I am currently three and a half years postbirth from my experience with postpartum depression and am sharing my journey in three parts as I journaled about it along the way. See the third and final part below.
Things slowly got better after that first day but it was still a rocky path after that. I battled feeling alone and bouts of intense anxiety for several weeks. I cried easily. Joanna rocked and sang to Alex for hours that week and her sweet demeanor cheered me up. Friends of mine surrounded me, popping in every day to check in and keep me company. Alex was still a very fussy baby, not easily consoled by me, but even less by others. Talking about it helped but too much kept me in a dark place. I longed for distraction; happy moments. I got connected with a counselor and others who had experience with postpartum depression and that was so encouraging. The feelings associated with this sickness are wrought with shame, and not many people talk about it. I wanted someone else to take care of my baby, and that was a hard thing to confess. It did not feel right. Matching that feeling was guilt that I shouldn’t allow someone else to take care of my baby; it was my job.
Wayne has a large family, he is the youngest of eight, with lots of nieces and nephews who are grown. They offered to send someone else after Joanna went home and his sister Susie, who had her own kids even offered to come. Her youngest was 11 and she felt he was grown enough that she could get away to help me. I longed for a mother to be here with me to help me know what to do and troubleshoot all the questions I had. So, I took her up on her offer.
That week was incredibly healing. Susie is a deeply loving person, helpful, and easygoing. Like all the Yoder’s, she invited laughter. She slept at Matt’s, Wayne’s nephew who lives beside us so that Wayne and I could have a little time together in the evenings. She would come over early in the morning around four to five am after Alex’s last night-feed and take him if he cried so I could get an uninterrupted two hours of sleep before he was hungry again. Those morning rescues became a daily solace for me, a guaranteed stretch of sleep that I did not have to be on call. She brought her sewing machine along to make dresses for her teenage girls and filled the house with its humming. She quietly cooked and cleaned, put away food from my garden for me, canned green beans, and even made bouquets, all while tending to me and Alex and encouraging me as a new mom. She was balm for my soul.
I still felt anxious quite often. I would ask her to come sit with me while I nursed and cried, wondering what I’d do without her.
She helped Alex to start taking his pacifier and showed me some wonderful tools for soothing him, like the cradle hold, tucking his arm behind mine to keep the pacifier in against me, and helped me find a way to make him comfortable in the wrap, which became an invaluable tool I still use to this day!
When she left I did cry. She and Wayne had to leave quickly when they got the call from her driver and suddenly I felt incredibly alone and incapable all over again. I felt like a failure at that moment but what we didn’t know was in another two weeks I would feel nearly back to myself again. At that moment though, I was not yet ready to be alone. I was 6 weeks postpartum. Though I wanted to be strong, Wayne insisted we find help for me during the day when he wasn’t there until these feelings subsided. I am so thankful for that.
We found Kendra. My dear Kendra. A young woman, with a love for babies, who came into our lives and hasn’t left since. By the time we found her, I felt nearly back to myself again and Alex and I had established some routines to our day to make it much more manageable. We decided to have her come just a few days a week from seven to noon. Although I was feeling much more rested at that point, she allowed me to get a shower and start exercising. She also helped me lay sleep foundations for Alex. He had taken naps alone in his bassinet already, but not with much rhythm or length. She happened to have experience with the sleep structure I had studied and was invaluable in helping me! Establishing good sleep was something I wanted to do from the start and worried about when I had anxiety. Slowly, over the coming months, we helped him fall asleep independently and that was a huge help in giving me the time and space I needed to heal.
I slowly returned to myself and found my energy and joy again. Every time I assessed where we were I felt better and better. I began falling in love with my baby. Life felt manageable and I could say that I truly loved my new job. There were still times when I felt tired, frustrated, and irritable if he had a night of fighting sleep, but it felt like a normal response to me and I’d feel refreshed in the morning. A new day has a way of doing that.
Just recently in the past two months, Alex has begun becoming aware of when there is distance between us and is visibly comforted by my embrace and presence; something that wasn’t apparent in his newborn days when I was trying to figure out how to comfort him. I have leaned into playing this role of mama. Attachment has formed between us, in the most beautiful way. I love him dearly. I love being his mama. I realize that the demands of infanthood will not last forever and am leaning into the closeness that is required in it. I thank the Lord for this.
Some of the sweet things I treasure is the look he gives me after a day out with people and we are all alone again; a huge smile and sigh of relief like he’s saying, “hey, it’s just us again,” that I am the only person that can make him belly-laugh right now and the way he puts both hands on my face to give me a slobbery kiss.
Since returning to myself I have had a handful of anxious moments that felt similar to the postpartum ones, usually during my menstrual cycle. I always returned to myself the next day though and felt like I had a healthy perspective on them though.
I had begun a natural mood-boosting supplement along with the SSRI medication that has ashwagandha and magnesium (also, GABA & 5-HTP) in it the day after Wayne’s sister Susie left. The days and weeks following that are when I felt a significant change in my mood and energy. I don’t know if it was the same timing as the medication kicking in, but I attribute a lot of my recovery to it. I even told Wayne, that I feel more than 100% back to myself; more joyful than usual.
February 30, 2022 | 7 Months Postpartum
At 7 months postpartum, I am in the process of weaning off of my SSRI medication. With my midwife’s guidance, we are opting to do it very slowly over a 2-1/2 months.
April 7, 2022 | 8 Months Postpartum
I have finished my weaning process from my medication and can call it a blessing that I felt next to no symptoms.
July, 2022 | 9 Months Postpartum
I have been off of SSRI medication for two months and have had a few rises of anxiety, namely when Alex started getting distracted while feeding and we started feeding less regularly. I got nervous that he wasn’t eating enough and that it might affect his sleep and then began struggling with let-downs. (I know now that this behavior is normal for babies at this age). I ended up weaning him around 11 months old in response to the stress it was causing me. After this, I started eating more clean and with time and the belief and support of Wayne my anxiety subsided.
March 23, 2024 | 2-1/2 Years Postpartum
I have continued without my SSRI and also stopped taking my natural mood-boosting supplements as well and have felt well mentally since! Kendra started coming just one morning a week when Alex was a year old and stopped helping us when he was one and a half. Even with only that amount of help, I was nervous about the transition. However, each time, Alex and I found a good routine, things were manageable and I felt more than capable! It was empowering.
I am in a wonderful stage with Alex and motherhood now and want to encourage new mothers that they can do it and it WILL get better! I sleep great, I can work independently while Alex plays, have time for myself and our marriage, and feel well. Not everything is perfect of course, parenting has challenges at every stage, but I can look to the future with confidence and joy. I’d like to give it a try next time without SSRI drugs and see, with the perspective that I have and lifestyle habits, if I can get through it. I am thankful that it helped me to get to where I am now though. That was the journey the Lord had for me. I see now how, even to a healthy person, such a change is hard for the brain to accept. If we can take one moment at a time, continually speak the truth to ourselves, and see the good in the moment we’re in while looking at its impermanence, anything is possible.
Cherished Photos by my dear friend: Jenna L. Richman Photography