So asking for help has never been my strong suit.  I think part of it is guilt and pride and part of it was the fact I was raised by a psychiatrist and a clinical social worker.  They always knew what I needed before I did.  Until I became a mom, asking for help included things like learning songs, choosing date night outfits(okay I still ask for help on that one), lifting heavy things, installing air conditioners, or asking my parents for money to buy those Cole Haan Nike Air Pumps (no they weren’t exactly like walking on air, but still cute).

In 2009, my father became sick with Leukemia, while he was undergoing a stem cell transplant, I was recording a loooooong audiobook, and it took me several weeks for me to call my Uncle in tears, with a broken back to ask him to come and help me.  After my father passed, besides a very close family friend/handyman who helped take care of my parents’ house(not joking, one day my father called him to fish a squirrel out of the third floor bathroom – still trying to figure that one out)…I still didn’t ask anyone else for help. I was strong and organized, I had ordered 10 copies of the death certificate, which was something dad reminded me to do a few days before he died (ok this is morbid, but remember to do this: get a bajillion copies – EVERYBODY needs them – so you’re welcome for that tidbit, happy to help!). It occurs to me, dad rarely asked for help either…he was more of a micromanager, who really liked to control things so they get done “right”.  He would accept help, and tail their vehicles as they tried to give him a break. I’m not trying to show off as a one woman show, and yes I did HAVE help while I spent three years helping my mother, who was a state away at the time, survive it all.  Also to clean, stage, and sell her house (major shout out to the hubbs on the last item).  But it was help I didn’t have to ask for.  People just offered. Sent food, dropped off wine, accompanied me to the funeral home to pick up an urn. But to be honest, sometimes I even had a hard time accepting that.

Fast forward to motherhood. Any mom will tell you that mom guilt is REAL. That feeding a baby is HARD.  You’re attached to this little person, yet you still want to prove to the world you can do it all!!! You ARE supermom, damnit, SOME OF YOU EVEN GREW FINGERNAILS INSIDE YOUR BELLY, and you will NOT fail.  Several weeks into being a mom I decided this was bullshit.  I let husband sleep for the first week or so, because I was the MOM and he has the J-O-B, but I also have to keep a human alive during the day. So… yeah, don’t do what I did. Have your partner feed the baby or do all the post feeding necessities or you will BURN the F out.  I needed help as a mom and I was starting to realize how much strength it takes me to ask for it. Weird, but true.  To ask for a few hours or a day to yourself, to ask your neighbor to share dinner for your kid because you’re just done with the day, or even to ask for company so you can ignore your child and have adult conversation.  I could go on and on about how important ME time is and asking for it. Find your tribe, they say(I did). It takes a village, right? It’s just a lot easier in an actual village, I assume, than in a fast moving, concrete jungle. I still feel badly every time I “put in” for a mom’s day off(self care, doctors, a voice lesson, and OK OK sushi lunch and wine all ALONE!), but it involves hiring a babysitter, or for my husband to work double time(though is really wonderful about it, and he is her dad, not her babysitter – pet peeve alert!), or asking a friend with their own family to take on my lovely, lively, sometimes whiney, attention seeking toddler.  Also luckily my mother lives an UBER ride away, and she’s been a tremendous help as has my mother in law, but ya know…mothers…mothers…mothers…

I finally mostly felt comfortable-ish with calling in backup.  I still will drag my daughter to rehearsals or doctor’s appointments and hear friends say, “you should have asked me…I would have watched her!” Which is 100% true, but why ask?  I’m still super mom, I may need a nap, my back may hurt. So it may exhaust me or involve the use of an ipad, but I refuse to be a martyr mom, I can handle it, I swear!  Until, you can’t.  And you decide to ask your friend to watch her while you take your mom to the doctor, or your neighbor to, while you journey to (gasp) Washington Heights for…you guessed it, a doctor’s appointment. I was getting more used to accepting help, but I’m still bad at asking for it.   I say yes to almost everything, but when it comes to an offer to accompany me to a biopsy, I’ll say no, until it’s insisted upon.  I really do appreciate help, I just hate asking.

So here we are, living quite comfortably in Brooklyn, in our awesome RENT stabilized HUGE apartment… but Magic 8 Ball says “yo, Epsteins, your future holds some hard shit that you probably can’t face alone”:  a high out of network deductible (I dare you to find a good plastic surgeon who takes insurance outright), and reimburses at 70% of what they determine your service is worth, which I will assure you is NO WHERE NEAR its actual cost.  For 12 weeks I won’t be able to lift or push (I’ve been told even washing my own hair will be hard for a bit)…so we had to take on our date-night sitter as a daily one – to “man” the toddler until my husband returns home from work.   I’ll be having weekly check-ups and will need to take cars into the city… And I need a shit ton of fucking gear, seriously it’s like a baby all over again, but without the cute fun, snuggly part… well we hope these new twins will be attractive, come with some nice meds, and allow us more sleep than my infant did.

Anyway, I’m not trying to turn this into a sob story, but let’s just say for the amount we will be spending on the ins and outs of this “lets beat cancer before it beats me” journey, we could leave a mighty nice down payment on a house… and on one income, right now, like I said, we are happy and comfortable renters.

Enter Supportful, a pretty neat platform that an in person/internet mom friend works for.  I felt odd setting up a Go Fund Me-type page. I felt weird asking for handouts, even though, lets face it, if we won the lottery tomorrow or found a suitcase of unmarked bills that would be pretty swell.  I’m not sick, I don’t have cancer, I feel guilt….however, my “care page”  on Supportful.com includes not only a place for donations, but also a place to ask for even more specified HELP! Personalized help! Like…. Take me for a walk! Bring me food! Hang out with me! Be a Backup Babysitter! This was starting to make me feel good. People can help in so many different ways and I could ask for it!  I was supported by Supportful.com.  It still feels strange, I still have yet to publicly post it(anywhere but here for now) – but, guys, I need HELP(not padded room help…yet…shout out to my therapist, psychiatrist, and Klonopin for helping me avoid that!) That’s hard help to get for some, easy for me, but asking you to come play with my daughter so I can nap, because this is all so exhausting, that’s hard.

This will be a hard time emotionally, physically and logistically for the three of us. We are tough. But to be really tough, I’m finally learning you have to ask for help! So here I go…and at this point in the game, I’m really unclear how long I’ll have to wait before I can wipe my own…nose…. without (all together now) help………