I’ve gone back and forth on writing this post a few times now. 
It seems like every time I read another blog post about post-partum depression (PPD) I think “Yes, that’s exactly it! Why didn’t I read more things like this before?” So I’m going to document my experience as best I can and maybe it will be one more post for someone else to stumble on.
When I was pregnant with Judah I had read about the baby blues and PPD but not in depth. I read about the drop in hormones after birth but as an already moody pregnant woman I didn’t know how different it would really be.
So Judah was born at 1am and before I had a chance to take in the fact that I had just given birth, he was being strapped into his carseat, I was being strapped onto a stretcher and we were loaded into an ambulance. I couldn’t see him for the entire ride (which included one of the EMTs forgetting to lock the wheels of my stretcher and me almost sliding right out the back door as we pulled out of the birth center). I then spent nearly two hours in the OR getting stitched up. Then back in the room to hold Judah for about half an hour before getting wheeled into another room. I couldn’t hold him while this transition was happening because of hospital policy (i.e. if I passed out on the stretcher he could fall). By now it’s about 7am and I have been up for twenty four hours and done the most exhausting thing ever and pushed a baby out and I’ve held him for maybe an hour of that time. Craziness now that I think about it.
We brought him home and of course had no idea what we were doing. I could hardly walk, struggled to nurse and overall felt like a failure. There were signs of PPD but I didn’t know them. I thought PPD meant crying all the time or trying to hurt myself or my baby (isn’t that what they always ask at the doctor?) What it really looks like is not sleeping, even when the baby is sleeping. Not eating. Crippling anxiety. Wishing that I’d never had him. Not because I didn’t feel this deeper need to take care of him but because I wished someone would adopt him and take him away. Wishing something would happen to me so that I’d have to go to the hospital because no one would think I was a bad mom if I was in the hospital but they would if they could hear my thoughts. I’ve never told anyone that part. PPD is not necessarily wanting to hurt your baby – I wanted Judah to be well taken care of. I just didn’t think it was by me.
The anxiety was some of the worst parts. When my parents would leave in the evenings I would feel absolutely sick to my stomach because now we were on our own. I didn’t believe Josh when he told me he was ok. It’s going to sound so silly but there are some things from that time that are almost like PTSD triggers…the show Arrow for one. Josh was watching it on Netflix and he and I would lay on the couch and I would be feeling horrible the entire time. Get this, Judah would be sleeping in the bassinet and I still couldn’t relax. We went to a Halloween party the same day I ended up going to the doctor and Judah was content and snuggled up against me in his Moby sound asleep the whole time. But I still felt awful anxiety. I felt like the worst person in the world because not only was I not enjoying my baby but I couldn’t be around my other friends who had their babies because it made my anxiety and stress even worse. I remember another time when a friend of ours came over to watch football, Judah was asleep in his bassinet and I went to lay down and heard Josh and him talking and joking. I couldn’t understand how they could find things funny. And I mean like a commercial on TV. Nothing in my world was funny or hopeful. Everything felt like too much.
I didn’t realize that that is what PPD looks like. Now, if you’ve read my blog much you know that I eventually got on some medicine, got some decent sleep and things have turned right-side up again. But it was an incredibly difficult and lonely time. For a PPD mom, you feel like nobody understands how you feel and that something must be wrong with you since you’re supposed to be so overjoyed with your new little baby – that’s what all the old ladies in the grocery store say, right? And if you’re a Yankee too, you wonder why you just can’t get yourself together and get through it. What I’ve realized is, I did get myself together and get through it. I had to sacrifice my independence and desire to have it all together and talk to my doctor and talk to my family and friends and let them serve me.
So thank you to the Webbs and being friends who went above and beyond.
Thank you to the Birth Center nurses and my midwife Emily who listened to my tears over the phone and in person and were real enough to say “It sucks but it gets better.”
Thank you to Tammy Daughtry and your delicious chicken n’ pastry supper you brought over one night. It was comfort food we didn’t know we needed, especially for a girl who was too anxious to eat most of the time.
Thank you to the lactation consultants at Vidant who routinely attempted to get me connected to the PPD support group (even though information was wrong three different times!)
Thank you to Josh for being a scared husband and new dad and handling it all with love.
Thank you Jesus for being bigger than the biggest problems I’ve faced yet 🙂
Adventures with the Morgans 