Post-Partum Prolonged

Depression after giving birth to the most wonderful thing to ever enter your life is a cruel twist of fate that seems unnatural and poorly timed.  How can one be so unhappy after seeing those ten tiny toes, ten impossibly small fingers, button nose to die for?  It makes no sense.

After my second was born, I felt the urge to brag about the fact I had just given birth to another adorable addition to our perfectly appointed family.  Big brother was a fabulously chubby tot with a deep, infectious laugh and a personality that drew people in like the sun.  Little brother was roundly shaped in every way, chubby and handsome, c-section perfect.  He cooed on command, smiled when he had gas, ate like a lumberjack.  Aside from the no-sleep-ever-for-the-rest-of-eternity thing, we were pleased with our accomplishments as parents so far...just having these two around were our bragging rights, and we hadn't even done any real parenting yet.

A few weeks after the birth, I began to feel the familiar stirrings of what life used to be like when my first was a tiny baby.  Those stirring were sharp reminders of how I should have been concerned about my predisposition to depression, and that post-partum depression was guaranteed in my case.  My doctors both said, be warned.  If you have had post-partum with the first, you will definitely have it with the second, and more than likely it will be worse and more intense because of your history of depression.  Apparently, doctors get those medical license thingies for a reason, because they were annoyingly right.

A month after giving birth, I found myself staring off into nothing.  A wall, a bookshelf, reading the letters on the side of a building, the dashboard of the car while my husband was driving us to fun activities in the city.  I was distracted, but thought it must be the exhaustion.  Yes, the exhaustion must be it.  I am SO TIRED.  Being a mommy is so much work. Whew.

Being distracted is harmless, benign behavior that happens to the best mommies.  My distraction wasn't just mindless nothing, however.  It was coupled with thoughts that were so awful, it seems wrong to write them down.  Writing them down gives them reality, power, life.  It makes my stomach churn to think about it for too long.

I will say the thoughts were more daydreams.  Images, not ideas.  And they mostly involved me being evicted from life, giving my family the freedom to be happy without being burdened with me and my debilitating sadness.  My guilt over not being "normal" was destroying any chance for happiness.  I couldn't breathe or move or think without having these horrible thoughts of death, dying, terrible things happening to my loved ones that I couldn't prevent.  Basically, things that were out of my control were my biggest fear.  The "what-ifs?"  They're terrifying.

The guilt.  The tremendous GUILT.  It weighed heaviest during the day when I was alone with the baby, trying to smile for him, keep him happy, oblivious to the fact that I was falling to pieces right before him.  I performed motherly duties.  I fed him from my body, gave him sustenance, peace of mind that I would always be there to comfort him when he cried.  In the back of my mind, all I could think of was the possibility that his life might be improved by my absence.  I felt worthless as a person, a mother, a wife, a daughter (as I was reminded on a regular basis by my own mother.)

Months have passed.  Nine.

The depression has not left me.  It remains, firmly rooted in my gut.  If anything, it has gotten worse...splintered and spread.  When I try to exorcise it from my body, it pulls on me like tentacles grasping and tightening their grip.  I can't take a breath without thinking of how to make it all stop and go away.  I can't hold my child without stifling sobs of defeat.  He looks at me and smiles as a reflex, because I'm there, his mother.  I'm always there.  But I feel as if I am a million miles away.

Motherhood, although amazing and beautiful in so many ways, is also the most life-changing event I will ever experience.  It erases you as the person you once were without kids and creates an entirely new person, one that struggles to be something other than a mother.  If you surrender to it, you will lose the person you were entirely and be swallowed whole by motherhood, as if that is all you are and that is all you will ever be.  Some embrace it willingly, without a second thought.  I hear, "I was born to do this." and I am full of jealousy.  Why can't I be that perfect mother?

Calls to my doctor go unanswered.  I get no relief from pills due to the breastfeeding.  I won't take anti-depressants until I'm done.  I feel like my fingertips are whitened on the edge of a cliff as I hang precariously off the end of the world.

As it stands, I await a call from my doctor.  Monday, I keep thinking.  Monday, I will get a break from this suffocation.  I pray this is true.  I pray for some light in this dark place I have landed.  There must be a window I can open.  I crave that fresh air so much.