This post's title could also be "How I Learned that Depression Really Is Exponentially Worse When You Get No Sleep and Have Crazy Hormones"
I dealt with depression before I became pregnant, so I knew to watch out for Post-Partum Depression (PPD) after Junior Mate was born. I had been on anti-depressants before getting pregnant, and I stopped them completely by my third trimester (which was the recommendation for the particular drug I was on). Unfortunately, this halt in my anti-depressants coincided with an extremely stressful December, so I was unable to tell if the depression and anxiety I was feeling were related to the stoppage of medication or just the stress. Looking back, it was probably both, because I spent much of my last trimester feeling anxious and unhappy about the impending birth of Junior Mate. (There may be another post about how I think it really took about 5 months after Junior Mate was born for First Mate and me to really accept that our lives were forever changed.)
Junior Mate arrived about 4 weeks early because I had low amniotic fluid levels (AFL). On a Monday, I went in for a routine doctor's visit and (yet another) ultrasound. I'd had 4 ultrasounds in 5 days at that point, as we were monitoring my AFL to make sure it didn't drop too low. I was already exhausted with having to do all the ultrasounds while trying to finish up things at work. When they did the ultrasound, they told me my AFL was 3.5; anything below 5 calls for immediate action. They called my OB-GYN, who said I needed to head across the street to the hospital's maternity ward. I assumed I was going to be checked in for monitoring, but when I got there, they said I was being induced. I was like o_O and had a pretty hard time keeping it together. The nurses all acted surprised that I was upset about being induced 4 weeks early (seriously? Is it super common for people to be excited about being induced 4 weeks early?). I guess I was supposed to be thrilled that I would get to meet Junior Mate 4 weeks before I was supposed to. Unfortunately, I had been counting on that 4 weeks to finish getting everything together. The previous Friday had been my last day at work, and I thought I'd have the whole month to get things together, as Junior Mate's due date was at the end of the month. We didn't even have a mattress for our crib yet. (To be fair, I had ordered it the previous Friday, but the day I was induced, it hadn't yet arrived.) There were no diapers in the house, and we just simply weren't prepared for the baby. Yes, I'm sure people will argue that I should have been prepared at the beginning of the third trimester in case something like this happened. However, see my parenthetical above where I say that I think both First Mate and I were sort of in denial about how radically our lives would change.
I share this with you to sort of set the stage for my mental state when Junior Mate was born. I wasn't prepared, either physically or mentally. I know I'd had 8 months (she was about a month early) to get prepared, but I wasn't. To be fair, I'm not sure you are ever really prepared because it's so radically life-changing that you simply can't imagine how it will be until it happens. However, I was clinging to that last month of pre-babyhood like a lifeline to help me come to emotional grips with this impending change, and just like that, it was snatched away. I resented my body a bit for not keeping the amniotic fluid where it needed to be, and I was anxious about how healthy Junior Mate would be. I was also anxious because I knew that induction often leads to a more difficult labor than when your body naturally goes into labor.
Anyway, I'm going on more about the birth process than I meant to. Suffice it to say, my anxiety levels were pretty darn high for several days before Junior Mate even entered the world. Additionally, she had to be in NICU for a week due to a suspected infection, and my milk took forever to come in (see my post about breastfeeding here). I felt like a literal milk-cow because I was pumping every 2 hours but without the benefit of having the baby to bond with. It was exhausting. Once we finally got her home, I was already exhausted, and we hadn't even had the first night with a newborn in the house. Enter Junior Mate's reflux(ish) problems. She would spit up every. time. she. ate. To help with this, I would hold her up for at least 30 minutes after she ate. This meant that by the time she ate (which sometimes took 45 minutes), I held her up for 30 minutes, and then put her in the bassinet, I would get maybe an hour of sleep before she woke up again. I guess now's a good time to explain that lack of sleep greatly exacerbates my depression and anxiety problems.
I found myself wishing I had never gotten pregnant and feeling as if my life would never be good or happy again. I was mourning the loss of my old lifestyle with First Mate and couldn't see how I could possibly enjoy this new (currently hellish) lifestyle. I cried a lot. Some days (not all days) I had trouble feeling connected to Junior Mate. Some days, I felt as if Junior Mate had destroyed my life and that I could never be happy again. Eventually, I decided how I would end it if I had to (I'm not sure what was going to be the indicator that I had to), and I had decided that I should probably take Junior Mate with me so First Mate could have his own life back. (You don't have to tell me how messed up this is; I know.)
This went on for about a month until on one of those days when I actually had enough energy and initiative to do it, I called both my counselor and my psychiatrist to schedule appointments again. Fortunately, they were both able to work me in right away. I got back on a medication that was safe for use while breastfeeding and started seeing the counselor on a weekly basis again. Having taken antidepressants before, I was prepared for 10-14 days of waiting for it to build up in my system before I felt better. However, I was shocked when literally two days after starting the medication, I felt better! My psychiatrist explained that when depression is hormone-related, as with PPD, the medication tends to work right away.
Don't get me wrong - it's not like being on the medication magically made everything better. I still had A LOT of adjusting to do, and I really think it wasn't until Junior Mate was about 6.5 months old that I finally started feeling like I could be a semi-normal person again. However, the medication helped me to have far fewer days of crying and feeling as if my life was over and would never be good again. There were far fewer days when I wished I had never gotten pregnant or wished that I could just run away and never have to deal with any of this again. There were far fewer days that I was afraid I might actually do something bad to Junior Mate. (For the record, I never did - the few times that I was unable to deal with her crying, I put her down in the crib and walked away to do my own bout of crying until I was calm enough to pick her up again.) Even now that I'm feeling significantly better, I have days when I wish I could go back to pre-babyhood. Life was easier. However, I'm also excited to see the changes happening practically every day as Junior Mate grows. I've realized I'm not really a baby person, even when it's my own baby, and I'm looking forward to each day that she becomes more interactive. I feel like I can actually handle this whole mommy thing now.
So here's my advice for this post
If you are suffering PPD, particularly if it is severe, don't put off getting help. Don't spend the first month (or more) of your baby's life wishing you were dead and getting to the point that you're planning on how it could be accomplished. Your doctor can give you something that will help get you through the crazy hormonal changes and lack of sleep so that you can actually try to enjoy your newborn. While it is perfectly normal to feel a bit overwhelmed and exhausted after the birth of your baby, it is not normal to constantly wish you and/or the baby were dead. Seek help. It is worth it. Because that thing everyone says is true: it doesn't last forever, and before you know it, you won't have a newborn anymore. Things will get easier, you'll start to get sleep again, and you'll be grateful that you made it through the first few months.
ETA 100315
Another relatively recent new mommy friend of mine reminded me that PPD doesn't always hit right away. Sometimes it can take several months, and then suddenly, WHAM, you're hit with it. This does not make you abnormal. This article suggests that it can begin even before you deliver, and at any time within the first 12 months after delivery, it's considered PPD. The article also points out that it is not actually only depression that new mommies may experience. There are also postpartum psychosis and other similar mental issues that can crop up. While it absolutely breaks my heart to hear stories of moms neglecting and even harming their babies, I better understand how it can happen, having experienced my own severe depression. Hormones are whack, y'all. They can MESS. YOU. UP. Either way, you know yourself best, and you know when your mental state isn't where you prefer it to be. You are not crazy or horrible. You and your baby deserve the best you you can be. Get help if you need it.
