This week my husband and I attended a creative conference in Georgia. The baby was too young to stay with family or friends, so we took him with us.

Every time I had to feed him, I hid out in the bathroom. I made his bottle while hunched in a bathroom stall so I didn’t have to share my shame.

You see, I don’t breastfeed my baby.

I didn’t breastfeed any of them.

It’s not because I don’t want to. God knows I tried every time. I did everything those lactation consultants told me to try with the first one, who ended up in the emergency room two days after we brought him home because he was dehydrated.

Sometimes I wonder if his first few days, the nursing that wasn’t really nursing because there wasn’t any milk, is why he struggles with anxiety today. Did it change something in his brain, that dehydration? Did it make him feel insecure when he couldn’t get enough food? Did it harm him in ways we couldn’t even see at the time?

This kind of thinking can drive a mama crazy.

The truth is, I am one of a minority of women who just can’t produce enough milk for their babies.

I knew it would happen. I waited for all the familiar signs, and they came around the same time they had for all the others, about three weeks in. I thought I’d taken the pressure off this time, but no. I didn’t. It felt like failure all over again.

That guilt comes creeping in slowly, when another mother asks me how breastfeeding is going and I have to explain why I can’t and wonder if she believes me. When I read a new study that finds yet another benefit of breast over bottle. When I am in the presence of other people who may or may not care how I feed my baby.

The publicity around breastfeeding has been great and wonderful and so very helpful for most mothers.

It has also been hard for women like me. Mom guilt likes to hide in statistics. It likes to use facts. It likes to twist something beautiful into something dark and ugly.

We moms aren’t always the kindest to ourselves, and that mom guilt can come out swinging, and it’s vicious and unrelenting and so very cruel.

Shame can lock us in a bathroom stall so we can try to hide our I-don’t-breastfeed secret. It can close us in a house so we can try to hide our I-don’t-think-I-like-my-children secret. It can steal the courage to venture out to a park or a grocery store or a restaurant so we can try to hide our I-yell-at-my-children secret.

This mom guilt lobs its lies at all the weak places.

You should have handled that more calmly.
You should have spent more time with them.
You should have let them sleep with you.
You should have bought them that toy.
You should have hugged them good night.
You should have built that LEGO house with him.
You should have colored that picture with him when he asked.
You should have cooked a healthy meal instead of ordering in pizza.
You should have planned a better birthday party.
You should have done more.
You should have tried harder.
You should have been better.

Where does it end?

It ends at a mom saying enough is enough.

It ends at moms sharing their secrets. It ends at admitting our fears—that we are afraid our baby won’t be as smart because we can’t breastfeed or we’re afraid we don’t really love that difficult one or we’re afraid no one else has ever dealt with this or felt this way before.

We will never crawl out from beneath the weight of mom guilt if we don’t bare ourselves.

Shame cannot get a foothold in the light. Only in the dark.

I don’t want to hide in a bathroom stall to make my baby’s bottle anymore just because I’m ashamed of my inability to produce milk. I don’t want to pretend that I always love my children and exact perfect patience in the discipline areas and keep a level head at all times. I don’t want to wonder if I could have done more or tried harder or been a better mom to my children.

Enough is enough.

We will never know enough or do enough or be enough, at least not according to those ridiculous expectations we put on ourselves.

We must choose to believe that we are already enough. We must choose to get real. We must choose to find other mothers who are ready to get real, not the ones who pretend they’re perfect.

There is no perfect. There is only good enough.

The thing about mom guilt is that it’s only true when we are alone. It’s only true if we are hiding. It’s only true if we refuse to acknowledge that we will never, ever be perfect.

Sometimes I yell at my children, because I’m just SO ANGRY at them for doing what they’re not supposed to do.
Sometimes I spend too much time on Twitter because their stories have so many words and I checked out five minutes ago.
Sometimes I wonder if I was out of my mind to have so many.

Now you know some of my secrets. What are some of yours?