Postpartum Progress News Archives

Get Set for the 5th Annual Mother’s Day Rally for Moms’ Mental Health!

By Katherine Stone April 24, 2013 9 Comments

On Sunday, May 12th, we’ll be celebrating the 5th annual (FIFTH!!!) Mother’s Day Rally for Moms’ Mental Health here at Postpartum Progress. That day we’ll feature 24 letters to new moms, one posted each hour on the hour, from great writers who’ve been there. They know how it feels. They understand the struggle of postpartum depression, or anxiety, or OCD or antenatal depression. Whether it’s advice, words of comfort or their own stories, whatever they write is sure to provide inspiration.

Make sure to let everyone know to tune in. The Mother’s Day Rally is always our biggest day of the year, and is always especially helpful to those moms who are struggling on a day when we celebrate motherhood.

I’m so excited to share with you a list of most of the Rally writers on board this year (with links to their blogs as well as their Twitter handles):

1) Kristen Chase, Cool Mom Picks, Cool Mom Tech and Motherhood Uncensored, @thatkristen

2) Lori Garcia, Mommyfriend, @mommyfriend

3) Andrea Scher, Superhero Life, @andreascher

4) Sarah Pinnix, Real Life, @reallifesarah

5) Yuz Rozenblum, Not Just About Wee, @notjustaboutwee

6) Jessica Cohen, Found the Marbles, @foundthemarbles

7) Jaime Harker, James and Jax, @jamesandjax

8) Jane Roper, Jane’s Calamity and author of Double Time, @janeroper

9) JD Bailey, Honest Mom, @JDHonestMom

10) Lauren Hale, My Postpartum Voice & founder of #PPDChat, @unxpctdblessing

11) Amber Koter-Puline, Beyond Postpartum, @beyondPPD

12) Robin Farr, Farewell Stranger, @farewellstrangr

13) Lori Bollinger, I Can Grow People, @icangrowpeople

14) Jessica Zucker PhD, DrJessicaZucker.com, @drzucker

15) Cristi Comes, Motherhood Unadorned, @motherunadorned

16) Jen Hajer, The Martha Project, @thenextmartha

17) Katie L., Overflowing Brain, @overflowinbrain

18) Yael Saar, PPD to Joy and Mamas Comfort Camp, @yaelsaar

19) Jenna Rosener, Blogged Bliss, @jennamariebee

20) me!, Postpartum Progress, @postpartumprog ;-)

Alsooooooo, we have a few open spots. So, if you’ve recovered from postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, psychosis or antenatal depression and are a good writer, you can submit your letter to Postpartum Progress at [email protected] and we’ll consider giving you a special spot on the Rally Team!!

April 24, 2013 9:42 am Filed Under: Postpartum Depression

Lots of Exciting News At Postpartum Progress

By Katherine Stone March 19, 2013 3 Comments

It’s been a very busy few weeks and the next couple of months are going to be even busier, so I wanted to share with you where I’ve been, and even MORE importantly where I’ll be. I love to meet Warrior Moms in person, so if you’re at any of these places please come say hello!

In the last week, I’ve been:

1) Fighting back against the mistakes the media makes about postpartum depression, over on the Huffington Post. Please check it out and let me know what you think! If you like the story, make sure you give the post a Facebook like so that the media knows how much we care about this issue.

2) Talking about postpartum depression on CNN’s HLN website

3) Talking about judging and being judged as a mom on HLN’s “Raising America”

4) Writing about how women shouldn’t tear each other down on Babble

TODAY (Tuesday):

I’ll be chatting on HuffPost Live about postpartum depression with other guests at 1:30pm Eastern. If you want to watch the live streaming conversation, just click here.

Upcoming:

1) April 16-19 I’ll be in Washington DC at TEDMED, a medical technology and healthcare conference. It’s the health version of the other TED conferences and TED talks you may have heard about. I’m so thrilled to be a TEDMED Scholar this year. I’ve always wanted to attend this conference but could never afford it (the registration fee is $5,000), but this year I’ve received a full scholarship so I’ll be going and representing the voice of moms with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders!

2) April 27th I’ll be speaking in North Carolina, hosted by the UNC Center for Women’s Mood Disorders. If you’d like to learn more or attend, click here.

2) May 2-5 I’ll be speaking at the Mom 2.0 Summit in Laguna Niguel, California.

3) May 9-12 I’ll be attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration in Orlando. Thrilled to be invited this year and to attend a conference where I get to bring my family!

I really hope to see many of you soon!

March 19, 2013 9:56 am Filed Under: Postpartum Depression

The Postpartum Progress Pipeline

By Katherine Stone February 1, 2013 Leave a Comment

You haven’t heard from me much this week, mainly because I’m doing back end computery-internetish-type stuff. Gotta make sure Postpartum Progress keeps running and running STRONG.

First, I moved our subscription system over to Feedblitz this week and have started adding all of you who’ve requested to be added to the subscription list. A couple of things:

1) In moving over from Feedburner to Feedblitz, about 140 people’s subscriptions wouldn’t move over. I was given the message “pending subscription too old” yet it appears many of you in the “subscription too old” category only recently tried to subscribe. I have no idea what the problem was/is, and I’m SO sorry. You were probably wondering why no one had ever responded to your subscription request — I never even knew about it. Anyway, I am going to add the email of each person on that list back into the subscription system, with the assumption that you’d still like to subscribe and somehow Feedburner screwed it all up. (Another reason why I’m so glad to be leaving Feedburner.)

2) I’m working on the look of the email, what time you receive it and what’s in it. Right now, it’s getting sent overnight so you’ll have it in the morning. If that works for you, cool. If you have a better idea, share it in the comments below. If you have anything else you’d like to share about what’s in the email — what you’d like to see added or removed — let me know. I’m open to making this work as well as possible for as many of you as possible. Please be patient with me as I try to get it in tip-top shape in the next week or two.

3) Many of you, in the emails you’ve sent me asking to subscribe, have said such kind things about Postpartum Progress and how it has helped or is helping you, and I just want to send one big thank you and giganto hug to all of you. You really don’t know how much it means to me when you say these things!!

ALSO, next week we will be debuting a new advertising system – can’t tell you much about it until it shows up on Monday. (Top Secret!) You will be seeing more ads on this site, in the sidebars and probably above the header as well. Why? Because advertising generates money so we can do even more to support moms with postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum psychosis and more. Just know that all ad revenue goes to our nonprofit, and it will help us keep meeting our mission to help the mamas!!!

I feel like there’s probably more I need to be telling you, but I can’t think of what it is at this moment. Brain freeze. So for now, love you all and keep fighting the good fight!

February 1, 2013 4:00 pm Filed Under: Postpartum Progress News

My Wishes for Warrior Moms This Season

By Katherine Stone December 21, 2012 12 Comments

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

December 21, 2012 10:30 am Filed Under: Postpartum Depression