I suffered from postpartum depression and anxiety with my first baby. I didn't with my second. Here's what my second child taught me about my experience with PPD.
I hesitated to write this post. Because like many moms, and like many people with mental health disorders, I'm afraid I'll be judged. But as long as there is still stigma surrounding mental health, and as long as mothers feel alone in their struggles with mental health and otherwise, I feel like it's my job to talk about it so that we can normalize these issues and make progress toward treatment and prevention.
I've been open before about my experience with postpartum depression and anxiety after Queen C was born. I was fully expecting to have it since I already have anxiety. And it was hard, and I felt angry for not being able to get the care I needed at the time. But once I felt better, I honestly didn't think it was all that bad.
I never had suicidal thoughts or full blown panic attacks, so I figured that maybe I was lucky and my symptoms had been mild. Maybe I was overreacting that my doctors wouldn't take me seriously. Maybe since I appeared fine on the outside, I really was fine. And that's exactly the problem.
After having Little M, I expected to have PPD/PPA again. I figured I'd be a little more prepared to fight the battle of going in and out of doctor's offices and figuring out medication dosages that worked for me. But magically, I didn't have to, because I didn't experience PPD this time around. (Thank goodness, because it would have been even more difficult with all of the coronavirus happenings.) But what I learned in the 6 months since having Little M and actually feeling good, was that my postpartum depression with Queen C really was that bad. And it makes me angry all over again.
The postpartum experience I had with my second baby is the one I longed for with my first (albeit without the quarantine and general weirdness going on). Of course I've had the struggle that every mother faces with a newborn - breastfeeding, being sleep deprived, and adjusting to a new normal. But the difference in the way I was able to handle the stress and the exhaustion has been huge. Now that I have had a PPD-free experience with Little M, what I really realized I missed out on was bonding with my first baby girl. And it makes me so sad.
I didn't feel the instant overwhelming connection with my first baby that I heard other moms talk about it. I blamed it on the stress of learning how to care for a newborn and trying to successfully breastfeed while not taking maternity leave. I chalked it up to her having colic and screaming at me for hours on end for the first 4 months of her life. I even thought that maybe I'm just bad at forming relationships, even with babies. But now I realize I didn't get to experience that amazing bond with my baby because of my postpartum depression and anxiety. That's not okay.
I feel cheated out of getting to have a blissful new mom experience, cheated out of the start of a lifelong bond with my first daughter. I am sad that I wasn't in a good mood to greet my daughter when she woke up from naps more than half the time. I feel guilty that I was too anxious about pumping and schedules and things that didn't even exist to sit on the floor with my baby and gaze at her for hours before she could even crawl. And I get angry all over again that it took so long to finally get the treatment I needed.
So I'm writing this to you, the mom who may be doubting that her symptoms are real. To the mom who may not know she needs a little extra help. Your experiences are valid, and you're not alone. Postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety are very real. They're not treatable with a yoga class or a bubble bath or a glass of wine. You don't need to 'snap out of it' or to 'take a deep breath'. You need to speak up, to advocate for yourself. If you need medication or support from a therapist, don't be ashamed. I want you to have whatever it is that you want from your postpartum experience that PPD is getting in the way of.
Now that I know what it looks like to NOT have postpartum depression and anxiety, I'm more positive than ever that these are very real conditions that can have a profound and lasting impact. It's time to bring them to light, to talk about our experiences, and put an end to suffering in silence.
THANK YOU for talking about this. THANK YOU for sharing what you have gone through.
I had undiagnosed PPD with both of my boys. Both of them had colic, the first for nine months and the second for four months. With the first one, I had no idea what PPD was. All I knew was that his constant crying (and we're talking about crying for 16+ hours a day - he barely slept) was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I begged his pediatricians for something, anything, to help and they couldn't figure it out. Pretty much put the blame on me for everything. The only true support I had was from my MIL and the child care staff at his daycare. It was well over a year after he was born that I realized the awful darkness of PPD had started to lift itself from me, but I still didn't know it had been that. I changed pediatricians following that whole fiasco and was more than a little terrified to have a second child, yet I made the choice to get pregnant again. I talked with the NP at my OB's office about everything that had happened with the first little one and should have known it would be an uphill battle when she pretty much blamed everything on me for not breastfeeding. When I explained for the 47th time the reasoning behind not breastfeeding, she asked why I got pregnant at all, if I was making that kind of a choice. DAMN. Between the anesthesiologist and the entire delivery that went with the second child, I chose not to tell anyone about the darkness that was, once again, falling over me. Colic followed with the second little one, but this time, I had a pediatrician that suggested a few different things. She LISTENED to me. The second little one's colic was gone after four months. I never once told anyone about the torment I was going through because I didn't need to hear that everything was my fault again.
More than a decade later, I chose to go to counseling. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, but it was SO worth it. I finally got up the courage to ask my husband if he knew I had PPD with the boys and he nodded. Then I asked why he did NOTHING about it. All he did was shrug. No words, no explanation, nothing. Just a shrug. Between the blame placed on me by those in the medical field, the lack of support from those closest to me, and the mental assault I placed on myself, I knew I was lucky to have made it out as intact as I did. I now pay especially close attention to friends who are pregnant and/or are new mothers. I will always listen to them. I will never disregard their worries. I will never, EVER, place the blame on them or tell them they need to suck it up and deal with it. I won't sugar-coat what being a mom is like. It's puke, poop, pee, exhaustion, fatigue, and pain. Yes, there's good stuff in there too, like coos and grins and giggles. Oh the giggles. If ever there was a cure for the bad days, it was the giggles!
My oldest is now almost 19 and the memories from those days still make me tear up. I do not regret having my boys at all. I do wonder what it would have been like, had either one of them not had colic or if I'd had the PPD treated. That's in the past and there's no way to know what might have been otherwise, so we continue to make the memories together. I WILL say that going through all of that has made me far more open to talking with them, in a straightforward manner, about mental health. There's no topic off limits. As their mom, I want them to know they can come to me with ANYTHING. We might have strong words about it, but in the end, I will always have their back. We face life's storms together.
Thank you for sharing your story, Jan! My first was very colicky, too, and it made things so much worse. I'm so glad you were able to get counseling and are willing to talk about it more openly. Your boys are lucky to have you!