My Journey with Postpartum Depression.

IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE; EVEN YOU. EVEN ME.

Newborn, Recovery, Pain, Sleep Deprivation, Exhaustion, Breastfeeding, Hormone Imbalance, Anxiety, Life, Money, Stress, Medication, Work, Navy, Husband, Intimacy, Planning a wedding.

I can list more but seriously… This is a lot to deal with especially as a NEW MOM.

I still struggle; some days with exhaustion, somedays with irritability, but most of the time it is stress and anxiety.

These can all lead to depression and in my case it did. My depression was triggered by the stress-induced planning of my wedding.  I became unhappy and it wasn’t until I felt on a mental break that I knew I had to do something.

And no it’s not mood swings for all you judging people out there pissing me off already by thinking that.

During my pregnancy, I researched everything. What are normal Pregnancy symptoms? Why does it hurt to have sex during pregnancy? How many times should I feel the baby move a day? What is Postpartum Depression? I remember thinking to myself after reading the explanations and stories of other Mama’s pregnancy, delivery, and PPD journeys, that I would never get it.  My pregnancy was an amazing experience which flew by and there was no doubt that the delivery would be any different. How do these women get this? I didn’t understand. I would analyze their stories and try to find a reason why. I knew during and after having a baby my hormones were going to be out of balance. I cried a lot before and after Kingston, but I still understood that it was my hormones. As well as the rush of emotions you have realizing you are going to be a first time parent.  I’m a very realistic person, and when it comes to everything in life I know that there are bad things that happen and not everything has a happy ending.  Does that mean I need to be depressed about it? No. This is how I felt up until and about 3 months after I had Kingston.

SOME WHAT OF A BACKGROUND

I’ve always believed that depression, anxiety, stress or whatever you want to call it, stem from something that you’ve been through and before I go on, I want to share a few things that I believe may have led me to have PPD after having Kingston. I’m not going to go into detail but instead just make simple statements to help you understand. You don’t need a full story to get jest of it.

I come from a divorced family. I was pretty young, but I remember certain fights and arguments. Some may have not been towards me, but others were. I remember crying in my room and screaming in my pillow because I hated how upset I got over anything. Even today, when I cry it’s hard to stop. When I get upset I start to think of multiple things that usually make me more upset. I did this then and sometimes now. I never understood why. When I was younger, it was easy for me to go on with my life like nothing was wrong. I was always doing something. Playing outside, sports, school, etc. So when I was upset, it was rare. I will never say I was depressed as a kid. I was mostly happy all the time. I’m just saying that I think things can happen in your life to make you more susceptible to becoming depressed or cause you to have anxiety. I went through a lot of things, mostly good in my life and I was always the person that never understood how someone could have anxiety or become depressed. But it happens.

THE BIRTH

When I was pregnant, I never once thought about a Cesarean Birth Plan. I remember the paper my doctor had me sign during my last appointment that if I medically needed one that it was okay. But other than that, never thought about it. I knew I could have my son vaginally. I knew what a C section was, but I didn’t know about the details of the procedure and recovery. So after 23 hours of Labor, with 2 epidurals, I started to get a fever from having my water broken to soon (2.5cm). Unknowingly, Kingston’s heart rate went down because they had me flat on my back while he was in the birth canal at 8-9cm, prepping me for the C section.  I then had an emergency C section that took less than 30 minutes all together. Tugging and pulling at my abdomen, poking me with a needle to make sure I’m numb… horrible first way to greet your baby.

Then you meet and hold them and all is fine in the world. Then your meds wear off and you start to think otherwise….

It took me months to talk about his birth without crying. I really think it left some sort of trauma in my mind. I felt angry, like I was screwed out of my birth plan (that they said they didn’t go by). I felt like my doctor wanted this to happen. The first two times I stood up, it felt like all my insides were falling out (normal) and blood gushed out onto the floor. Enough to look like a crime scene. (Hopefully normal). People would try and make me feel better by saying, He’s here and he’s Healthy. My response to them, “yes, I know.” My response in my head, “Shut the F up, I know he’s here. I can see him. But look at this scar that is seeping fluid and is probably infected because they did something wrong when they pulled me apart.” “Yes, he’s healthy and I love him, but I’m in shooting pain and it hurts to sit up.” It’s like they were overlooking the major surgery I had just because there was a newborn around. Not once was I asked how I was doing? All I would think was, why did this happen to me? I didn’t want a C section? Why did I decide to be induced? He would have come on his own. I blamed myself, the doctor, and usually took my frustration out on my husband. (Sorry Baby)

DO I LOVE MY SON ENOUGH?

After Kingston was born I was happy and so in love. He was beyond perfect. But around the time my PPD signs started showing, I started feeling anxiety that I needed to love him more than I was. It was like I loved him, but am I loving him as much as other moms love their children? Maybe I’m feeling this way because I didn’t get that first bonding time with him through skin to skin. I would be envy of the mothers that got to experience that which made me so sad. I constantly had thoughts running through my head. Am I a good enough mother? I want to feel that love that other moms are telling me. That I’m obsessed with my child kind of love. I was obsessed I thought, but I didn’t feel obsessed. I would have crazy paranoid thoughts as he got older. Even now, I constantly have thoughts that something bad is going to happen to him. I did this even before I had him which I should have put in my background paragraph ^. I mean it’s not he’s going to fall here or there. My thoughts are horrid. Like what if he falls and punctures his eye ball. Or what if he falls, he’s going to split his head open and die. This part of my anxiety is bad sometimes. It wasn’t until a week I took him to Maryland this year. I say probably around 13Months Postpartum that I finally felt it. Yes, I have loved him this whole time but one night he was laying in his bed and I just couldn’t stop staring. I had finally gained this new and more obsessed love for him. I picked him up and laid him in my bed and just cuddled him for a few minutes. I was missing him. But he was right there. I loved him more than I ever had. Now I know what that obsessed kind of love feels like.

BREASTFEEDING

Kingston was breastfed for two months. Some women are just different. My mind is different. Or maybe it was because I was healing from a major surgery. I don’t know. Breastfeeding was never bonding for me, probably because I was in pain from the breastfeeding and then my scar that was constantly in shooting pain and burning. I never knew I was supposed to leave that nipple cream on until I looked it up one day. There’s one wrong thing I was doing. Mom’s leave the nipple cream on! I was in so much pain one night before I knew that and we had to supplement. Oh thank Jesus for formula, because Kingston would have been sucking on his Daddy’s nipples. I literally was crying because they hurt so badly. Months after I stopped breastfeeding Kingston, I saw other mamas’ breastfeeding journeys going great, and it made me feel absolutely guilty for stopping so early. I wanted to stick with breastfeeding but I gave up. I hated everything about breastfeeding, besides being able to feed my child. The pumping, the soaking wet shirts from the milk building up, the pain of engorgement. Ehhh. Don’t get me wrong, I will try again when we try for our second. Maybe my mindset will change then.  

There was a happy and funny moment that I had with Breastfeeding that I loved. We had to take Kingston to the doctors the day after we got out of the hospital. We both were given antibiotics in case of infection during delivery. It was day four and my milk had still not come in. We got him undressed to get weighed and he started crying as Alex laid him down. Well, his cry made me cry, and we went to go back in to the room and boom. I felt it. The tingling sensation. I said, “Babe, I think my milk just came in.” Sure enough, his sweet cry did the trick. Ugh (heart eyes) still one of my favorite memories.

POSTPARTUM CHECK UP & THE INCISION

4 weeks… 4 weeks since Kingston was delivered and I’m about to get checked inside and out to make sure everything is healing okay. My doctor says, “You look good, I will see you in a year.” Which by the way I never went to, because I will never let her be my doctor again. That was it. LIKE WHAT?!? She cleared me to work out and everything. She did say listen to my body when doing abdominal exercises. BUT 4 WEEKS, REALLY! I was still mad at everything. And she did not ask me once how I was feeling. When she left, I cried. I was in pain especially after she had just touched near my incision. And she wasn’t the gentlest of Doctors. To myself, I said suck it up and I left. I was not ready for the pain that comes post recovery from a C section. They say a second C section is easier… (Um yeah right I bet. Reopening a former wound doesn’t sound easy to me.) For one, I had never had a surgery of any kind. I was constantly paranoid I had an infection. They stitched me up from the inside and used surgical glue on the outside. I wasn’t told as the surgical glue wears off that it starts to resemble a liquid like substance. It hurt to wear anything with an elastic band. It hurt to sit up and anything that made my stomach crease. The first two weeks, I was swollen from all the fluids and it hurt my incision just to walk. 14 Months later, my scar finally looks like a normal scar, but I still get sharp stings and I’m numb right above it. Lovely…

I NEED MEDICATION

It was something about the evenings that made me feel worse.  In my head I would blame everything and everyone (besides Kingston) for me feeling the way I did. If my husband came home tired, it was his fault that I felt upset. (Now I’m like that doesn’t even make sense.) But I was unhappy and I couldn’t accept it until I had a mental break where I was so upset and frustrated that I was foaming out the mouth from crying so hard and yelling. I knew that something was seriously wrong. I spent the past two weeks crying every night. Upset really over nothing. Not with my husband or son but with how I was feeling. I didn’t feel normal. I was planning a wedding (by myself) and I knew it had to be the extra stress that made it worse.

So I finally went to see my doctor. She prescribed some medication and within a week in a half I felt okay. Not normal, but okay. I never liked medicine and I never wanted to stay put on a medication. I told myself I’ll take it to get through and then I’ll stop. And that’s honestly what I did. About a week or two after our wedding I stopped taking it and I continued the feel the same way, not depressed by okay. I realized a couple months after my breakdown that it was definitely stress induced from planning the wedding. I already had PPD signs and the symptoms but the wedding is what triggered the depression.

TIME REALLY DOES HEAL EVERYTHING (even for Postpartum Depression)

So here we are. After 15 Months I finally feel normal again. I still have anxiety but I remind myself that it’s okay. I took medication for about a month and a half. Probably not even enough to get my body used to it and decided to stop because I didn’t want to depend on medication. I don’t think it was the medicine (may have helped for that short time) and I don’t think it was any alternatives like diet and exercise. I really just think it was time. My body and mind needed time to heal. My scar is healed, my mind is healed, and I remind myself that it’s normal and okay to feel all the emotions I do sometimes. Remember that you are not alone. There are so many women that go through PPD and I really thinks it’s a normalcy that most women go through. This should be a topic that all mother get talked to about and we shouldn’t see it has a sign of weakness. Yes, it can take some to the darkest of places. But it should never be something scary to think about, but to know that it’s okay to say we need help. Or just someone to talk to. I thought I was going to be one of the women that never got it, but here I am. I was scared when I heard someone say that it could be the issue. Why was I scared?  Probably because I was very uneducated about it and I sadly had to do my own research and find out through other Moms to see what could help me. Just remember we are DAMN GOOD MOTHERS!

Photography by Simple Capture Photography