It was getting close to midnight when the doctor showed up and brought with her a scary word: emergency c-section. Baby wasn’t coming out on their own and was stressed. I had been in labor for about 26 hours at this point so even though the words scared me, really I just wanted the baby out and okay whichever way they needed to do it.
No one tells you about the shaking your body does as it goes into shock on the surgeons table. “I’m freaking out…” I calmly tell the nurse with the drugs, but inside my world is spinning. All I could concentrate on was the tugging and calming my own anxiety down.
Once my kid was out, I asked “What is it?!?” (I waited to find out the gender.)
“Uhhh…it’s a baby…?” Said one nurse.
No 💩, even high as a kite I knew it was a baby they just pulled out 😤🙄
“It’s a boy!” Another nurse chimed in. There he was, my perfect little human.
Everyone told me I would get this flood of overwhelming love when I saw my baby for the first time…but it never came to me.
I waited.
The reality of what happened was that I was hit with a traumatic birth, an unsupportive husband, and a new baby that was a stranger. When I say stranger, I mean that we literally had to get to know each other over the first two months. I loved him, do not misunderstand. I love him still and I will forever. I am saying it was all traumatic and quite rough on my psyche. This was not what I had imagined for nine months, to be honest.
Thank God I had my mom there for me. I lived with her on and off until I got to my current job, and she picked up on my child’s care where I left off. I went to therapy and a psychiatrist, in which I was diagnosed with Postpartum Depression. I was put on an antidepressant, and it kind of worked for a time. I remember feeling up so I stopped taking the pill and the next day, I could not even move to get out of bed. That was a scary day, but without question my mom took over baby duties until she snapped me out of it.
Postpartum depression is a poison that forms in your brain, and seeps down towards your limbs. It makes the baby seem to weigh a little bit heavier, or the crying make our ears just a little more sensitive, and it even feeds these women negativity upon negativity. Anxiety sprinkled on top made me miserable with thoughts like…
You suck as a mom
Who are you?
Everything you are doing is traumatizing your kid.
You are going to get this kid killed with your ignorance.
It never really went away, it just continued a pattern of depression. I believe I was bipolar all along, and going through this wrongly medicated was not only incredibly difficult, it lead to the worst six months of my life.
But that is for another time 😉
If you suspect you might have PPD, please read the article below:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/postpartum-depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20376617
Image URL:
https://www.deviantart.com/ukulelemoon/art/Digital-Painting-Depression-is-Not-Funny-492908948
Undiagnosed 