Rebecca Fox Starr - Baby Ever After: Expanding Your Family After Postpartum Depression

Rebecca Fox Starr is author, writer, blogger, mom, wife, and mental-health advocate. She created her internationally read blog, Mommy, Ever After, in 2010, and her first book, Beyond the Baby Blues: Anxiety and Depression During and After Pregnancy, was released in late 2017. Rebecca writes candidly about her life as mother, survivor, advocate, singer-songwriter, dance partier, and studded-shoe collector. Her story has been featured in the New York Times and HuffPost, on ABC News, and in all forms of media across the world. Rebecca writes and lives with her husband, daughter, son, and two dogs in the suburbs of Philadelphia. More about Rebecca can be found on her blog at http://mommyeverafter.com and on social media outlets @rebeccafoxstarr.

I know words, and I love words, but I simply do not have the words to express my gratitude for this book and for all of the people who have made it possible. While my journey with severe prenatal and postpartum anxiety and depression was devastating, I am also, in many ways, so grateful that it happened to me. It allowed me to find, and now use, my voice in an effort to help others.

Once again, I give my most sincere thanks to my amazing literary agent, Rene C. Fountain, president of Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management. I am blown away by what we have been able to accomplish since we started working together, more than half a decade ago, and that is thanks to you, R. Thank you for believing in me, for always going to bat for me, and for turning my passion into printed pages. Thank you to Italia Gandolfo and the rest of the Gandolfo Helin & Fountain community; your support has been astounding.

I am so grateful for my incredible editor at Rowman & Littlefield, Suzanne Staszak-Silva. Suzanne, you have turned my dreams into reality, and I am so inspired by your strength, determination, and generosity of spirit. You have given me more confidence than youll ever know, and I can only hope that these two books are the first (and second!) of many together. I must also give a huge thanks to Patricia Stevenson, the editor who held my hand through my entire first publication process, as well as this one, and who brought me over the finish line. I am so grateful for Deborah Justice, the amazing copyeditor who so elegantly polished this book and caught me every time I repeated myself, which is a miraculous feat. Thank you to the entire Rowman & Littlefield team, as I believe we are changing lives for the better. I must also thank Ronnie Maier, indexer extraordinaire, who did for me what I could not and who allows my readers to find all of the pineapple passages with ease.

I do not know how to properly thank my treatment-team members, as they are gifted, magnificent doctors and my personal rock stars. Dr. S and Dr. B, you are my heroes. I can say, with conviction, that I literally would not be here today without you. Thank you for pushing me to grow, nurturing me through the subsequent growing pains, and sharing your brilliance with me each week. It took a long time to get this dream team together, but now that I have you, I will never let you go. Thank you to my OBGYN for helping me through my two healthy pregnancies and for the encouragement I needed for this exploration. Dr. G, you make babies each and every day, for women and for families, but I want to thank you for helping to make me into a version of Becca that I did not know I had in me. Speaking of world-class physicians, Dr. Schulman, you saved my life. You may be a neurologist, but by predicting my PPD and advocating for my care, youve become so much more to me. I will never stop giving you hugs when I visit your office.

On the topic of survival, this book has been made possible by the many courageous, strong, resilient, phenomenal women and men and sufferers who all identify as a part of this silent sodality. It is because of you that we are slowly stepping out of the dark shadow of the mental-health stigma, and you inspire me every single day. Thank you to the advocates, the activists, the doctors, the psychiatrists, the psychologists, the changemakers, the rabble-rousers, and those who have fought, tooth and nail, to survive. This is for those of you who have made it to the other side; this is for those who, tragically, have not. And to my tribe members in this crowd, you have changed me for good and for good.

This book would not exist without the exquisite courage and beautiful words shared by the women who have contributed to this text. Thank you to Brierley, Amanda, Nikki, Melissa, Becky, Hannah, and Samantha for so bravely unzipping yourselves and sharing your stories of postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum psychosis, postpartum OCD, indecision, marriage, fear, survival, and a level of courage that I can only dream of being able to muster. Your vulnerability and honesty, in the face of great pain, is nothing short of miraculous. I will love and cherish each of you, always.

Once again, I thank you, my soul sisters. You each have a unique, unmatchable place in my heart. Thank you for loving me, even when I am not the easiest person to love. Thank you for tolerating me, even when I take up oh so much airspace. Thank you for never giving up on me and for modeling for me who I want to be. I love you, I appreciate you, and I am eternally and endlessly grateful to call you mine. You make me whole. You know who you are.

It is not often that you get to call a New York Timesbestselling author your book-writing mentor, but I am the luckiest because I also get to call her my sister. Emily, you are astounding. What you have accomplished in just three decades is mind blowing, but in many ways, with your preternatural diction and endless drive, I would expect nothing less. Em, I literally could not have done this without you. Thank you for being my guide and my sage, for the daily accountability check-ins, for sending me Levain cookies when I met my word count, and for forcing me to step back and take breaks. You made this daunting process doable (and even enjoyable!), and I love you more than you will ever, ever know. I am so glad that I wished for you, and I continue to wish for you every day so that you may get all that you deserve out of this life, which is so, so much.

Mom and Dad, when I say that I would not be here without you, I mean it in every single sense of the expression. You gave me life and then, in my darkest days, gave me the hope that I would find new life again. As with most things, you were right. I could not be more proud to be your daughter, as you are truly the two finest human beings I know. You are goodness personified, and you are the reason why I am a parent and also why I strive to be the best parent I can be. Your unwavering support, unconditional love, and consistent compassion allow me to be the personand mother I am today. I love you up to the moon and stars.

Kenny, Kenny, Kenny, where do I even begin? I am more in love with you today than I have ever been before or than I ever thought possible. You are my other (and better) half, my puzzle piece, and you continue to be my hero. Thank you for your exquisitely beautiful contribution to this book and for your exquisitely beautiful contributions to our life together. I am the luckiest girl alive to get to call you my forever, and I am so blessed to have grown this family with you, in whatever form it ends up taking. I would be nothing without you. You are brilliant and brave and resilient and silly and steadfast and loyal and my home. Thats how you look to me.

Belle and Beau, stars of The Superkids Show and my entire life: you two are the two most incredible humans I have ever known. You are so smart and kind and sensitive and caring and empathic and good, and I am so very proud to be your mommy. Thank you for helping me write this book and for making my heart grow bigger and bigger with love every single day. With each breath I take, I am filled with more and more adoration for you, and I will cherish you every single moment of my life. Thank you for loving each other so fiercely and for bringing Daddy and me along for your ride. Dancing through life with you two is the greatest joy one could ever know. You are precious love. You are inspiring. You are magic.