Wrestle With Postpartum

In 2018, my husband and I found out we were pregnant! We were ecstatic! It was a dream of mine my whole life to be a mom, and it was finally happening! I spend the next eight months learning everything I could to be the most prepared I could be. I knew all the stages of pregnancy; I was prepared for labor; I researched breastfeeding; I even knew what foods my baby should and shouldn’t have up to a year old! I was debatably the most informed and prepared mom in the entire world.

In March of 2019, we welcomed our precious daughter into the world. It was a dream. She was everything I had ever wanted! It was such a euphoric experience for the first couple of weeks to be this precious baby’s mother! Then…. the hormones came down and the adrenaline wore off.

What the heck.

I had researched everything up to birth and everything for my baby up to a year, and somehow I felt like I had been hit by a mental and emotional train. I suddenly felt completely uneducated. I was lonely and sad all the time. I was constantly losing my patience with the newborn screams. Breastfeeding was incredibly painful, and I dreaded every time my baby cried those hungry cries. I had low patience for my husband, who was just trying to help. I started missing who I was before my baby and didn’t want to be a mom anymore. I started gaining lots of weight to cope with these crazy emotions.

So, I took these feelings to the internet, where I was self-diagnosed with postpartum depression. So I went to a counselor, got some anti-depressants, and was sent on my way. That definitely helped me to get my thoughts sorted out and not feel like I was always going to be this sad and angry. Fast forward one year later, and I finally got a grip on my life and was able to wean myself off of anti-depressants and feel happy and myself again.

You guys, it was ONE ENTIRE YEAR after I had my baby that I felt like myself again. I felt so blindsided by postpartum. I didn’t feel like I had been prepared for postpartum. But I didn’t understand how, since I thought I had read the entire internet when it came to this chapter of my life. This is when I started to really get to thinking. After a couple of quick searches, I realized that the only information on postpartum for the mothers is JUST postpartum depression resources. Which is great, but how does that mom get there in the first place? What is it that causes so many mom to fall into postpartum depression? I took matters into my own hands after that. I decided that if anyone was going to do something about it, I should. I read research papers, interviewed tons of women, wrote down my own personal experience, and learned an enormous amount about postpartum. I learned about the hormone changes that come before, during, and after we birth our baby, and how that can play into our emotions. I learned about the isolation that comes after having a baby. I learned about the trial that breastfeeding can be for lots of women, even if they are doing everything right. I learned about grieving the loss of your old self. All of these things contribute to the whirlwind of postpartum. It’s all normal.

If I had known that all of these feelings of sadness and loneliness and grief were normal, I might not have felt like I had to cope with it as much as I did. I probably would have taken some deep breaths and reassured myself that this is all part of the experience, and it will be over soon. I probably would have TALKED to people more about it instead of staying silent, thinking I was a horrible mom. As I move forward with life, knowing I’ll have a couple more kids and go through the postpartum experience again, I want to do everything in my power to inform the moms-to-be around me that every feeling that comes with postpartum is normal and completely okay. I want them to feel like they have someone to confide in. I want them to have the resources they need to feel heard, understood, and validated in every thought and feeling they may have during postpartum.

Women are forces of nature. The things we do during our lifetime are absolutely insane. The burdens we bear throughout our life are unfathomable. And yet, we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders seemingly effortlessly. We don’t have to though. We don’t have to appear to have it all together. We don’t have to go through such hard things alone. Don’t forget that the women around you have your back. The women around you have probably gone through it too. They understand. They stand with you. Most importantly, God understands. He is so proud of you. You are His most prized possession. You are HOLY in His eyes. You are SACRED to Him. When you turn to Him, He immediately listens. He will comfort you. He will ease your burdens. He loves you. As I remember these truths, I feel empowered to face what may come next. I know I can do anything through Him, and with the help of the strong women around me.