So I actually started writing this blog a few months ago, around mid July.  I was about six weeks postpartum and yes, as many new moms do, I felt like I was crying ALL the time.  I would just start crying randomly.  Not that I don’t ever do that now (I’m an emotional person as it is, so it even happened before I was a mom), but this was a lot more than usual. Of course, I had completely forgotten, as we do with many things from our first pregnancies, the fact that this also happened after I had my first son.

So why write about it now?  Well, I think a LOT of us experience it in post, as well as pregnancy. I’m not really talking about the “baby blues” or postpartum depression. I’m talking about crying for a lot of different reasons. Here are the categories I put mine into. Let me know in the comment section below which one you experienced the most, or maybe add your own!

My Top 5 Cries

1. The “Just Give Me a Break” Cry

This cry happens in the moments of feeling overwhelmed with mommy life, anything from feeling like I can’t even go to the bathroom because my three-year-old might decide right then to wrestle with my newborn, to the constant general feeling that someone ALWAYS needs me, to most often .  . . the struggle of trying to balance WHAT I love with WHO I love.

2. The “I Want My Pre-Baby Body Back” Cry

This cry is what first inspired me to write this post.  I had just come back from one of my first attempts at working out. I was fine during the workout but as soon as I got home and saw my husband, I crawled into his lap and started bawling. I was frustrated with how incredibly difficult the workout had felt and how much work I knew I was going to need to do to feel stronger again.  I can’t remember what my husband said, but it must have been the right thing because I ended up feeling better.

This category also includes the cry that happens after trying on your favorite pair of skinny jeans and realizing you can’t even get them up over your hips. I knew better this time around than to try them on too soon, so that cry has come more recently when I was able to pull them up but realized I still have a LOT of extra skin to get rid of in order to have them look the way I want them to.

3. The “I Just Need Some Sleep” Cry

I’m not sure this cry is specific to postnatal moms, but it happens most often when I’m woken up in the middle of night for what I’m hoping is a dream-feed and instead becomes 2 hours of play-time, or when my pre-schooler gets up way too early and harasses me to go downstairs to get him apple juice until I reluctantly crawl out of bed.  If this all happens within the same 24-hour period, the “I Just Need Some Sleep” Cry is 100% guaranteed at some point that day.

4. The “I’m so incredibly In LOVE” Cry 

This is probably my favorite cry of all.  This cry happened way before I had kids.  In fact, I was just reminiscing with my husband the other day, about the first time I had the “I’m So Incredibly In Love” Cry.  It happened in college when I told him I loved him –  I didn’t think I could love anyone as much as I loved him (that’s how I knew I was going to marry him).  I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to our children.  Who knew I could love three people this much???

I think the craziest thing about this cry is that you never know what’s going to bring it on.  It could be while I’m nursing or cuddling or I even found myself in tears the other day, when Landon (my oldest) apologized to me for throwing a tantrum. He was just so genuine and heartfelt that I lost it.

5.  The “I Don’t Know Why I’m Crying” Cry

Ugh.  I hate this cry – mostly because you have no way of explaining it to anyone. I remember the first time it happened after I had Landon – actually it wasn’t after I had him, it was during my pregnancy.  I had been crying (for no apparent reason), and my husband turned to me and said “Why are you crying?” and all I could do, in between tears, was hysterically answer, “I don’t knoooooooow, and I can’t stoooooooop.  This is horrible  . . .”

Let’s face it: The “I Don’t Know Why I’m Crying” Cry is probably some intense combination of the other cries I mentioned, but it’s still the one that is probably the most uncontrollable and extreme because so many feelings are happening at once.

So, that’s it.  Sometimes I cry . . . and I don’t know why.  But to be honest, it’s okay because you know what?

I always feel better when I’m done.