The light at the end of the tunnel.
This pregnancy has been harder than I expected it would be.
I guess I should have listened better to my psychiatrist when she said mothers’ expectations were often a detrimental factor in prenatal and postpartum mental health.
It’s not that I went into this with eyes wide shut. In fact, I’d say I did the opposite.
And maybe that’s what helped save me before I really needed saving…
It’s estimated that 10-15% of new mothers will experience postpartum depression (PPD).
One or two women in 1,000 will experience postpartum psychosis, an even more severe and life-threatening form of PPD.
Before we even got serious about trying to start a family, Joe and I talked about what it might mean that, given my mental health history, I was at an even higher risk than most women for serious postpartum depression and anxiety.
We read the literature my doctor pulled from The Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin—one of the world’s foremost authorities on prenatal and postpartum mental health—and weighed out the pros and cons of a medicated pregnancy. We decided, with both my psychiatrist’s and OB’s encouragement, that I should continue taking the extremely low dose of medication I was on prior to conception. That doing so would give me a better chance of warding off PPD.
I was prepared.
Or so I thought.
How do you know what the top looks like when you're livin' on the bottom? And how do you know what a love looks like when your heart's been broken?
My depression has always been a sneaky bitch.
So it took me a few weeks longer than it probably should have to realize something was more off than just some hormonal mood swings.
At first I blamed the unending fatigue on the ridiculously short and grey days of late November and early December. And then I chalked it up to starting a new job that had me adjusting to getting out the door before 7:30am most days of the week. I tried to suck it up, but I was angry that the supposed 2nd trimester energy burst had seemed to skip me all together.
I wasn’t too surprised that I was physically hurting every day. After all, I’m in my late thirties and have a bionic spine thanks to a 7-year-old incredibly intensive lumbar fusion. But I couldn’t remember the last pain free or even low pain day I had had.
I knew I was being irritable with everybody (and particularly Joe) but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
I started to notice that I didn’t really feel any connection to the life growing inside of me. At our 20 week anatomy scan, I was more annoyed at the sonographer’s 45 minute delay than I was enamored with the sight of the tiny little body that showed up on the screen. And, as the kicks in my belly grew stronger, so too did an on-and-off sense of numb detachment.
Even as I smiled and feigned enthusiasm, I started having fantasies of giving the baby up for adoption.
And I deeply lamented the fact that it was entirely too late for any “backsies.”
In a Washington Post piece on prenatal depression, Meg Earls, director of the Perinatal Task Force for California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, recommends asking two important questions when working with pregnant and postpartum women:
“Do you have any thoughts that disturb you?” and “Are you feeling more agitated or irritable?”
I don’t know when the lightbulb went off that it was time to tell somebody other than Joe that I was struggling. (Although I didn’t really need to tell him… he lived it alongside me.)
I do remember the day that I sat on my couch and sobbed via a transatlantic phone call to my best friend that I was overwhelmed and afraid that I would never love the baby growing inside of me.
But even as I was falling, I was reaching up.
By the time I made that horrible phone call confession, I had already reached out to my psychiatrist to let her know that I was struggling and asked to bump up my next regularly scheduled appointment. And I had already alerted my OB that my emotions didn’t seem to be within the expected range of normal pregnancy highs and lows.
I probably wouldn’t have reached out as (relatively) quickly as I did if I hadn’t known that I was at higher risk and already been vigilantly watching for symptoms. More than that though, I credit a few friends having told me their own stories of maternal depression and anxiety. I recognized similarities between what they had previously shared and what I was now feeling (or not feeling). I knew to take the situation seriously. And I also knew that there was help if I asked for it.
Within a few days of my bumped up appointment, I was already benefitting from a small increase in my medicine dosage. The meds aren’t magical but they make it easier for me to use my entire mental health toolbox (which includes meditation and exercise too).
A couple of weeks later and the light at the end of the tunnel is only getting brighter.
And that wiggle worm in my belly?
My love for him keeps growing. (Even if his kicks are really starting to hurt a bit.)
There’s help if you’re struggling with prenatal or postpartum depression or anxiety. Tell your doctor or midwife if you’re feeling off — they can evaluate whether it’s something more than the “baby blues.”
OTHER RESOURCES:
March of Dimes has a great resource page on prenatal depression.
The Mayo Clinic and UK’s National Health Service pages on postpartum depression are good too.
Lyrics: “NoLo” written by Morgan Taylor Reid
