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As a new mom, you are probably being given information on a variety of topics from how you should be feeling to how your baby should be acting. If you are not than consider yourself lucky, I know when I had my first baby it seemed that everybody had some kind of advice to offer. However, what nobody ever talked to me about was postpartum depression. In the beginning this didn’t strike me as odd because I never really thought it could happen to me, I believed I was invincible, as many young mothers do. Little did I know that I would eventually find out just how real postpartum depression was.
With my first three girls, I had normal pregencies. I went to all of my checkups, had all of my tests and nothing was a miss, my girls grew like they were supposed to and I only gained the recommended amount. Labor wasn’t what I would call a walk in the park, but I managed to get through it all three times without anything going wrong or any unexpected surprises. After going home, I continued to bond with my babies and was so happy with everything that was happening in my life. However, with my fourth pregnancy everything was about to change.
My fourth pregnancy was what some people would call a rough pregnancy. The first two trimesters were fine, my little girl grew like she was supposed to and I was healthy, but once the third trimester started things started to get a little weird. About half way into my third trimester, I started having contractions that were bad enough to send me to the hospital thinking I was in labor; thankfully, it turned out to be a false alarm. For some reason I started having Braxton hicks contractions earlier than what is considered normal. Not only that but I just wasn’t feeling myself. I was constantly tired and felt horrid, I wasn’t physically sick, I just wasn’t me. I had even stopped making an effort to stay in contact with friends and family. If people came over to my house I put on a false smile, but I didn’t feel happy. I honestly just thought it was the pregnancy taking its toll on me and I couldn’t wait to be done.
My daughter ended up coming about three weeks early and it isn’t anything that I will soon forget, as it was a nightmare. My water broke in the morning, but my contractions hadn’t started yet, so after a few hours spent walking around trying to get the contractions going with no luck, I had to be induced. Pitcoin is not something that I would ever recommend, but sometimes it is unavoidable. The only problem was after several hours I was no longer dilating, and at this point, I was about ready to cry. Finally, somebody thought to check to see if my water fully broke, which it hadn’t, so once they broke it everything started moving right along.
After what seemed like forever I finally gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, but as I am laying there holding her and talking with the doctor my mother-in-law pointed out to the doctor that I seemed to be losing a lot of blood. Which he was watching, but couldn’t do anything about as he was having a hard time getting the placenta out, I think they stopped the medication to soon so my uterus was no longer contracting like it should. After a few minutes everything was fine and he got the bleeding under control, so I was sent up to my room to rest. After getting settled, I had to go to the bathroom, so the nurse came in to assist and after making it into the restroom my entire world went black. I honestly don’t even remember sitting down to go to the bathroom, all I can recall was coming out of a foggy to my husband saying to me, “Don’t do this to me,” and about 5 nurses all crowded into my tiny bathroom. They did amazing and got me back into bed and the rest of my stay at the hospital was uneventful, but I still wasn’t feeling like myself.
Upon arriving home I honestly thought my life would turn back to normal, well as normal as it can be with a new baby in the house. Postpartum depression was the furthest thing from my mind, as I had already had three girls before and never once felt depressed. But this time things were different. After a few weeks of being home I had turned into a hermit, I was avoiding everybody but my immediate family. I would find myself staring out the window looking at the dreary landscape and just couldn’t seem to shake the funk. At first, I thought it was just the weather getting me down. My daughter was born in January, just when winter is getting started, everything was covered in snow, so there were no colors to look at. About once a week, I would talk to my Mom, who lived in sunny CA, but even that was hard because it made me feel homesick. I used to joke that being born and raised in California I was not cut out for the snow, but that winter it seemed to be true.
I went in for my check up with my doctor and simply acted like everything was fine, by this time I was great at putting on a false face. My doctor asked all of the right questions, but I said everything was fine I was just tired of the winter. I wouldn’t say I was in denial about postpartum depression I just didn’t know what to look for. In fact, I wasn’t even the one to pick up on the fact that I was depressed, it was my family and friends who noticed and luckily I have pretty good ones. My mom was the first one to spot the depression and to help me out she flew me to California for six weeks. Upon my arrival home, my best friend came over to my house to ask what was going on with me and why I was avoiding everybody. I am not sure what would have happened if my friends and family didn’t step in and rescue me.
The reason why I shared this story with you is to show how easy it is to overlook postpartum depression, as well as depression during pregnancy. In looking back, I think the depression problems started in my third trimester and lasted about three months after my daughter was born. I also shared this story in hopes that more women will talk to their doctors about how they are feeling, depression isn’t something that should be treated lightly!
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