139: When You're Running on 6% Battery and Your Kids Still Need You

What if the most exhausted you've ever been isn't from the loss itself — but from mothering your living children while grieving the baby you didn't get to bring home?

If you've come home from the hospital to a house full of little ones who still need you — needing breakfast, needing rides to school, needing your lap — you already know this kind of tired. The kind sleep doesn't fix. The kind that makes you feel like a zombie reading bedtime stories with your mouth while your brain is somewhere else entirely.

In this episode, I'm taking you back to my kitchen — to my five-year-old in his Batman pajamas asking me a question I couldn't even hear. To the moment I realized I had nothing left. And to everything I want you to know if that's where you are right now.

What you'll learn:

• Why the exhaustion of grieving while parenting is its own specific, lonely kind of tired — and why no one warns you about it
• The "two jobs" you're doing every single day (and the second one is the one that's really eating you alive)
• Why snapping at your kids doesn't make you a bad mom — and what it actually means about how much you love them
• What your living children will really remember from this season (it's not what your guilt is telling you)
• How to drop the bar for what counts as "being a good mom" right now — all the way to the floor
• A simple practice for when the guilt starts spiraling after a hard moment with your kids
• Why the baby you lost is already part of the way you mother every other child you have
• The truth about whether you're "ruining" your kids by being sad (spoiler: you're not)

If guilt is the heaviest thing you're carrying right now, my free workshop Practical Ways to Release Guilt and Navigate Grief After Baby Loss was built for exactly this. You can register at navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop.

Read the full blog post here: https://navigatingbabyloss.com/post/parenting-after-stillbirth-exhaustion-guilt

https://navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop

Free workshop for moms grieving stillbirth or pregnancy loss. Learn simple, trauma-informed practices to release guilt, calm the what-ifs, and honor your baby's memory with love instead of pain. Includes bonus Grief & Guilt Release Journal.

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

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Transcript

So I'm gonna take you back to my kitchen when I lost my girls.

I had a five-year-old and a two-year-old, both boys at home. Their life didn't stop at all. They were loud. Things were crazy. It was amazing. They were so joyful. The five-year-old was in kindergarten and the two-year-old was two, which meant that any time I sat down, he was on my lap, which I loved.

But there were days when I was trying to fold laundry or I was trying to do something or pay attention to his brother, and there he was in my lap or on my back. He was also a climber on my back. And then I lost the twins, and I came home from the hospital to a house that still had those needy little boys in it who wanted their mom.

And if you've been there, you know exactly what I'm about to say. If you haven't been there yet, but you're nodding right now because you're in some version of it, this is something that nobody talks much about — the very specific, the very lonely kind of exhaustion that happens when you're grieving the baby you lost while parenting the babies you didn't.

So here's what those first few weeks looked like. I was tired. Tired in a way that I'd never been tired in my whole life, and not just because of my C-section and the delivery and the funeral planning, but just the mental exhaustion.

I had been a mom for five years. I was pretty sure I knew what tired was, but I didn't until this happened, until my loss happened. This was very different. My bones were tired. I was sleeping and waking up still tired.

And I was running on something that wasn't energy or even willpower at this point. It was just because I had to. And that was a blessing of that season, that I did have these little boys who were forcing me to get out of bed every single day. But it made it so hard because they didn't know how broken I was.

They still needed what they needed in the morning. They still needed their everyday routine, and so I got up. I poured them cereal, I packed the lunch for kindergarten, I got him out the door, got the two-year-old dressed. I went through the motions, and the whole time my body felt like it was on 6% battery. Like my laptop telling me there's 10% or less battery. That, except mine was way past that. Mine was in the red bar the minute I woke up, and I was walking around like that every single day.

And one day my five-year-old was in his little Batman pajamas, and we were supposed to be leaving for school in 15 minutes, and he was asking me a question, and I don't even remember what it was, but he was a talker. And I remember standing in the kitchen and looking at him, and I had no idea what he was saying. I couldn't even pretend to answer him, because he was smart and he would know that I was not paying attention. And it's not that I didn't love him, because I did. It's not that I didn't want to answer.

I just had nothing left, and the lights were on and no one was home. And there he was, just standing in his little Batman pajamas looking up at me, waiting for me to answer him. And I remember that moment because it was the moment I realized how empty I was.

So if that's where you are, I see you. I want you to know that this is very common. It's very normal, and maybe this will help you understand why you're so tired, because I don't know that anyone can explain this except for someone who has been here.

You're doing two of the hardest jobs in the world at the same time, in the same body, with the same nervous system, with the same brain, and no breaks from either one. You're grieving, which on its own would be a full-time job. Imagine someone who'd lost their husband of 50 years. They are exhausted from grieving. Now add a toddler and a kindergartner on top of that. If someone said to you, "You don't have to do anything for the next year except grieve," you'd still be tired.

But also raising human children is its own kind of exhaustion. And when you're mothering, your kids don't give you a break. They need help. They need help finding their shoes. They need help getting their backpack. They need help packing their lunch. And the toddler still needs their diapers changed. There are always things going on, and these jobs do not take turns. They do not say to each other, "Oh, well, you take the first half of the day, and I will take the second half, and we'll just make this all work out." Because they both want your attention. Your grief wants your attention, and your living children want your attention. And forget your poor husband or partner — that's a whole other topic. But all of you at the same time in this, in completely different directions.

Grief is pulling at your brain and your body while your toddler is standing right there needing something from you. And so you're trying to feel all of these things, and remember all of these things, and you are exhausted.

There's no class for this. There's no instructions. You're figuring it out all on your own and with very little battery power. No wonder you're tired.

So you're not tired just from the physical acts of being a mother to children who are here, and the children that you already get to be a mother of and love so much, but you worry about whether or not you're doing it well enough. I can't tell you how many days I would be in the middle of something with my boys, going through the motions, doing all the things, getting dinner on the table, and underneath it all, there would be this voice in my head saying, "You're not doing it right."

I'd be reading bedtime stories, and my mouth would be saying the words, but my brain would just be completely somewhere else saying, "You just have to get through this. You're not really here. You're just pretending. They know this. You're a terrible mom." And then I would snap at them, because when you're tired, you tend to do that more. And then you'd spend the next couple days replaying it, wishing that you hadn't done it. I still remember. All these years later, I still remember some of the things, wishing I could take it back, convincing myself that I had permanently damaged these children.

That's what I mean when I say there are two jobs. You are doing two jobs. You're doing the job of mothering them, and then there's the job of constantly worrying that you're not mothering them well enough. And that worry job, that's the one that really gets to you, because it never stops.

It runs all day. Every interaction, every meal, every bedtime, you are constantly grading yourself, and you're constantly failing in your own head.

My two-year-old was going through this phase where he would sit — if I would sit down, he was in my lap. If I was sitting on the couch, he'd be right next to me. He was very clingy. If I would sit on the floor, he'd be on my back, all the time. Now I love those memories, but I was just trying to survive. So I would hold him for a few minutes, and then I'd set him down because my body literally was healing. I couldn't hold him anymore, and he would cry.

And I would feel terrible, because in my head, I would think, "Twins. I was gonna have twins. If I had these babies, I would have to hold them, and that I would be completely depleted. And here I am setting him aside because I can't handle it. I'm such a horrible mom. I don't even appreciate the kids that I do have."

And that kind of thinking was eating me alive. Not the act of putting them down, but the story that I was making up about who I was, and my own motherhood, and what it meant to me as a mother.

You're not failing them. The fact that you are worried that you're failing them is literally evidence that you're not. A mom who doesn't care wouldn't worry. A mom who doesn't love them with everything she has wouldn't be replaying that time you snapped at them for days. A mom who was actually failing them wouldn't be laying awake at night wondering if she was failing them.

That's what mothering through grief looks like. Your kids are not as fragile as your guilt is telling you they are. I want you to hear that, because I spent a lot of nights convinced that I was ruining my boys, that they were gonna grow up and remember that Mom was so sad, that they were gonna be in therapy at 25 because of the year their mom couldn't show up the way she used to.

And you know what they actually remember from that time? Not much. They remember that I was their mom. They remember our routines. They remember that I love them. We were just together at Mother's Day, and we were telling stories about just funny stories about when they were kids and different family members, and those are their memories.

They don't remember that time. They don't remember the snaps. And if they do, sometimes they even know maybe they deserved it a little bit. They don't remember the zombie that was reading them bedtime stories. They don't remember me just crying all of a sudden in the kitchen. If they do remember it, they don't remember it the way you think they will.

What they remember is the overall feeling, and the overall feeling is that "My mom loved me. She showed up. She was there. She had some really hard times, but she came back, and she said sorry when she needed to. She tucked me in and she made me feel safe."

Your kids are gonna be fine. They're gonna be more than fine, because they have a mom who's doing one of the hardest things a person can do and is still showing up. And that is not damaging them. That is teaching them something, and they are watching you survive something terrible and still be their mom. And that's a gift, even if it doesn't feel like it.

The other gift of all of this is, I think as the mom, you appreciate those kids more than maybe you would have before your loss, because you realize in that moment how precious life is. So please stop telling yourself that you're going to ruin them or that you're gonna scar your kids, because you're not. You're a good mom having a hard day, and it counts.

Here's a few things I want to give you to think about this week. When you snap at one of them, and you will because we're human, try not to immediately spiral into thinking, "I'm a bad mom. I'm scarring them. I'm ruining everything." Instead, take a breath. Say to yourself, "I just had a hard moment. I don't know what's going on. I'm just tired, and that's not who I am. This is just where I am right now." And that's it. That's the whole practice. Because that's what I learned the hard way. The damage wasn't in that moment that you snap. The damage is done in the days where you spend doubting yourself and beating yourself up about something that's not true, the story that I told myself.

The second thing is, when the guilt starts running, imagine that your best friend was sitting across from you, and she told you just what you said about yourself. What would you say to her?

I want you to lower the bar, like all the way to the floor. If you have other kids at home, your standards for what counts as being a good mom right now are just essentials. Did you feed them? You're a good mom. Did you hug them today? You're a good mom. Did you tell them you love them? You're a good mom. Did they go to bed fairly clean in pajamas? Maybe or not, you're a good mom. That's it. That's the whole list. Take down all the other expectations for now. The home-cooked meals, the matching outfits, the birthday parties, the Pinterest version of motherhood you used to think mattered. Take it all down. Put it in a box. You can do that later. Right now, it's essentials. Did I keep them alive and do they feel loved? If the answer is yes, you did it.

Your kids just need a mom who showed up. That's all they need right now. And for the baby that you lost, they're part of this too. They are one of your children. They are demanding of your attention also. You don't have to ever do anything special to keep them with you. They are always with you. And they are in every way that you mother the children that you do have that are living. It's just automatic. You're a mother to all of them. And there's enough love in you for every single one of them, and that's enough.

If you are feeling the kind of guilt that we talked about today, if you are beating yourself up for things that you feel like you just can't control, you just can't get a grip on, I have a free workshop called Practical Ways to Release Guilt and Navigate Grief After Baby Loss. It's built exactly for this. Never asking you to move on, just real tools that you can actually use. You can register at navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop. It's coming up, and it's an open invitation for you. But until then, just keep being the amazing mother that you already are to the children that you have with you and to the children that are not.

Until next time, I'm sending you so much love.