I have been wanting to blog about something for quite a while now. It’s a subject that not many people like to talk about. The fact that not too many people talk about it is surprising since so many people have had to deal with this. I’m talking about depression. Well in my case, it was post-partum depression. One in five women experiences this at some point after child birth. There are many reasons that one may become depressed after child birth. I’m not going to go into them as it is easy to find on the Internet and that is not my main reason for posting this. My main reason for posting this is just to bring a little more awareness to others that it can happen to anyone at any severity and at any time. I want others to get help sooner than I did if they are having troubles. Waiting until 10 months post-partum is too long. I will just share my story with you.
After Will was born, I had these feelings of jealousy. They really kicked in once my niece was born. I know that jealousy is wrong and I shouldn’t have felt that way. But, I did. I hated feeling that way but just thought it was a touch of the baby blues and it would wear off soon. I was jealous of silly things too. My recovery from Will was horrible. I had to go back at eight weeks post partum to get a spot cauterized that never healed correctly. That pain was almost worse than the tearing that happened in the first place. The jealousy that comes into affect here is that there were several people who I am close to who also had babies right around the same time I did. There is in no way I should have been jealous in the fact that they had such great deliveries and very minimal to no tearing. I should be happy for them right? So, why did I feel this way? I just brushed it off as baby blues.
This one I still feel guilty for being jealous for. The said people above live in town so it is much easier for others to get to their house and gift a meal. Meals after a baby is born have to be the best gift ever. I say this because, once again was jealous that they had so many people giving them supper after their baby was born. With us living in the country, it makes it pretty impossible for those who live 30 plus miles away to send their congratulations in the way of food. We still had family send a few meals our way, and I will forever be grateful for that. As I said above, it is the greatest gift to give!!
Will was an awesome baby. I have said this since day one! But, one of the babies that was born before Will, was sleeping through the night after only a few short weeks. Will wasn’t horrible by any means but still had to get up to eat every 2 ½- 3 hours all night long. He did this up until HE was ready to sleep all night. This wasn’t until he was five months old. At five months, he was sleeping through the night pretty regular and we enjoyed the uninterrupted sleep. It was fantastic, but, the fact that it took him five months to sleep through the night still gave me yet another reason to be jealous over something so silly. Really, he was healthy, there is no way I should have been angry over this.
There were a few other reasons that were silly and quite unimportant of why I was down. Silly or not though, it still stands that I was down. I still felt that it was just baby blues that lingered on for quite a while. Baby blues can last up to a year and I knew this. So I kept trucking through.
My energy was by far from where it was when I got pregnant with Will. The days and weeks went by. I wasn’t crying, not sad, just pissed off at the world. I truly was a bitch and didn’t care. I could tell anyone off and it would not bother me in the least bit. I’m usually a nice person. I am, I truly care about others and their well being but at this point, I didn’t care.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Will was finally moving around more. His personality was growing so much. He was crawling all over the place and wanting to walk more than ever. All I wanted was for Will to take a nap. Even if he just woke up from a nap, I was tired and wanted him to sleep again. This still hurts me knowing this is how I felt, that I didn’t want to play with my son. I do and did love him with all my heart but I was just tired and depressed without knowing it. It still breaks my heart that I felt this way toward Will. I get teary eyed just thinking about how I felt then. No mother should feel that way toward their child.
Finally the time came when I was tired of it. I was tired of feeling like a bitch all the time and having the guilt of having all these feelings hidden inside of me. The guilt of feeling so jealous over such silly things. I talked to my doctor and was prescribed anti-depressants. Within a week I was feeling more like myself. I wasn’t pissed off at the world any more. Most importantly, I wanted to play with my son! I enjoyed playing with my son! All of a sudden, I loved being a mother more so than ever.
Of all the things to worry about another delivery and another baby, the thing I am most worried about is having post partum depression again. As you may know, it does occur more often in mothers that have already had it once, whether post baby or any time in their life. It scares me that it will be worse this time. With Will who runs around all day long taking up so much of my energy and a baby that will keep me up all night, I think I have a right to be worried about this. I know that with help I will get back to normal if it does happen again. I'm not sharing this story to let the world know that I was depressed but to let others know that sometimes the baby blues is more than just that. If you or someone you know is having any degree of depressed feelings for more than a week or two, get help, please. It isn't worth waiting to see if it wears off.
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