Hello.  Happy Saturday, I thought today would be a great day for me to share my one year postpartum journey with you since my baby will be one tomorrow. Oh my gosh, where did the time go?  Seems like yesterday I just had him and my life changed forever. Nash is my 3rd, and my pregnancy with him was wonderful.  I wasn’t sick at all, I worked out up until the day I had him and ate fairly healthy.  Labor and delivery were smooth, its recovery that has been a total mess.  I was in the best shape of my life prior to getting pregnant so gaining weight had taken a toll on me.   I was pretty positive about adding another baby to the mix of our busy lives but I had NO idea what was about to go down.

I fell in love with Nash instantly, he was perfect.  Life was good, I felt really good after having him physically but mentally postpartum depression and anxiety slowly crept into my life.  On top of no sleep, and 3 kids I was exhausted.  I wanted to avoid it, I didn’t want this happening to me.  I kept asking myself “why me? why now”  One day I had a come to Jesus moment and had to own up to this postpartum depression and anxiety.  I started talking about it, the first person I called was my mom.  Which really helped because the first thing to having something like this is talking about it and making it known.  My husband bless his heart, didn’t know how to even handle me my moods were up and down.  I isolated myself and didn’t want to talk to him about anything, I felt ashamed that I was depressed and anxious when right in front of me was a beautiful life.  An amazing husband, 3 healthy beautiful children and a body that was absolutely incredible.  Most days I felt like I was drowning, I hated everything, including my job, my passion for health and wellness, being a mom, and wife. It was dreadful.  It truly is hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t personally been through this.  Being mom of 3 gave me extreme anxiety, I was told multiple time how hard 3 kids were to transition too I just didn’t know how hard!

Here I was a new mom of 3 with postpartum anxiety and depression, my husband was called to work out of town and was gone during the week.  I was working, taking care of 3 kids, myself, dogs and a house alone.  This was a blur in my life, and caused adrenal fatigue which really fed into my anxiety.  I was barley surviving, lots of tears were shed and I yelled at my kids a lot.  Bless their little hearts, they showed up for me everyday and made sure I knew they loved me.

So, what does a new mom do in this dreadful situation.  You are scared, you are sad, you are anxious. Here are the steps I took to recovery.  I first contacted my doctor and of course they wanted me to come in and be seen.  I’m stubborn, I have been in the pharmacy industry for 10 years,  and I REFUSED to be put on anything.  That is just who I am, I wanted to figure this out naturally.  But if you truly need the medication, you do what you have to get better momma.  I knew eating healthy and exercising were my next steps, I started with yoga just a few weeks postpartum because I couldn’t stand not moving and being active.  I continued with working out for therapy more than for results.  The next step I took was talking to my great friend Ali Damron, she helped me get on some great quality supplements.  At 4 months postpartum I decided to join an online program that I knew would completely change my life called the FASTer Way to Fat Loss, I knew from my past experiences I would find my true happiness and love for health and fitness.   I then looked into counseling, THE BEST decision I have made this year was going to see a counselor and truly getting and understanding of how my brain was working. This put my life into prospective and this is when I truly started to take my self care seriously.

Self care for me includes meditation, journaling, exercise, personal development, & eating healthy and I am also a Certified FASTer Way coach, while getting myself healthy, I am helping other moms do the same.  I would NOT have survived this year without these essentials in my life daily.  It has been a long rode, I’ve had a lot go on since having Nash, I’ve struggled more than ever before but I made it through this hard season in my life.  I am so grateful for my health, my family, my kids, my husband and everyone along the way that has reached their hand out to lift em up.

I took control, I didn’t take the easy way out, I worked hard, and I continued to educate myself so I could pay it foward.  It saddens me to see moms struggling so hard, and losing themselves in motherhood.  Your mind and body should be a priority and taken care of every day.  You cannot pour from an empty cup, you cannot keep taking care of everyone else and expect to be happy or healthy.  I will never tell you it will be easy but I will tell you it will be worth it.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my story, I hope it inspires at least one mom to make a choice, to change.  You deserve all the happiness.  You deserve to live life to your fullest.  This all starts with YOU!

XOXO Kylee

P.S if you are ready for a change and want to work with me as your coach I have a new round of the FASTer Way starting on November 26th use the link on the HOME page to register!