Do I have Postpartum Depression? A question I googled one too many times in the weeks after having my baby. Is it baby blues? Is this just harder than I expected? Maybe I was never meant to be a mom to begin with.
When you go to your first doctor’s appointment postpartum they ask you to fill out a little worksheet with questions about how you’ve been feeling. This is a screening done to assess the state of a mother’s mental health postpartum. My first appointment was two-weeks postpartum, I felt that despite my complicated delivery and baby’s NICU stay, I was grateful to have evaded what I knew these questions were pointing to. What I didn't realize then was that symptoms of postpartum depression usually develop anywhere from a few weeks up to a year after birth. What started as disappointment surrounding our birth story, would soon evolve into much more complicated feelings than I knew what to do with.
What I’m about to share is a glimpse into my experience with Postpartum Depression and the narratives that fogged my mind for seven months following the delivery of my son. Together we’ll walk through my post-delivery experience and the triggers I believe to have contributed to the depths of emotion I felt during an already hormonally and emotionally charged time. Were there positives, grace, God’s protection and joys during this time? Absolutely! But my goal for sharing my story is to share my lowest of lows and deepest of dark moments because what helped me get through the mental warfare that I endured was knowing I wasn’t alone. Not the “one in seven women experience perinatal mood and anxiety disorders” kind of not alone, but the “oh my goodness, this girl is in my head” kind of not alone. The “maybe I’m not broken” kind of not alone. To the guilt-ridden mom out there wondering, “is it just me”, “why did it have to be this way”, “am I terrible”, “my baby deserves a better mom”, “what have I done”, and all the other thoughts that might be swirling through your mind, join me, because I’m sure I thought them too.
I started labor as soon as the ball dropped on New Year's Day. It stayed in pre-labor territory with irregular contractions for 48 hours before becoming the real deal. On January 3rd, 2024, after pushing for four hours at home, my planned home birth became an emergency c-section that resulted in a three-day hospital stay for me and a five-day NICU stay for my baby. My c-section recovery was brutal and to add to the pain I was severely swollen from the pushing (my midwife told me that I was the most swollen mom she’s even seen in her 13 years of midwifery – a superlative I’ve decided to own as a badge of honor.) Unfortunately, because of my baby’s condition and my epidural-induced nausea, I only got to see him for a mere five seconds before they had to take him away to receive care. I didn’t see him or touch him again until the next day. That magical moment of getting to hold my baby for the first time after delivery, having that “golden hour” of skin to skin, the bliss of holding your newborn and inspecting the little limbs of the child you’ve loved for nine months, all gone. Photos and videos of moms holding their fresh babies still sting to see. I’ll mourn losing that moment for a long time. I’d just been through the most intense experience of my life and if it wasn’t for my husband FaceTiming me from the NICU, It felt like I had no baby to show for it.
Eventually, I did get to hold my sweet Micah for the first time. It didn’t look like anything I’d imagined or prepared for. He was covered in wires and tubes but it was one of the best moments of my life. Only superseded by the true best — when I got to bring him home.
Regardless of how long, or what for, going home from the hospital without your baby is a pain I wish no parent had to experience. I begged our hospital team to let me stay just one more night just to be under the same roof as him, but it was time for us to go from patient to parents of a patient. I’ll never forget the poor man at the hospital who brought us our dinner that night. He asked us with so much sympathetic joy if we were finally getting to go home, he was met with an abundantly tearful “yes” before slowly backing out of the room. I did my best to keep it together on the drive home but as soon as I saw my bedroom it was over.
My midwife and birth assistant were wonderful. They restored my room to its original state, did laundry, and made it look like new, all signs of an attempted home birth removed from the premises. While from a practical perspective this was a blessing, to a mom without her baby, it was a nightmare. Everything looked… normal. It almost felt as though the last week of my life didn’t happen at all. I was back in a shell of a room that held memories that felt like they only existed in my mind. The last time I was in this room I heard sirens and laid on my bed pushing through contractions while firemen tried to get me on a gurney and into their ambulance. I’d had a whole journey with my child in the hospital and then, sitting in that room, it felt as though all of it was a dream. Was any of it real, I thought. Was my baby real? I sobbed at the thought that the only place my baby existed was in my memory and in that plastic bassinet in the NICU. It may sound dramatic to some, he was healthy wasn’t he? Nurses tried to make me feel better by telling me to enjoy the uninterrupted sleep while I could. He was recovering, wasn’t he? Heck, the only thing stopping him from coming home was a feeding complication. Some mothers don’t come home with their baby ever. I should just be thankful he was alive, right? All thoughts that swirled in my mind to make my sadness invalid. None of it mattered though. The only thing that mattered is I was here and he wasn’t. So I sat there, sobbing and sitting up-right in my bed, pumping for the baby I’d wake up the next morning, waddle in pain through the hospital parking lot, and meet with great joy to find was real after all.
Before we continue, I’d like to plug in that having a home birth was in no way shape or form the cause of my baby’s NICU stay. Something that has contributed to my peace surrounding my decisions leading up to delivery is knowing that had I labored in a hospital setting or at home our story would have been the same. However you choose to bring your baby into the world — go you! As someone who nearly did both an unmedicated vaginal delivery and c-section to completion, I respect the heck out of any and every mom. I do have to take a moment and do a little shout out to my c-section mamas though. Recovery from a c-section is the hardest physical experience I’ve ever had in my life. Some people may think you’ve had the “easy way out” but oh my friend are you so strong. Another mama I know who had a c-section shared a perspective on her delivery that rocked my world. Luke 22:19 is at the last supper when Jesus is speaking to his disciples. He is in the middle of the first communion, breaking bread when he says, “This is my body, which is given up for you.” On that operating room table, arms stretched out in crucifix position, you gave up your body for your baby. Your journey through parenthood will model the love of Jesus in many ways. Your child will first meet Jesus through you, and it started right there on that table, arms stretched out, vulnerable, and torn for a child you love so deeply.
The day we got to bring Micah home was the best day of my life. The NICU staff clapping as we walked out of the hospital, putting his first outfit on him, watching his daddy put him in his car seat, and seeing his little feet get licked by his big doggy sister are moments I could relive over and over and over. Pure joy. Relief. We were home. The first couple days brought their typical first-time parent/newborn challenges but we were so glad to be home. We were living with family at the time so we had support and were unbelievably grateful for it, especially with me being so dependent during my recovery. It wasn’t until a couple weeks passed that the fog started to thicken.
The best way I could think to really bring you into the fog that clouded my mind is to give you a peek into the different situations I experienced that contributed to the thought pathways I’d developed. This isn’t to complain about common challenges with a newborn, be negative about being a mom, or throw myself a pity party, it’s to give myself a space to talk about my experience and let it exist. I held the false belief postpartum that you’re supposed to treasure this time, soak it all in, just cuddle your baby 24/7 and be in la di da maternity leave bliss. I believed that because I was struggling to find joy in my work as a mother that something was wrong with me. That I was broken. This was HARD. I was struggling. I felt alone. Yet, I had this overwhelming guilt that I was supposed to be joyful through it all. That my baby deserved a good mom who could serve him joyfully. A mom that wasn’t me.
My husband and I own a photography and videography business together. We had a heavy Fall season in preparation for the time off from weddings we were about to have once we started approaching delivery. I, mistakenly, only gave us a two week maternity leave before we needed to get back to editing photos/videos for couples who would be expecting their wedding galleries and films. Unfortunately, one of those weeks was spent in and out of the hospital so we had very little time to get comfortable at home as a family before having to get back to work. I knew having a baby would be hard but everyone online talked so much about how much newborns sleep I thought, surely I could work while my baby napped, right? If not, I could just baby wear and get things done, right? Wrong. I was quickly met with the reality that all babies are not the same. One person’s experience is in fact one person's experience. My baby was not one who would allow being put down in his bassinet. He also especially hated his carrier until around 5 months so that was out of the question too. If I could go back in time and change one thing about my experience it would be to give us a longer maternity leave. I truly believe this was the catalyst to my depression. I felt the weight of impending deadlines while trying to care for my baby and tremendous guilt for desperately wanting to put him down rather than cuddle and “soak it in” like I’m “supposed” to. My husband was a wonderful partner through the entire experience but was also the main one keeping our business afloat. It was mostly a blessing to have him home, except for when this blessing led to self-inflicted guilt where anytime I or the baby needed something I felt as though I was taking him away from our work and hurting our business.
The day we left the hospital he latched on for the first time and we’d breastfed ever since. It was a miracle and we were fortunate enough to be able to breastfeed even after our feeding complications in the NICU. About a week after coming home from the hospital began the cluster feeding. The word makes me cringe a little to this day. For weeks I was feeding him every hour on the hour. I couldn’t be separated from him for long before I was needed again. At the time we were advised to not yet introduce bottles (more bad advice that led to future stress) so I had no help, and no relief. I felt like I was chained to my couch and chained to my baby. Of course I loved him and wanted to nourish and care for him, but to have this sweet little human so deeply dependent on me and only me so frequently felt like a sentence. I wish I felt more joy during that time but to be able to do absolutely nothing, go absolutely nowhere, hour in and hour out, day in and day out was so so hard. Watching him eat at his little hands would bring me to tears as I’d share my body for what felt like the millionth time again that day. Cluster feeding also meant we were stuck at home. Aside from doctors appointments, my first time out of the house with him wasn’t until almost a month postpartum. Every day felt like groundhog day, day in and day out the same thing over and over again. I was up every one to two hours every night until he was about six months old. For most people, when you have a hard day you get to go to bed, wake up and restart with a fresh new day. Being up so frequently at night made the days and weeks feel like one never ending day, an inescapable cycle of struggle that I hoped and wished would stop and get easier. It was at this time that I most deeply grieved my old life. I longed to be doing anything else that was once familiar to me. I felt true grief like someone I knew had died and I’d never see them again, except that someone was me. As much as I thought I was ready for motherhood, this level of difficulty made it clear to me I was not. I was plagued with thoughts of “what did I do”, “I’m not cut out for this”, “why doesn’t this make me happy”, “shouldn’t I love caring for him more than anything else”, “I was never meant to be a mother.” I felt broken because the beloved newborn stage that people claimed to be the best, felt anything but dreamy. I occasionally have these thoughts pop through my mind but I’ve now come to the understanding that God chose me to be Micah’s mom and his life is going to be much much longer than the first six months. It’s okay if I didn’t love motherhood in that season, there’s many many more to come that maybe I’ll be better fit for.
In those first two weeks postpartum every night my baby would have his “scream session”. An hour or two, sometimes more, of unexplainable scream crying that made my heart ache in pain along his. We tried everything we could to help the poor fella but all of the probiotics, Mylicon, gripe water, and more did nothing to soothe what he was experiencing. Your baby is crying intensely with no easily explainable reason? Diagnosis: Colic. Yeah, that’s what I call a load of crap. I don’t blame my pediatrician for that one, I mean the entire American medical system has accepted this term as a bandaid for what’s really going on. I could hear something was wrong, I knew he was in pain, and I could do nothing. Family would ask me “what do you think is wrong” and all I’d reply was “how do you expect me to know, I met him the same day you did!” I felt like I should know what was wrong, I was his mother, surely intuition had to lead me to something. That mother’s instinct hadn’t quite kicked in yet, making me feel no more important to this baby than a stranger. Truthfully, I’m not sure mother’s intuition is a “thing”. As time has passed I definitely now know my baby better than anyone, but I believe it’s attributed to the time we spend together, not some magic bond or instinct. For my baby, the common cause of this “colic” was terribly painful gas that his little body just didn’t know how to release on its own. Past me didn’t know that, so I just sobbed with him feeling absolutely useless trying to soothe my baby with no success.
Our hospital experience was such a whirlwind it didn’t hit me until a while later that I didn’t quite experience that heart-stopping, world-shattering, slap-in-the-face fall in love moment that so many moms describe. There’s no question that I love my baby but in those weeks following delivery it was an I care for you, will protect you, and want to comfort you kind of love. Not the kind the well-meaning family member implies when they ask “aren’t you just soooooo in love?” When I got asked that question my answer was of course “yes!” but deep down inside it was a shame-filled “I really don’t know.” This ate me up for a long time. Aren’t moms supposed to be out of their mind in love with their child? Why didn’t I feel that? I think my husband fell in love with him before I did, and while I’m grateful for it, the guilt tore me apart and made me believe my baby deserved a mother who could feel that way about him. As I’m writing this I’m eight months postpartum and while I absolutely love him to pieces I still don’t know if I feel that. My love grows for him every day and I still don’t know if I’ll ever have that moment. I don’t feel like my baby “completes” me, but he is a wonderful addition to me! He is now a part of me. Maybe that’s the healthier way to view it after all? I’m still unsure of how to feel about this but I can now confidently say I do love my baby. I always have. It just didn’t look like the fantasy that was always painted to me. Nothing about this has.
Loneliness was one of the most painful things I experienced postpartum. I’ll never forget the month of February. Social media was flooded with girls I knew attending their cute little Galentines day events and I cried every single time I saw one. Friendship throughout my life has always been very seasonal. In high school I had a tight group of friends, then in college that shifted to a new circle, and in early marriage I was a little lost before eventually finding some community through church. I know I’m loved. I may not have the proximity or intimacy of friendship that I once did with my friends, but I know they care for and love me. This can be enough most of the time, but when you’re crawling through each new day hoping you survive to see the next, it is not. My baby shower was a highlight of my life, perhaps more special to me than even our wedding. We were surrounded by so much support, celebration, community and I felt so lucky to bring a child into a world where so many people would care for him. It wasn’t until the weeks postpartum where I realized it’s easy to come alongside someone in celebration, and very much so not in grief. I wanted someone, anyone, to reach out to me asking how I, not the baby, me, how I was doing. I wanted friends to ask me if they could come over and sit next to me or go for a walk with us. Even just a text asking how they could pray for me would’ve turned around any of those days. Instead I sat on my couch, holding my baby alone, watching people I thought would care for me go on with their happy lives with all of its rhythms and joys. I don’t hold this against anyone. I guess you just assume a new mom is happy and wants to be left alone to cuddle her baby. Everyone is so different in their postpartum preferences. I thought about reaching out to people, but I couldn’t shake the thought that no one would want to be around a sad person. On top of that, many of my friends were either walking through seasons of infertility/loss or new moms/pregnant themselves. To my friends in the former bucket, the thought of expressing any sort of dissatisfaction with what I knew was their greatest wish filled me with such guilt I’d remain alone in my sadness before admitting its existence. To my friends in the latter, my insecurity as a mother was so severe the thought of being around them brought great anxiety. As if they knew I wasn’t enjoying this the way they were, I'd be judged as an unfit mother in some corner in the back of their minds. Was this true? No. But that’s what my mind bullied me into believing. For the girls that were pregnant, I knew how much they wanted to protect their peace and I didn’t want to be a sad case of a worst case scenario. I felt isolated, and my mind told me I deserved to isolate myself even more. It was around this time when Taylor Swift released I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, the line where she says “I’m miserable — and no one ever knows” felt so uniquely for me. It would swirl around in my brain on repeat during the long nights, and times when I just couldn’t get a break. I did get invited to a close friend of mine’s galentine's party. I debated with myself long and hard the days preceding it whether or not I would actually attend. As much as I desperately wanted to get out of my house and feel a little more like myself, it came with obstacles. The biggest physical obstacle was my baby didn’t yet accept a bottle so he’d have to come with me. The biggest mental obstacle being the terror at the thought of someone asking how I was doing. This was my first time around people, they were bound to ask the typical questions that come with seeing a new mom. I cringed at the thought of sobbing at a question regarding my state of being and ruining my friend’s party. I ended up going to the party and was asked a question that I was not prepared for. “What’s your favorite memory with him?” My brain short circuited when I heard it. I knew I experienced happy moments here and there, but so much of my memory of the prior weeks was covered in such a haze of darkness I couldn’t properly register any memory as joyful. I had to say “I’m not sure I’ve had it yet!” and went home carrying the shame of my response. If you’re wondering, Micah did come with me. His daddy cared for him upstairs so I could have some girl time, however it didn’t last long before screams made their way down the stairs and we made our way out the door.
Looking back now I realize it wasn’t my fault I could answer that question. In the state of depression I was in it was like a fog that didn’t allow me to recognize joys as they were. They existed, but quickly were swept under the cloud that hovered over me. The cloud existed for a while and shot out regular lightning bolts with different names. Guilt. Shame. Regret. Anxiety, Grief. They struck me at different times and sometimes all at once. I could never be more grateful for my husband who stood under the cloud with me many many nights and helped soak up the rain of tears that’d follow a strike.
There are so many struggles I could talk about, my severe anxiety around SIDS and the constant checking to make sure my baby was breathing, our journey with bottle refusal, the long LONG journey of little sleep (10 months in and we still haven’t slept through the night). I may write about some of them some day. This will be a living blog of the jumble of thoughts that return to memory from that period of my life. While I am grateful to say that somewhere around 7-8 months the dark clouds parted for me, I still occasionally struggle with the same thoughts I did early postpartum. Currently, I am trying to figure out who I am after becoming a mother. I never thought that doing things for me or learning who I am in this new world would be so hard. Becoming a mother has truly taught me what it means to live for someone else. In just the same way that he is discovering this world for the first time, so am I. Maybe it’s okay if nothing makes sense or feels familiar for a little while.
For those reading this who need a glimmer of hope that it does get better:
I finally do feel confident that I am meant to be HIS mom. We’ve spent enough time together that I truly feel like I know him even with the constant changes and growth. It’s amazing how our brains can make us feel like we’re unfit to be their mother’s while simultaneously having anxiety that no one else can care for them as well as us when we’re away. I’ve learned that I am Micah’s mama and other people can care for him and he’ll be OK.
There are still many insecurities but you find your strengths. For me, it’s cooking for him. He decided he was ready for solids early and slowly but surely I’ve really grown to love cooking and serving him nutritious meals. I’ve grown to be pretty confident in my effort towards feeding him well and that’s an area of mothering that I'm enjoying right now!
Personality makes SUCH a difference. There comes a point where you can see their personality start shining through, their likes and dislikes, their quirks, what makes them laugh, your inside jokes, and the love really grows. This is when it really changed for me. It’s not so much just loving them because they’re your baby anymore but loving them for who they are. When people used to say they couldn’t imagine their lives without their baby, I couldn’t relate for what felt like the longest time. Now I can.
While comparison is a lifelong battle, it’s not as bad when you truly internalize the idea that every baby is SO different and requires such different methods of care. Just because she’s doing something different with her baby doesn’t mean she’s doing it better. It’s just different.
It really does become fun. Finding out their favorite song, getting that first smooch, finding out that thing that just cracks them up followed by the best laugh in the world, seeing them dance and hit milestones, it’s a real joy. A joy different than anything you’ve ever known.
Please know that therapy/counseling is such an incredible tool for healing. You don’t need to suffer within your thoughts. If you are a Florida resident here is a list of wonderful licensed mental health professionals that specialize in the care of women’s perinatal mental health.
Morgan Rahimi https://climbcounseling.com/
Darcy Fritz https://climbcounseling.com/
Sammi Kay https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/samantha-kay-orlando-fl/804723
Brittany Sted Weaver http://www.brittanysted.com/
Kelly Walker https://www.wholeheartcounselingfl.com/
Kimberly Fann https://rgcounseling.com/
Christine Certain https://certaincounseling.com/
Sarah Courech https://www.momsinmindfl.com/
Shari-Ann James http://www.perinatalwellness.net/
Kerri-Anne Brown https://healingwithwisdom.com/
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