Postpartum Depression - You're Not Alone

Supposedly 10% of all pregnancies are plagued with Postpartum Depression (Source: excerpt from Postpartum Depression Fact Sheet: NWHIC). Yet it appears as though that the number should be much larger. That 10% only includes mom’s who sought help from a medical professional and who fit a certain criteria for PPD. 

When I talk to other mom’s they all express some degree larger or smaller that could fall into some spectrum of what most of us would classify as PPD. However, with Baby Blues being the lesser end of depression after delivery and being the most common, unless your on the extreme opposite end of PPD, where a death occurs for the infant, most of the PPD suffers aren’t classified and included in the 10% statistic.  As a self diagnosed suffer of PPD, I knew I wasn’t alone, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

I wanted to be in love with my babies.   I wanted to showcase them like the bookend babies that they were.  I felt robbed.  Robbed of the most important part of having a baby, the precious moments after delivery when you get to know each other outside of the scary ultrasound pictures and middle the night kick sessions.  Instead what I got was a creeping feeling that came over me every time they were near me.  I didn’t want to hear them cry, I didn’t want to look at them, I didn’t want to hold them or feed them.  I did of course, out of necessity and a desire to have them live and be around when the dust settled.  I did it because I’m sure deep down I loved them and all their infinite loveliness, but for the first 5 months, I so wasn’t feeling it.

Looking for some relief from the dark hole I felt that I fell into, I naturally turned to my husband. My support system, my rock.  He didn’t understand. He hadn’t been through it and he didn’t know what to do for me or with me for that matter.  He just worked more.  I was home alone with my toddler and newborn twins.  We had just moved out of state and I knew no one.  I had one friend that visited every now and then from a 3 hour away trip, but that was it. The little family we do have lived 4 states away.  I was alone, depressed, in high demand and unsure of how to deal with it.  I had never cried so much as I did in the first 5 months of my twins lives. They cried all the time. I knew they had colic and colic meant crying, but one of twins was also throwing up all the time and he was loosing his voice.  I took them to the emergency room, he had acid reflux.  Now I had newborns with colic, one with acid reflux and a toddler who wanted his mommy.  Daddy was at work all the time and I couldn’t even shower without something going wrong.  I had to take charge and gain control over myself and my situation. 

I started talking my vitamins everyday, with an extra dose of B12 and B6, mood lifters.  I had stopped taking my prenatal’s when I learned I couldn’t breast feed.  I started eating better and getting out of the house in small bursts.  I started setting up play stations for my toddler and giving him chores and activities to keep him busy.  I found that music and dancing helped not only distract the babies from crying, even if only for a few minutes, but also got me laughing and smiling again.  

My twins were now 6 months old and after a full month of forcing myself to get up, join in and participate, my PPD started to lift.  It really is just that, a feeling that the dark cloud that you were living in, just lifts off of you and the sun comes out.  Even if by coincidence, that the PPD lifted at that time because its time was up or because of my forced participation in life, the result is the same - happiness. 

Becoming a mother was a choice, but no one chooses PPD.  It chooses you.  Knowing your a statistic, only gives a name to the problem, but its up to you how you deal with that problem.  My heart goes out to those mothers who have no choice and end up in the extreme end of PPD and a death occurs.  Before becoming a mother, I one of societies rock throwers at their crime.  Now having dealt with a fraction of the pain they go through I can only hurt for them.  I would like to think that if I was not so determined to be happy again and lost sight of what was important I would have sought professional help and kept myself from going to such an extreme, but who knows?  Everyday women have children and deal with PPD in one extreme or another, but it doesn’t have to be a lost cause and rob you of the love a newborn and mother have for each other.  Professional services are out there and PPD is a legitimate and life saving reason to seek it.  Feel good about yourself and your little gift, if your dealing with PPD, get help.  Your both work it.