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My Journey Through Postpartum Depression and Anxiety - Part 1


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My oldest kid was born in August 2015 and I delivered him at 36 weeks. I had decided at 7am I was going to work from home because I wasn't feeling that great. An hour later at 8:07am my water broke. Thankfully my husband was home because he was still on summer break. I called my OB's office and all I said was "my water broke". I didn't tell them who I was, that I was a patient there, I was so caught off guard and didn't know what to do! Once they figured out who I was, they told us to come in but no rush. So I called my family and let them know what was happening, sent a message to my boss saying my water broke and wasn't going to be working that day, grabbed our hospital bag, and off we went. This was going to be the best day of my life - little did I know it would send me into a spiraling decline in hating motherhood. 

After 24 hours of labor, 3 hours of pushing, my beautiful perfect baby boy was born. I tried nursing in the hospital and when we got home. He'd be on my breast for 45 minutes and I thought that was great, but later found out he was just using me as a pacifier. When we went to the first pediatrician appointment, we wanted to meet with a lactation consultant to make sure everything was going as smoothly as we thought. We found out, he wasn't eating much. This explains why the first two nights were hell. I remember at one point being so tired that I said - what did we do? I just want to throw him out the window!! I should have known then something was wrong. 

While I thought he was eating well, I knew he was a baby and a little early so he was just hungry a lot. Wrong - he wasn't eating much as all. During that visit, the lactation consultant said he was jaundice and we should get him to the hospital and tested. I started crying but did what she said and we took him to the hospital, they sent us home to wait for the results, and within 5 minutes of walking in the door, they told us to come back because we needed to treat him for jaundice. At this point I'm balling my eyes out because I failed as a mom - I didn't know he wasn't eating, I didn't know he had an issue, I didn't know anything. I should have known then something was wrong. 

He was in the NICU for only 24 hours under the UV light in an incubator and everything turned out okay. He would nurse with me and then I would pump so that next time my husband could feed him with a bottle. We did that for the night taking shifts and went home. We also figured out he was tongue-tied so that was a problem with feeding but later got that taken care of. While it turned out just fine, I felt like the worst mother. I had my son early- fail. I couldn't nurse him correctly - fail. I hated having to be up in the middle of the night with him instead of love snuggling like everyone else - fail. I should have known then something was wrong.

So long story to get to my PPD&A experience but thought the background would help...

Over the next several days, I'll post about my journey. This isn't one post kind of topic and I hope to share some resources along the way to help those struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety. 




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