiding us home.  They are speaking from wisdom, from experience, from the other side of the trenches of parenthood. And they're keeping the lights on, reminding us that we will get to the other side of this- that we will make it home, after however many more sleepless nights, in the midst of what feels like the gauntlet of parenthood.  And then we'll be guiding lights for someone else. 

In my faith, I'm reminded that the Lord is the one who always goes before us, and these friends that I mention are reflecting that back to me. They have gone before me in parenthood, but in the bigger picture, God has gone before me to prepare the way that we are walking, and He knows these days that I am in, knew them even before I dreamed of our sweet son.  He is the ultimate light that is guiding me home, and for that I am so grateful.