By Tracee Sioux

I know a few new moms who are finding the transition to Mommy difficult. I can totally relate. I suffered Post-Partum Depression pretty severely after the birth of my first child. I had just witnessed 9-11 which was traumatic and that most likely contributed to the severity of my PPD. I've written a little bit about it in my article Fear Not, if you want to know more details about my extremely difficult transition into Mama.

What baffles me is that we are still lying to our little girls about the whole process of becoming a mother. I say things like, One day you'll grow up and have babies of your own and you'll be so happy. This may turn out to be part of the truth, but what about the rest of it? I've shown the crowning pictures of Ainsley coming out of me to some of my friends and it is quite literally shocking to adult women what exactly happens during birth. No, I do not plan to post pictures of my own vajayjay on the Internet. However, I heard you can see the crowning of a baby on a giant movie screen in Knocked Up. I think it's great and I plan to see it. If my daughter were a teenager I would take her to see it too.

I've had a second child since then and I have had five years to reflect on the massive overhaul of identity that happens when independent and empowered women become mothers and I've never felt like the reality of what becoming a whole new entity gets any validity.

So allow me to rant about becoming Mommy. Maybe, if you're a new mom and feeling not at all like yourself and kind of depressed, you can relate. And hopefully, actually my prayer is, that if you find yourself relating this will bring you a little bit of peace about what you're going through. Also, I hope it will encourage you to be more honest with your daughters or other girls you know about what the experience was like for you.

In America we totally minimize birth and the real trauma of the whole ordeal. One minute you're You. A woman who gets things done. Maybe you order underlings around at work or earn the respect of coworkers with your skills. You have money to play around with, gets to wear clothes you like, cash a paycheck and invest in whatever. You make deals or writes articles or manage a business or do whatever you do in your career. You communicate with adults frequently and daily on an intellectual level.

Your body was yours and you shared it when you felt like it and didn't when you didn't want to. You had a regular cycle and hormones that had been predictable. Therefore you'd learned how to manage your monthly issues since you were 12.

Now BAM you're body has experienced this traumatic violent event - birth. Personally, I thought it was about as violent as being hit by a car. You wouldn't emotionally bounce back from that in six weeks, I don't understand why Americans expect women to bounce back from birth in a month and a half. The event changed your hormones, shape, vajayjay and everything else about you. You gave up your body for nine months to grow a foreign life and told yourself you'd be back to normal after birth. Dream On. Now you're a milk machine. Now you smell of puke. Now you never sleep.

You feel like you are no longer YOU anymore. Your whole entire identity has gone through a dramatic and intense transformation. That's takes more than six weeks or twelve weeks or four months or a year to adjust to. You don't do the things that used to define You as You.

If you're staying at home not working means you're not getting any outside validation for the job you're doing. You're getting no paycheck. You're only getting poopy diapers and the occasional smile or giggle, but it's hard to cash that at the bank. You have to cut costs as expenses rise and you kind of resent not having your hair done like you used to.

Your husband thinks you're doing fandiddly-taskic - so obviously he's not very tuned in to what is actually going on with you. Which equals even less validation. But, there's no way he can really understand because becoming Dad may be an awesome journey for him, but he's still going to work, cashing a check and gets a lot of time away from the needy baby. And no one is sucking on his body half the day.

So what I'm saying is that what you are going through is NORMAL. It sucks but it's normal. You are doing everything right. What you are doing does matter in the long run and it's a valid and legitimate thing to be doing right now. You just have to realize that you are never ever going to get the same emotional kick-back from diapers and naps that you used to get cutting a massive deal in pharmaceuticals or whatever you did. The pay-off is different and there's not a lot of instant gratification staying home with a baby. It takes time and practice to get used to.

I now believe that being a stay-at-home-mom is a craft. Just like writing or any other profession. You have to learn how to do it. You have to make a structure for yourself. If you wake up everyday and just wander around and only do whatever you feel like doing then you will become clinically depressed. Period. You used to look forward to weekends cause it was Your time-off. But, now what do you look forward to? I can tell you the answer - you look forward to your husband coming home from work and you look forward to his time off.

I know you don't want to, but you really have to get out of the house every single day for something - anything. A walk. A neighbor's house. A grocery store trip. A mommy-baby sign language class. You have to leave the house daily.

You also have to "accomplish" at least one thing every day so you don't feel like a total loser. Laundry is something. Cleaning the bathroom is something. Doing a budget is something. Find something every day that you can accomplish and then feel proud of yourself for doing it.

And really you must ditch that baby! If you are taking the baby on your dates with hubby, that's ridiculous! You must leave the baby sometimes or you will lose Self. If You lose You all is lost, because the baby needs You to be You and not some drone who smells like puke and feels like crap. Go out with other women without the baby. Supplement with formula or pump, it's not that big of a deal. Join a book club. Go to a movie. Go out to dinner. Join a gym and leave her in the nursery for an hour while you work out or take a yoga class. You can not become only mom. You must also be You who has other interests outside the home. Otherwise you're just the weird crazy lady who believes the baby will die if she goes out to lunch. That's the definition of insanity! The baby can be without you for a few hours. The baby should be without you for a few hours or she will have attachment issues in only a few short months and that will not be fun for you or her.

Stop reading parenting magazines. They should all be titled "How many ways can you accidentally kill your baby." They induce anxiety and you do not need that much information. They are full of crap most of the time. Too much information is just scaring you can creating anxiety. You don't need to know about every freak accident that might possibly happened to a kid. Throw them away, stop your subscription and buy Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect, and Communicate with Your Baby. She'll give sound advice without making you a panicked mess.

Honestly, physiologically and psychologically, you need to exercise. You just have to force yourself to do it. The endorphins you get from exercise are worth any anti-depressant on the market. Your poor body just went through a massive hormonal surge with way to much estrogen and then almost none overnight. Be kind to your new body and feed your brain some endorphins.

You probably don't want to follow this advice if you're suffering from PPD, but get off your butt and do it anyway.

If you are having compulsive thoughts about hurting yourself or your baby, which now that my child is five, I will admit to having had them. You need to tell your OB/GYN that you're having brief flickering thoughts of hurting your self (really, I think that's enough information to give him a picture of what's going on without getting any authorities involved) and get some medication. The Le Leche League has a list of anti-depressants that you can take while breast feeding.

That said, I wonder if what new moms are really experiencing is a full-blown identity crisis resulting from adding MOM to the mix of SELF.