Nothing went as planned, nothing was picture perfect about my labor and delivery when I had Anna. My blood pressure was high, I had to be on magnesium sulfate, I then had a c-section and then she was taken away because she wasn’t breathing properly. She was intubated. There was a sign on her hospital bed that read “do not touch.”
The sign was for me.
Once she came home, the sleepness nights nearly killed me, every night I thought I was going to die. I remember thinking “what we were thinking? WE PLANNED THIS?“ Anna was born a few weeks before my birthday. I can remember well-meaning family members saying “well, you got your birthday present.”
This? This is my birthday present? Sleepless nights? Swollen boobs? No showers? Endless laundry? The biggest, grossest, squishiest belly I have ever seen? My hormones gone wild? This is my birthday present?
um, thanks, but no thanks.
I felt guilty for my negative thoughts, I had never heard of woman not LOVING motherhood. What was wrong with me? These thoughts sunk me further into my depression.
When I would complain and cry to my husband he would look at me like I was an alien. He did not know what to do with me, I hated that my husband thought I was crazy. We just didn’t know.
When Anna was thirteen weeks old, I went back to work. I can remember after the first two hours I started to feel like me again. I had thoughts and ideas and REAL LIFE CONVERSATIONS with REAL LIFE PEOPLE. I realized then that after having Anna, the problem wasn’t with her, it was that I was lost. I was forgotten. Not just by me, but by everyone.
People would come over to meet the baby and it was like I didn’t exist. I was okay with that, though. I wanted to talk about the baby, I loved the baby. I walked into work and people would say “how’s the baby?”
In hindsight, I’m realizing how hard it was to go from adored pregnant woman, who wasn’t even allowed to get her own glass of water to the person who was in charge of herself, her home and this new human being that could do nothing for herself.
In theory, I knew it was going to happen, but I just didn’t know what it was going to FEEL like. I did not know how hard it was going to be.
Four months after Anna was born, I found out I was pregnant with Noah. I felt fear, guilt, anger, horror and just a smidge of excitement.
But only a smidge.
Once Noah was born, my depression deepened. After another c-section and another child intubated after birth, another sign not allowing me to touch my baby, along with having another baby at home, it was all I could do to face the day. But I always did, because I was A MOM and I loved my babies so much.
With my second pregnancy I went to a new doctor’s office, a female doctor, she seemed to understand being a woman a little better than my previous OB. At my six week check up she asked “how are YOU?” It was her first question. And she looked AT me when she asked me. I told her that I was feeling pretty down about things, not feeling like me, etc.
She began treating me for depression at that appointment. Not just with medication but with advice and conversation.
After having a baby, it took me so long to find myself again. It’s like I lost that once spunky, fun person once I was midst the poopy diapers and the middle of the night feedings. My identity was my baby.
It took me years to become me again. The real me. I never once didn’t love my children, but there were many moments where I did not love me.
Time. It just took time.
I think we forget to remember other new Moms, I think husbands don’t expect depression, I think the term “baby blues” should be blown up with a grenade, because it’s more than just the blues. As long as we call it something that simple, then that’s how it will be portrayed to society. It’s not that simple.
And here I am, wanting nothing more than to have that experience again, because it’s all part of this journey. This long journey called motherhood that starts with the simplicity of a stick and continues with one hundred different emotions from the moment I wake up in the morning to the second I lay my tired head down on my pillow at night.
Not every moment is squishy cheeks and giggles. Since becoming a mother I have experienced more pain than I could have ever imagined, so much frustration. And the heartbreak, oh my God, the heartbreak.
But I’ll take it all. I’ll put it all in my basket and keep it for me because all of this, all of them, every experience I’m dealt, the good, the funny and now the grief, well, it’s all a part of me now.
And I really, really like what I’ve become.