Thank you for another year of conversation, and courage, and women supporting women through postpartum depression and all other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

I hope each and every one of you have the best holiday season you can have. Even if it’s far from perfect, that’s just fine. You are here and you are loved and you will be okay. My son’s first Christmas, when I had postpartum OCD, was a total disaster. Not only was I sick and miserable, but the one Christmasy thing I had managed to do — get him a cute Christmas outfit to wear — was totally ruined in less than 10 minutes when he had the largest diaper blowout in the history of humankind. I can look back and laugh about it now.

Please be kind to yourself. Seek small moments of peace or happiness wherever you can find them.

Meantime, as everyone gets ready to head off on vacation, I want to thank you. I’m grateful for every guest post. I’m grateful for every comment. Thanks to those of you who have emailed me your gratitude.

I’m thankful to those of you who are part of our Warrior Moms Facebook community, and who interact with me on Twitter. Thanks to Amber for running the Warrior Moms Book Club. Thanks to Kate Kripke whose posts here this year are, I think, what made visiting the site worthwhile.

Thanks to those of you who have shared our postpartum depression resources with others. I’m especially grateful to all the therapists, social workers, psychiatrists, doulas, nurses, hospitals and birth-related organizations who encourage their patients and clients to check out Postpartum Progress.

And thanks to each and every one of you who is reading this right now who is anonymous and quiet but is nonetheless a Warrior Mom and an important part of our community. I’m so glad you found us.

Finally, I can’t thank enough all those people who donated this year to support the work of Postpartum Progress and keep this website fresh and modern and growing.

To hope and love and peace in 2013!!

~ Katherine

Photo credit: © Redshinestudio – Fotolia.com