by BabyCenter Guest Blogger posted in Parenting

by Bree Najera

We moms have been through it all: the discomforts of pregnancy, the sleepless nights and the horrors of teething. While I?ve enjoyed this mutual bond with other moms in some ways, I also feel like I don?t quite fit.
As a mom with chronic Lyme disease, my daily life looks quite a bit different, even though I look the same from the outside. No one would know by looking at me that my disease frequently leaves me unable to step outside of the house, or that I often can?t drive a car more than a few blocks or that some days I can?t walk to my own mailbox.
People just assume I?m like them.
Over the past twenty years of fighting this illness, I?ve come to realize that having an invisible (yet debilitating) illness means being misunderstood by others? almost constantly. Before becoming a mom, I often withdrew from anything that required me to explain myself? like big parties, regular commitments or new friendships. It seemed easier to withdraw than to be misunderstood. Since becoming a mom, I?ve been forced to come out of the shadows and to face others' perceptions, in order to give my daughter new experiences. And it?s been even harder than I ever imagined.
Many moms in my life don?t understand why I don?t sign up for swim lessons or can?t plan ahead for more than a day at a time. Most of all, they don?t understand why I haven?t gone back to work.
Sometimes, this makes me angry. Sometimes it makes me feel quite alon...