How Post-Partum Depression Changed My Life

I read Brooke Shields’ book, I had experience with depression, I had a great therapist and a supportive husband, so when I got pregnant post-partum depression didn’t register on my radar of concerns. At one of my first OB appointments I made sure to tell my doctor about my history of depression, just in case, and he said it would be something to monitor but not to worry about. As we left that appointment my husband commented that it seemed unnecessary to even bring it up, since I was already in therapy and it couldn’t be much worse than what I had already experienced.

When I was only a few months in, barely showing at all, we moved from Florida to Arkansas because my husband was offered a job as an engineer. I was not prepared for how much of a change this would present to our lifestyle. In Florida, we were extremely social and spent a lot of time doing physical activities. I did yoga, walked on the beach, we rock climbed and rode our bikes. For a long time we lived next door to a couple that happened to be our best friends. When they moved across the state we took regular trips to spend weekends at their home. Before I got pregnant we were fairly regular patrons of a few local bars, sports bars for football and hockey, and nicer bars on the beach for birthdays and nights out. When we got to Arkansas, we lived in a house in the woods on a lake, with one neighbor we could see (who happened to be our landlady) and we were 15 miles from the nearest “city” which offered a Walmart (at the time not even a super Walmart) and a bad Mexican restaurant. I also made the transition of going from full time legal secretary to part time work from home billing assistant for the law firm, and finally to home maker. We would talk around the lake and go to Walmart for fun. Sometimes if we were feeling adventurous, we would drive the hour and a half to Little Rock to walk around the mall for 2 hours and come home. The culture shock was significant and we felt it more than we could have expected. In retrospect, if we knew what we were in for, I doubt we would have moved.

My pregnancy was normal, healthy, and relatively easy. My regular depression even went away and I felt fantastic the entire time. (I know, a lot of women are hating me right now.) It took a bit to get in with a new OB because there were very few options and most didn’t want to take a new patient so far into the pregnancy. I finally chose a doctor in a town an hour South of our home. I liked him, though not as much as our previous OB, and my husband commented that he looked like Brett Favre. I told him about the history of depression, too, and he seemed even less concerned than my first doctor.

We had three ultrasounds during my pregnancy, and two of them showed we were having a baby girl. I painted our nursery purple, made pink curtains with big purple bows, and registered for pink butterfly sheets and accents. We named her Kylie Piper and I read her books and sang to her, and couldn’t wait to be a new mommy.

The baby was due on March 3. On January 26 we went for a walk around the lake, but only made it about 100 yards before I had to turn back because the downward pressure was making me feel like the baby might actually fall out. On January 28^th I woke up early and started cleaning. I had more energy than I’d had in months and by 11:00 p.m. the house was spotless and I was exhausted. I finally crawled into bed and fell immediately asleep. At midnight, though I woke up with some discomfort. I’d had Braxton-Hicks contractions for weeks, so I just got up and shuffled to the bathroom, planning to come right back to bed. When I came back, though, I woke my husband to tell him I thought I’d just seen an early sign of labor (I’ll spare gross details). I knew this particular sign could come significantly before actual labor started, like days or weeks even, and I wasn’t positive I’d seen what I thought I had, so we decided not to worry. I snuggled back into bed but didn’t go back to sleep because I felt a distinct contraction. I learned in my birth class that B.H. contractions would go away with a change in position or by walking around so I got up and went to the living room to pace a bit. When that didn’t help I called my mom.

We talked for a couple of hours, all while my contractions were getting worse. Finally, at 3:30 a.m. I called the hospital. They said to wait another couple of hours and carefully time the contractions. If it wasn’t better by 6:00 a.m. I should come in. I told my husband what was happening and he nodded and went back to sleep. I stayed on the phone with my mom until 6:00 and the contractions got worse and closer together, so we decided I should wake my husband to go to the hospital. When I told him I needed to go, he said to hold on because he had to shower. While he did that, I packed a bag, something I had not thought to do before because the baby’s due date was still over a month away.

The hospital was also an hour away from our home, and we made it there around 7:30 a.m. They had a room ready for me, and a nurse came in to examine me. The contractions were still present and growing more intense. As the was doing a pelvic exam, she explained that I didn’t really seem to be dilated and she thought they would probably send me back home. As the words came out of her mouth, my water broke. I apologized because I thought I had peed on her. She just said “well, it looks like you’re having a baby today.”

At 2:33 p.m. my baby was born, and we had the first of many shocking events of the day: it was a boy. The second shock was that our new baby couldn’t breathe very well. They wrapped him in a blanket and placed him on my chest for a minute, long enough to take one picture, then whisked him away. It didn’t occur to me then to be scared, because they didn’t really tell us much about what was happening. After the fact my husband said he was aware of the seriousness of the situation but tried to act calm for my sake. Since he looked fine, I didn’t panic and tried to rest for a few moments, since I had only slept an hour since the previous morning.

We called family and friends, though we couldn’t reach my mom because she was on a plane to Arkansas when he was born, and most of them thought we were kidding when we explained that Kylie was now to be Jackson.

It was almost 6:00 p.m. before the doctor came to tell us the status of our baby. They had taken him to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), placed him in a ventilator and were monitoring his blood oxygen. They asked for our consent to place a central line through his umbilical cord so they didn’t have to stick him every time they needed blood, and then this wonderful doctor made me repeat back to him everything he had said, to make sure we really understood what was going on. I liked him immediately.

Jack was released from the hospital two weeks later. For his entire stay, I was allowed to stay in the hospital with him in a special room set aside for parents who lived too far from the hospital to drive every day. My husband went back to work during that time. I was unable to breast feed because I couldn’t hold him with the central line in place. My child was two weeks old before I or my husband held him.

My grandmother was with us when he came home, and when she left my aunt came. Once she had gone home, too, and my husband was back to working his usual 10 hour days, I found myself very alone with my son. Almost immediately I began to withdraw.

Looking back I barely remember those days. I felt so tired all the time and I stopped getting up with him in the middle of the night. My husband, who had to leave for work at 5:00 a.m., did it and even though I felt guilty I started hoping the baby would stop crying on his own so I wouldn’t have to see my husband’s annoyed look when I didn’t get up. I didn’t know why, but I felt so drained and even sick at the thought of getting out of bed.

It wasn’t much better during the day. I took care of him, he wasn’t neglected and wasn’t dirty and wasn’t hungry. But I had no desire to do anything for him. He seemed like someone else’s child that I was stuck with and I couldn’t wait for my husband to get home so I could go back to bed.

One day my son was asleep on the loveseat and I was laying awake on the couch. He woke up and started to cry, quietly at first then louder. I watched him and listened to him, and eventually I moved to the love seat to lay down beside him, but I just stared at him like he was some science project. I was fascinated by him, by the sounds he made, but the sounds didn’t mean anything to me, almost as if I didn’t know what a cry was, and I felt no compulsion to help him. After a few minutes, I realized the way I was feeling must not be normal. I had always wanted to be a mother, was so excited for this baby, and now that I had him, I felt nothing for him. I began to cry too.

I called my husband and he came home. In the mean time I did get up and feed the baby, and then I gave him a bath. It was as if I wanted him to be fresh and clean when my husband got home from work, so I could hide that I was a horrible mother.

In the weeks that followed, I began to master my outward appearance and it probably looked to outsiders like I was doing much better. I knew better, though, and so did my husband. I thought about suicide a lot, started to cut myself, which I hadn’t done since I was a teenager.

One afternoon, when the baby was napping, I simply sat on the couch staring at the floor. My mind was screaming nonsense and I felt like my body was going to start twitching. I know no other way to describe the feeling other than I felt like I was on the verge of a meltdown. As if by unseen compulsion, I stood up and went looking for drain cleaner or some other chemical poison to drink. While I was digging through the cabinet under the sink, I began to cry and I called my husband. Again, he came home and this time he took me to a small crisis care clinic in town.

The three of us, my husband, son and myself, sat in a small room and explained to a total stranger the feelings I’d been having and what happened that day. My husband contributed to the conversation and seemed supportive but he looked shocked and appalled when I described in detail how I felt literally nothing for my infant son.

I went into the hospital that day, for the first of an eventual 7 admissions. After the third, my husband told me he had filed for divorce and emergency custody of my son. He left in November, when the baby was 10 months old. I had no job, no money, in a house with no heat other than the fireplace I couldn’t seem to light. I spent the winter looking desperately for a job and lived under an electric blanket. My family sent what money they could to help pay the bills. I applied for food stamps and got $80 per month, most of which went unused because I gradually stopped eating more than a bowl of cereal a day. Eventually I found a minimum wage, part time job at a hotel and worked there in between suicide attempts and admissions until my parents came to get me in July.

I had one more hospital admission after I moved home to Ohio, and my then ex husband moved back to Florida with our son. Since then, I have improved every day. It took me well over a year, though, to overcome the post-partum depression, largely because even as it set in I refused to acknowledge it. It seemed at the time like the change in me was gradual, but in fact it was quite rapid. It just never occurred to anybody that there might be something medically wrong with me. Everyone, including myself, assumed I was just a bad mother that should be able to snap out of it. After all, I had an adorable new baby to take care of. I should be happy, right?

I knew about post-partum depression, read up on it, and talked to my doctors about it, but I was not even remotely prepared for it. Maybe my husband and I wouldn’t have been together forever, and in retrospect its better this way for a variety of reasons, but there is no denying that post partum changed my life. I had dreams of a complete, happy family and now I am left to pick up the pieces and scrap together what life I can out of the wreckage.

When people find out my son doesn’t live with me, they give me a look like I must have been some kind of drug addict or had child services take him away. In truth, I lost my son because I was sick. My husband the engineer left me alone with no money, filed for custody before I knew I was getting divorced, used the much needed help I was getting as proof of my instability. It was upsetting at the time, but in truth I was in no condition to care for that child and my husband did the right thing. I hated moving away from my son, but coming back to Ohio saved my life. I hate that people judge me without knowing the story, but its something I’m getting used to.

The point in all of this, I suppose, is to let anyone out there who might be dealing with this or know someone who is, know that they are not alone. Post partum depression is devastating and it’s a problem that is hard to admit. It’s critical to get the help you need, and find a safe place to recover. It is not, however, something you can just “snap out of," and it changed my life forever.

Oh, and one last thing... these days I can honestly say I love my son very, very much.