Jade Roper Tolbertis eager to share what she has learned.
TheBachelor in Paradisealum, 34, shares three children with husband Tanner Tolbert: daughterEmerson “Emmy” Avery, 3, plus sonsBrooks Easton, 19 months, andReed Harrison, whom they welcomed in November. As Roper Tolbert tells PEOPLE, not much is out there to prepare an expectant mom for the highs and lows that come postpartum.
Luckily for new and future moms out there, the reality star is teaming up withTommee Tippeeto share those insights with the world. Roper Tolbert will kick off the virtual,multi-episode series titledSpill the Milkstreamed live, speaking in her April 8 episode about her personal experiences with the “fourth trimester.”
jade roper/ instagram
Maternal mental health, for one, is an important subject for Roper Tolbert, whoexperienced difficult postpartum depressionafter the birth of her second child, which she has previously described as traumatic.
“I didn’t know who to reach out to. I kept thinking I was alone in it and I was just going to get better on my own,” she says, becoming emotional while reflecting on the time. “I kept waiting.”
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From that dark period, she says she learned to “talk to somebody, anybody.” Roper Tolbert adds, “Yes, you’re going through it yourself, but many women experience it,” explaining that one can find support in others who understand the situation.
“It’s okay not to be okay. We need to normalize the feelings that we feel postpartum,” she says. “What you’re feeling isn’t something that’s too big that you can’t get help for it.”
“Thingsweredifferent, I could see it, but I couldn’t fully grasp what she was going through,” Tolbert tells PEOPLE of his wife’s demeanor after Brooks was born. “I thought maybe Jade felt like she had to brush it under the rug or not talk about it. It kind of prolonged it, I felt like, because we never really had that discussion until way, way later.”
Says Roper Tolbert: “I think we’re expected, or we put this pressure on ourselves, to be supermoms. … It’s not like that. We’re fumbling through it and learning as we go, just as our babies are, and we need to recognize that we are human. We can’t do it all, and there is help out there.”
jade roper/instagram
Last month, Roper Tolbert got candid on Instagram, sharing araw selfie while writingabout hitting a “wall” and feeling overwhelmedexperiencing “brutal” sleep deprivationwhile parenting her three under 3. In the honest social media post, she described vertigo bouts that drive her to the point “where I feel I can’t function enough to be a good mom.”
The decision to post about the lows along with the highs of motherhood online is one she says was “liberating.”
“It was liberating to me, but I also want it to be liberating for other moms,” says Roper Tolbert. “I want women to feel like all of that is normal, the good and the bad. When you normalize it, it gives you permission to just breathe and to just be, and to find your power in that. Our babies can sense when we are truly being ourselves.”
source: people.com
