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 first part below.
December 4, 2021 | 4 Months Postpartum
I had a long labor. 46 hours. Grueling in the eyes of others but in my mind it was beautiful and good. It started at home – where I wanted to be. Though when I tried to no avail to get him to shift in place and get past 9cm, we ended up at the hospital with a failed epidural, lots of medication, constant IV, heart monitoring and finally a C-section—exactly what I did not want.
It was hard, but I had the best support in my family, friends, midwife and nurses who tried everything, so I felt like it was still a success. Still good.
I threw up the whole time the C-section was being performed, pure stomach bile because there was nothing left from two days of throwing up. When Wayne brought my baby to my face while they were stitching me up, I remember being so excited to see him but not well. I didn’t realize until later that the golden hour with him on my chest post-surgery was very blurry because of the narcotics I was on to cope with the pain of the procedure. I wasn’t truly cognisant. I asked Wayne at least ten times after we were home what Alex’s birth weight and length were because I just couldn’t remember.
That first day in the hospital was bliss… Alex slept like he was still in the womb, we ate our first glorious meal and shared pictures with friends and family. Triumphant, we were finally parents!
I took my first steps with the help of a nurse and felt so strong! That night though, Alex started to cry. He was hungry and we were struggling to latch. I hadn’t had a lactation consultant come yet, only young student nurses and he was prone to fury with an empty stomach like his momma. I couldn’t get out of bed to get him or put him back and I knew the nursing staff would scold me for sleeping with him. All I remember are nurses coming constantly during the night to take our vitals and what felt like threatening to elongate our stay if he didn’t pass the jaundice test or have a wet diaper within twenty-four hours. I ended up dropper-feeding him hand-expressed milk to produce that diaper because we wanted to get out of there. I broke down to Wayne the last night when Alex was crying in his bassinet and I couldn’t get him, “This is not what I wanted. I can’t be the momma I wanted to be to him.” Postpartum hormones and drug influx were likely the cause of such an emotional outbreak. I can smile at it now.
He passed the jaundice test and had a wet diaper and we got to go home Sunday evening, 48 hours post-surgery. I told the nurse bearing the news, that I could kiss her! A fresh breath of air came over both of us. We quickly packed up our things, waited patiently for our ride (our midwife drove us to the hospital), and walked out of that hospital like baby birds leaving the nest; eager and weak. When we walked into our home, Wayne and Chip, our neighbor who picked us up, moved the rocking chair from the nursery to our room; I decided to sleep in the chair since getting out of bed to nurse with the healing incision would be painful. Our friend Kayt had cleaned up the house left with all the birthing supplies and tub set up, had a large bouquet of flowers from the garden on the table, and a warm meal in the crockpot! God bless her. It was a summer night and coming home to it was such a warm, cozy feeling. As we got nestled in, we both felt we could do this now!
It was so lovely.
Wayne got up and handed him to me when he cried the first night and I navigated how to feed and comfort him. We were both finding out what having a newborn looked like while being thrown into this new job. I remember waking up the next morning while he was still sleeping and greeting Wayne in the kitchen. He made me a cup of hot tea and asked what I wanted for breakfast. I was weary-eyed but I got to sit on the couch with it for a few minutes before Alex woke, the summer sun shone in, the flower garden was full of blooms just outside, and it felt like a gift.
My milk came in the following night, 3 days postpartum, and we still had trouble latching. He was getting hungrier and hungrier and I, fuller and fuller. He cried most of the time and I didn’t know what to do. Thankfully a saint of a lactation consultant came out the next day and put us on track! Little bear was just very vocal and I was inexperienced. I had to have help with every latch for the next twenty-four hours but we were doing it. Besides some good tips, I think I mostly needed someone calm and experienced to say, you’re doing it and you’re doing great. It was a continual journey after that but I had wonderful, wonderful help. I remember cozying up on the couch with him, feeding and napping together for a solid week. It felt right.
Both of our families are in Ohio, so Wayne helped set up full-time help for the first two weeks. Someone came in the morning and stayed until he got home. It was a huge blessing. I was able to merely exist on the couch with my baby while being taken care of; healing and bonding. My physical therapist recommended this, if possible. After the first week, we started getting out and sitting in the garden. It seemed my body was healing quickly. I felt that I might like some time alone and could handle things during the day.
There were moments I felt my hormonal surges pulsing through me that first week, my lactation consultant had talked me through it. She let me know that there would be a low on day three and to let it come. Tears flowed. The feelings felt normal and I think it was. I was embracing the throws of motherhood.
I remember sweet moments with Wayne when we’d get one together, our first Saturday in the barn, and the first time out with baby. I was tired but life was sweet.
I caught this feeling of anxiety settling in a few times in the first weeks and it felt strange to me. Tears were normal for me, anxiety was not. When people would come to visit I’d stress about whether Alex would be happy or screaming and hyper-fixated on trying to plan for him to be asleep for their arrival. This wasn’t a normal feeling for me and it was miserable. I was worrying about everything. Was Alex getting enough to eat, was he sleeping too much? Was I doing this right? And it felt like life or death if I wasn’t; a dark feeling. I knew also though, that anxiety was common postpartum, and I would ask Wayne to pray for me on those days. I would pray as well. I felt very near to the Lord in those weeks. I felt God was looking out for Alex and me, as a shepherd and I would usually pop out of it the next day.
Alex was a bit of a fussy baby; I think he had some tummy troubles that I was convinced were because he was not born vaginally (getting that good bacteria for his gut) and even though I was giving him an infant probiotic, it felt like I had somehow failed at producing a healthy baby. We had not introduced a pacifier yet, per advice from our lactation consultant. So this made the crying even harder, especially when we were in public or in the car and at night when I desperately needed him to go back to sleep for the next two-hour stretch between feeds.
Jenna L. Richman Photography
What still felt manageable, hit me on a Tuesday, two and a half weeks postpartum. I remember where I was standing in our bedroom; bouncing a crying baby who I didn’t know how to soothe, and I started crying myself. I was feeling so good after two weeks of full-time help but now on my own, things started to catapult. The times that I tried to lay him down to catch a shower or nap, it seemed like he didn’t want to cooperate. I was tired—that burning-eyes, foggy-brain, short-tempered type of tired. I desperately needed a nap and as much as I loved holding Alex, it felt like I could not get away from this child. I texted a friend who is a fellow mama and asked her if it would get better. I had to know because, in that moment, I felt like I would never sleep or have a minute to myself ever again.
I started wondering why we thought it was a good idea to have a baby. I would look at people out in public who looked happy and well-rested and thought, “How nice… you can sleep whenever you want.” It is funny to think of now. I was jealous of those without kids or whose kids were grown. I missed time alone with Wayne and I also wished I could get away from my consuming new job and leave for “work” like he did. Since I was nursing him, and he was not taking a bottle yet per advice to wait until he was a month old, I was the only one who could feed him. For a newborn that meant being on call constantly around the clock. Whew. All moms know this, I just didn’t have the experience to know that it would not be like this forever; or even for very long. My mental capacity was so depleted that I couldn’t see any hope. The two weeks it would take until we could give him a pacifier or four weeks, a bottle, seemed like an eternity away. I would fantasize about skipping ahead to him being a toddler when he could tell us what he needed and Wayne could help. I felt like that would be a much more manageable age.
Did I just not love the newborn stage like some women do or was my baby more difficult than most? I felt ashamed of most of these thoughts but also desperate to be rescued.
Cherished Photos by my dear friend: Jenna L. Richman Photography
