by Joanna Venditti posted in Parenting

This is our story.
As I closed my eyes and tried my best to fall asleep, the events of the day kept creeping back into my mind.
I watched as my husband Mike fell asleep beside me, his chest rising and lowering again and again.
?I need to say it. I need to just say it out loud.? I kept thinking to myself. But the words, as they had been for months, seemed to be stuck.
?We can?t live like this anymore. The worry is killing me.? I thought as I reasoned with myself. ?But if I say it out loud, then it?s real.?
I finally reached over and shook Mike awake. He rolled over and looked at me with groggy, concerned eyes.
?I think something is wrong with Holden.? I did it. I said it. It was now out there. Mike and I sat in bed for the next hour as I told him about our disaster of a play date earlier that day. How all of the other toddlers played with each other, babbled and enjoyed life. While Holden was agitated, withdrawn, and irritated by the chaos and noise from the other kids.
I told Mike how I sat there, cross-legged, on the ground trying to juggle our newborn daughter on my lap and pacify our panicked toddler simultaneously. As sweat poured from my forehead while I breastfed my new baby (yet most of my focus was on our son who desperately wanted out of there), my eyes darted to the other moms, some with expressions of sympathy, others shooting me judgmental glances.

I told Mike how I needed that social interaction with other moms so badly...