Baby Blues and Postpartum Depression

October 26^th 2011 (4 weeks 3 days)

Hi everyone!

Baby Noah is sleeping next to me as usual. I’m watching him because he’s sleeping on is stomach and yea- he’s not supposed to. We find it’s best that way since he has lots of gas and sleeping on his stomach eases the pain by a lot (he farts so much)! I thought I would write today about a serious topic that hit me very strong after birth; baby blues and Postpartum Depression.

My husband and I went to prenatal classes. There were four of them and one of them was about postpartum depression. I remember coming out of that class thinking; that was useless and boring! After all, I’m such a happy person and I have never suffered from depression, nor has anyone in my family. So we thought that class was perfectly useless to us.

Turns out I wish I had listened. Our birth didn’t go as planned. We wanted a natural birth at home and we ended up having to be induced at the hospital. Noah was over 42 weeks and he didn’t have enough fluid left. Not only was I put under Pitocin but our birth story ended up in a c-section, so we also needed to get an epidural (that didn’t work) and then a spinal. Everything was going fine and I labored “naturally” with Pitocin for 15 hours before knowing I would have a c-section. That gave me about an hour to realize what was happening and that my dream birth wouldn’t come true. Not even a little bit. The moment I found my first instinct was not to panic and to think about Noah and my husband. I knew I would be fine but I could only imagine how my husband felt about this operation. I could almost run his thoughts through my mind and my priority was to comfort him and assure to him that everything would be okay. I would be fine, Noah was going to be fine, we would be a happy family. Maybe I shouldn’t have acted to strong. Maybe I should have let my true feelings out but at that moment, I had such an adrenaline going through my mind and body that all that mattered was to get Noah out safely and make sure the husband would be okay with me being operated and him having to take care of Noah for his first hours of life alone. 

The rest was history. Noah came out, he was perfect. I cried when I heard his first cry- I was so happy. I started breastfeeding and he latched on like a pro! We couldn’t have been happier. The next day, my midwife came to visit and asked “how I felt about the c-section.” How did I feel? Who cares! Noah is here and it had to be done anyways, right? The second day, I woke up during the night. I wasn’t able to fall back asleep… and that’s where my nightmare started. 

Before I start this, I all the readers to know that if you are in this situation- PLEASE seek help. Don’t be afraid or ashamed there is nothing wrong about asking for help. 

So, it all started at the hospital when I suddenly woke up for no apparent reason. I then looked at Noah, sleeping next to me and this strange thought came through my mind; I’m exhausted, I can’t walk because of my c-section, I can’t even grab him, I obviously will never be able to raise this child. I stayed awake all night thinking of this. Then, the next morning, the nurse came to weight Noah. She weights him and said he had lost too much weight. He had lost 10% of his weight and that was the maximum he could lose. That honestly crushed me. I was breastfeeding non-stop, on demand. He was latching on properly and everything was fine! Why the hell was he losing weight? I called my midwife and told her about the issue. She told me to get the hell out of the hospital. It would only stress me. I left a few hours later.

Then it was sleepless nights and nasty thoughts going through my mind (mainly about not wanting this baby since I wasn’t able to take care of him). The thoughts would be present mainly at night but it wasn’t rare that throughout the day I had them. I also wasn’t hungry at all. So I barely ate (bad for breastfeeding!). I remember feeling totally lost and losing control. I would talk to my husband about it but he couldn’t help. He knew that I am a good mom, a good wife, that I shouldn’t be concerned but my mind didn’t care. I didn’t want to breastfeed anymore. I was super unmotivated. I mean, what is the point of breastfeeding anyways? He can just get formula, why should I kill myself when I’m not good enough? Then, came the need to reject him. I didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to hold him. I just didn’t want to be his mom. My husband asked me seriously “Do you want to give him up for adoption?” I thought about it and said “No.” but I wasn’t convinced. YES it’s THAT awful. My midwife had told us something about the third day being very hard mentally. So we were sure that was it…but it continued the fourth, fifth and sixth day. I didn’t know what to do anymore and decided to give a call to my midwife during a crisis at 11h30pm. She couldn’t do much over the phone but she gave me the best advice ever; “take one minute at a time.” Not…one day at a time, no no, one minute. I did. The next day, she sent a midwife that I get along with to come and talk to me. We spoke about how upset I was, about my labor that went awfully wrong. It felt good. I cried, I laughed, then cried again and laughed because I didn’t know what was going on. She said that it was most likely baby blues but that she would be honest with me; she didn’t know if it would go away. If I still felt that way after 2 weeks I would need medication. Meanwhile, she told me that sleeping and eating would help a lot. She also weight baby to reassure me that he was gaining weight. He was, he gained 120 grams in a day which is almost impossible but it made me feel so good. He was back to his birth weight. 

Before leaving, the midwife told me to try two things to sleep; Rescue remedy and Homeogene 46. TRY IT! Rescue remedy is really worth trying. I slept so well. I felt so good the next day. I was still depressed but I actually had the strength to take care of Noah. Then, after that, it went better. After a week, I was good. For me, baby blues reached its peak at 5 days and then decreased. By two weeks, nothing was left. If I’m really tired, I still have days where I feel more depressed but it’s normal. 

As a final advice for ladies with Baby blues, hold your baby. I know you don’t want to. I know it’s hard. I know…I just know how it feels but hold him. Tell him all that you feel. When he cries, hold him. Never let go of him. If you breastfeed, put him on the breast as much as possible. Even if you don’t want to, you’ll see that once your baby starts sucking you’ll feel better. Also, REST. Don’t be silly- when baby sleeps-SLEEP! Even if you can only sleep 10 minutes, it makes a difference. Also, eat! Find time to prepare something quick to eat…you need energy. Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Talk about it. Talk about the way you feel, how powerless you are, how bad you feel, how you don’t want this baby, how this is not the way you had things planned. Talk it out! Don’t be afraid to ask for help- do yourself and your baby a favor- ask for help. 

Good luck ladies, it’s not easy, it’s extremely hard but you can do it and most important; you are not alone.