Postpartum Depression

At almost 8 weeks postpartum and with a little bit of perspective, I recognize that postpartum depression is a very real thing. Not only is it real, but more women struggle with it than I realized. I always thought if it as the women who kill their babies and claim insanity, and while I felt a little crazy at times, I wasn't going to hurt anyone.

I had a hard time bonding with my child right away and I felt so bad because I wasn't instantly in love with her the way I was with my firstborn. I didn't like my toddler at all and saw him as a burden and a challenge as opposed to my sweet little boy that I loved unconditionally two days prior. I loved my children and cared for them, but I lived for bedtime. I felt like everyone around me was so happy and wanted me to be as well, but I wasn't. I didn't want to say anything, even to our midwife who I trust. I wanted everything to be okay, I wanted to be the perfect mom with everything together, but in reality I was not doing well. We had my mother-in-law staying with us for a week and the day we put her on the train to go home, I cried all day. I felt so overwhelmed and scared.

At almost 4 weeks postpartum, I had a massage. My monthly massage with Peg has become like therapy to me and in one of our sessions she helped me to realize that there are three levels of depression and I was more normal than I knew. The first level is the "baby blues" which almost all women go through. I remember around day three with Caleb I was pretty emotional, but that was the worst of it. The second level is postpartum depression, which is where I found myself with Jeliya, and the third is postpartum psychosis, which is the women who kill their babies. The conversation with Peg encouraged me to talk to my midwife and get some help. I wasn't crazy, but we did need to treat the problem for what it is and not pretend it didn't exist.

I have been taking an herb called Motherwort, which is similar to St. John's Wort, commonly used to treat mild depression. I started taking two droppers full twice a day, and now I am down to one dropper twice a day. I can definitely tell if I forget to take it. I just feel edgy and quick to anger, tired and short of patience. Postpartum depression is generally caused by shifts in hormones and tends to subside around 8 weeks as the body regulates itself. I can still tell that I am dealing with this issue, but getting better all the time.

Jeliya's birth has forced me to confront a number of ideas in my life. The first was the unpredictable nature of life and I cannot possibly plan or prepare for everything. It is good to have a plan, but remember to be flexible. The second is not to be arrogant about my own strength. I felt so good about my ability to birth Caleb at home, on my own, but the reality is it had nothing to do with my strength; he chose to be born at home and very quickly. I was strong enough to endure 43 hours of labor with Jeliya and birth her completely naturally in the hospital. I doesn't matter where a baby is born or if any interventions are used, there is nothing easy about birthing a baby. Every woman and baby have a birth story and none is less exciting or miraculous than the next. The third thing I have learned is to listen and understand each person's experience. I never understood women who struggled with postpartum depression. I didn't get how someone could not instantly be in love with their baby, but now I do. I love her and will always take care of her, but it took me some time to fall in love with her. It doesn't make me crazy and it doesn't make me a bad mom, it is just reality. Life is full of lessons!

My recommendations for anyone I know who has had a baby recently or is soon to be a mother: -Be prepared to be flexible with your birth plan!
-Try not to jump right to interventions, but give your body and baby time to experience a natural process. Your body knows what to do and the more natural the process, the more your body will give you what you need to handle labor and birth.
-Move, move, move!
-Be honest with the people around you. You are amazingly strong and it is okay to not be okay. According to my our midwife, "Crying is a method of coping. Don't hold it in."
-Ask for help!

Being a mom is challenging at times, but truly the most amazing experience I have even gone through. I learn so much daily through my children and I am thankful for every experience, especially the really tough ones; that is when I grow the most!

PTSD

I feel like birthing a baby is similar to going to war in that there is some Post Traumatic Stress that comes along with it. I feel like there is no space to vent, cry, be sad, or digest such an experience when a baby is involved. Everyone around me thinks I should be so happy, and part of me is, but I can't help but deal with this overwhelming sadness; I guess sadness is the word. I am so happy to not be pregnant anymore, but I can't remember anything about it now. I can't remember how it felt or where the time went. I don't know how this baby got here. Her birth did not go the way I wanted, other than the outcome of a healthy baby, and I feel like I didn't really want to be pregnant this time in the first place. I am sad that I feel this way and it is taking me much longer to really bond with her than it did with Caleb. I feel like there has been no time for me to just be me when there is a business to run and a family to care for. I didn't get pampered and cared for this time around and I was expected to jump right back into life. There is laundry to be done, meals to make, messes to clean up and everyone around me has just forgotten what I went through, as if it didn't happen at all or it doesn't matter. I feel so much pressure to be "ok" and "happy", but I'm just not. I love my children and my husband and I do feel so blessed to have them, but I need a little time to decompress and to find my joy.

Why do the have to get sick?

Yesterday was a long rough day and night with Caleb. He ran a high fever all day-around 103 with no other symptom. I took him to the doctor and they, of course, had no idea what was wrong with him. I felt like I wasted their time and over reacted, but when he has never had a fever that high, I was worried. I tried all of the things that my parents used to do to me when I was sick, but it was all wrong for someone his age and some of it made things worse. In the end, he slept in the middle of our bed and kept us up all night, but at least I felt like I could do something to comfort him when he fussed and I could put my hand on him to see if he was still hot, or too cold and in need of a blanket.

Sometimes being a parent is a totally helpless place to be. A doctor couldn't help him and neither could I. The only thing we could do was try to make him more comfortable, sit with him and wait. Sometimes there is no cure and the cause is unknown to us, but we have to just ride it out.

Geoffrey's Birthday (Surprise Phot Shoot)

Reflections

I was reflecting the other day and came to the conclusion that there is no life event that is flawless or without any complication. No move, wedding, birth, or other event takes place in our lives without something. That is what the memories are made of.

At our wedding I forgot the parking passes at our house in Denver, so we had to beg the park ranger for more passes. There was the oven that had to be temperature regulated by uncle David because the thermostat was broken and if he did not stand there and open and close the oven door, the cakes would burn.

During Caleb's pregnancy I had multiple UT infections and had to go to the hospital for dehydration and monitoring of a little preterm labor. Then we had prodromal labor for almost two weeks and a super fast birth which involved second degree tears. Caleb was perfectly healthy, figured out nursing right away, and the rest is history, but not at all what I had envisioned.

This pregnancy has been fairly textbook so far. I was nauseated in the beginning, much worse than with Caleb, but was never actually sick. Since then the only issue I have had is these lightheaded spells. Some days are worse than others, but not a day goes by that I feel good all day long. We are working with a low iron theory right now which means I am paying more attention to my diet and taking Floradix twice a day to boost my iron level. If this is the real problem and the solution is that easy, then we will be very lucky. If low iron isn't what is causing these spells, then we will have to do some tests to figure out what is, but I have confidence in our midwife and her knowledge of the reasons behind this theory. Not enough iron attached to hemoglobin, combined with low blood pressure and really thin blood, all natural during pregnancy, results in not enough oxygen getting to the cells, especially in the brain, causing a lightheaded feeling.

All in all, I feel very fortunate that these are the issues we have to deal with. None of these are life threatening or harmful to me or baby. If iron isn't the issue then we will have to look at my blood sugar levels which have been known to be low and can also cause lightheadedness, and see what else we can do.

These experiences have taught me more about my body and the things that I can do before I resort to a doctor and drugs. There are things that God put into this world to help us and I love working with a midwife who is so knowledgeable and allows time and space for my body to work before putting me through unnecessary procedures. There is no sense in running tests and labeling things that we could be proactive about and treat before it is truly an issue. I like being involved in the process and part of the solution in this journey.

"Babies"

This afternoon, Geoffrey spent some time with Caleb and I got to go see the "Babies" documentary. The first thing I noticed was there was no commentary. I found that odd at first, but then it occurred to me that any commentary would sway the thinking of the viewer and the true beauty of the film was its unbiased view of four different babies growing up in four different countries and cultures.

I found the depiction of the "American" baby to be a little odd. The first view of her was of the bag of fluids hanging on the pole next to the hospital bed and the shot follows the tubing that is attached to the mom and the baby laying next to her. The baby is cooing and appears to be healthy. It made me wonder if that is the norm for American births and the way we are viewed around the world. All the other birth scenes were natural. Even the Mongolian child who was born in what appeared to be a clinic, was unassisted. I would've liked to see an American baby with a natural birth story.

I found myself wondering where the parents were sometimes and it made me think about my own parenting. There was a scene with the Japanese little girl where the dad was on the computer and the mom was occupied with something else and the child was taking apart photos and CD cases, etc. Similar scenes have played out in our household as well and my first thought was "pay attention" and then when I realized how close it hit to home I rethought my negativity.

The American parents seemed to be really involved in their child and it was pretty much the only portrayal of a father.

The mothers in Namibia seemed to not really be paying much attention to the child and yet they had some amazing scenes of teaching the child. When the little boy was preparing to start walking, the mother was standing next to him with her hand out to assist. The little boy was crying and wanted to be picked up. The mother knew that he could do it, so she bent down, did not pick him up, but offered her breast for him to nurse. He nursed for a few seconds, then she stood back up, he took her hand and after a little thought he walked with her. There was also a scene later where the mother was playing a game with the little boy by placing a cup on his hand and having him walk with it balanced there. It was interesting because that is such a part of their livelihood and teaching the child how to participate in that activity at such a young age is important.

It was amazing to me to see the differences in the cultures, but also the similarities. All of the children got frustrated, interacted with other children, got into trouble, laughed, explored their world, learned to crawl, stand, walk and communicate. No matter the culture, the parenting style, or the resources available, all children are born into this world, cared for, and taught to thrive. There were things that surprised me, grossed me out, made me laugh, and reminded me of my own humanity. All in all, I really enjoyed this film.

The Single Life

I love my life, I love my child and the expectation of another, but I miss the "single" life. I liked going on dates with my husband, doing whatever I wanted to do, traveling, spending time with friends, etc. Now, even when I have the rare chance to do something by myself, or with just Geoffrey, I am thinking about Caleb or the new baby and I don't take the time to really absorb the space. Some friends of ours that we used to travel with just got back from a cruise. We saw a couple from our tribe out to breakfast on Sunday morning, as were we, but we had Caleb and were busy keeping him occupied, feeding, and then cleaning up. I thought about what their Sunday had in store and it was so different than ours. Geoffrey spent all of Saturday and Saturday night in Portland at a geek convention with friends/co-workers of his and I was left with Caleb. We had a good time, but it was so busy. We have talked about different travels for this summer, but I am starting to feel anxious about the new baby and a little frustrated that I won't get to see anybody or do anything I want to do because I am so pregnant, Geoffrey is working and flying, and that leaves me with babies. I want to run away sometimes and just be unattached and free, but I would miss what I have that I am attached to.