This mommy's mind...
...was alone. All alone and starting to sink fast. Everyday was a monotony of nursing, diaper changes, physical therapy, nursing, diaper changes, cooking, nursing, etc, etc. Every night was an exhausting repeat of the day minus the cooking. And I know all you moms (and dads) know all about the monotony of a newborn. What you might not know is the crushing, unending feelings of deep despair and gut-wrenching failure. I cried almost as much as Punkin' Butt and twice as hard. I felt so deeply ashamed that I was not happier - why wasn't I over the moon about this precious new life I had brought into the world? Why didn't I feel the instant thicker-than-water bond that The Bearded One did? What was wrong with me? What kind of horrible person is depressed by a newborn baby? I would become so overwhelmed that I would snap and yell at her to "Stop. Just stop. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE STOP CRYING!!!" Then I would start bawling because I just screamed at a newborn for doing what newborns do. There were times when I just had to put her in her crib, walk away and call TBO and say, "Don't ask. Just come home now." And home he would come. Thank goodness for understanding bosses.
This went on for 4 months before I realized that this was not normal behavior. So I called my midwife and she said, "Hmm, sounds like you might have postpartum depression." Thanks, but how do I fix it? Turns out Xanax and Zoloft is how you fix it. At least according to her, and for a good while, it worked. I stopped screaming at PB, I stopped crying, I started putting on real clothes and got out of the pj's. Hell, I started showering again. Woo hoo! I even found a fantastic local group of mommies that I joined and who were a huge help in letting me know I was not alone in the mommyhood. (More on these fabulous ladies later.) I was getting my life back, finally. But something happened that I didn't notice at first. I started to become more easily agitated, fought more with TBO, that sort of thing. We chalked it up to being new parents and figured we would work it all out. Because hey, I was feeling good! Not just good, but GREAT. I was becoming more social, getting really involved with the group, keeping up with everything at home, starting new and exciting projects. Everything was good. Too good, but I didn't know that yet.
Towards the end of that first year with Punkin' Butt, The Bearded One and I seemed to be fighting more and more, and I started to become more and more agitated more and more easily. So I started to see a "therapist" (I use that word with her very lightly) who started me on neurofeedback as a way to retrain my brain to be happy and had my family practitioner raise my Zoloft to the next highest dose. Mistake number three: therapists are not psychiatrists and have no business managing your meds. Should have done my homework there. Because if I thought I was agitated before the dosage increase, I was a downright rhymes-with-witch after.
For two weeks straight, I didn't sleep. I don't mean I had trouble sleeping. I'm talking 2 hours a night, max. I was inundated with energy, ideas and thoughts. My brain would not shut-up. And the fighting. Oh, the fighting. I would pick fights with TBO just for breathing in my direction. Poor Punkin' Butt just couldn't do anything right. And lord help the cat if he so much as thought about touching me. I was a nasty, mean, spiteful person to be around. And my brain just would not stop running a mile a minute. So back to the therapist I went. And that's when she said the one word that changed my life forever. Bipolar. Turns out if you give someone who is bipolar an antidepressant only, it will more often than not send them into a state of mania. Which is what was happening to me. So back to my family practitioner I went so she could take me off the Zoloft and start me on mood stabilizers. And so began the longest, hardest year of my life.
Showing posts with label Postpartum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Postpartum. Show all posts
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
A Long, Long Three Years Ago (Part 2)
This mommy's mind...
...was nervous but excited when the big day arrived. At 41 weeks they induced me and nine hours later my beautiful daughter made her debut. That's when all expectations went out the window. As a mother-to-be, you have these glorious visions in your head of how perfect the whole new baby thing will be. You take classes, you read books, you prepare and you just KNOW exactly how life will be. "Uh-uh", said life, "here's how it's really going to be."
As it turns out, our little Punkin' Butt's head had been pressing against my pelvic bone for weeks, maybe months. This left her with an enormous encephalohematoma (big fancy word for large, swollen bruise on her head) and a severe case of torticollis, which is a fancy way of saying she had the world's worst crick in the neck. Because she had been pressed against the bone for so long in one position, her facial features and neck muscles developed in that position, leaving her with a smooshed nose, a pinched ear and one neck muscle significantly shorter than the other side. All of this made nursing those first few days absolute hell. Because her head kept flopping to one side and her head was so sore to the slightest of touches, I had to have a nurse help hold her every time I nursed. Right out of the gate I felt like a failure. What sort of mother was I going to be if I couldn't get this right? Apparently the hospital didn't see it that way because two days later they sent us home. It didn't get any easier at home.
By the third day at home, PB's pediatrician decided she was too jaundiced due to her body trying to reabsorb all the blood from the shrinking bruise on her head. The doc said she needed to be in a bilibed, which is a special bed that uses light therapy to help the body break up the extra bilirubin that the liver can not process. The bed and special biliblanket were sent to the house that night, and my sweet new babe spent the next three days in the bilibed. The only times I was allowed to hold her was when I was nursing. Even then she still had to be swaddled with the biliblanket, so I was trying to nurse a baby with a bruised head, wonky neck and a three foot cable attached to the wall. It killed me to not be able to snuggle my precious PB all day long. Was this hurting her, I wondered? Would we still be able to bond after three days of not holding her? And to see her tiny new body laying in this hard plastic, strangely lit box was almost more than my heart could take. But after three days, the jaundice was all but gone and I could finally hold my baby whenever I wanted. The torticollis still needed attention, though.
At two weeks of age, Punkin' Butt started physical therapy. We had a wonderful therapist, Jessica, and the folks at Mission Children's Hospital were fantastic. Jessica taught us exercises and holds to use to help stretch out the shortened neck muscle. She even showed me the best ways to nurse PB to help further strengthen her neck. While this was great for her physical development, it made nursing that much harder. I _had_ to use a Boppy pillow to nurse, there was no real way around it. Which made leaving the house next to impossible. And I didn't want to start her on bottles until we had really established a good nursing pattern. So at home we stayed. Alone. As anyone will tell you, the best way to avoid postpartum depression is to NOT isolate yourself. And boy was I isolated. My mom could only stay for one week, The Bearded One worked long days, his family was an hour away and I didn't know anyone in Asheville yet. I was ALONE, and that was my second mistake...
...was nervous but excited when the big day arrived. At 41 weeks they induced me and nine hours later my beautiful daughter made her debut. That's when all expectations went out the window. As a mother-to-be, you have these glorious visions in your head of how perfect the whole new baby thing will be. You take classes, you read books, you prepare and you just KNOW exactly how life will be. "Uh-uh", said life, "here's how it's really going to be."
As it turns out, our little Punkin' Butt's head had been pressing against my pelvic bone for weeks, maybe months. This left her with an enormous encephalohematoma (big fancy word for large, swollen bruise on her head) and a severe case of torticollis, which is a fancy way of saying she had the world's worst crick in the neck. Because she had been pressed against the bone for so long in one position, her facial features and neck muscles developed in that position, leaving her with a smooshed nose, a pinched ear and one neck muscle significantly shorter than the other side. All of this made nursing those first few days absolute hell. Because her head kept flopping to one side and her head was so sore to the slightest of touches, I had to have a nurse help hold her every time I nursed. Right out of the gate I felt like a failure. What sort of mother was I going to be if I couldn't get this right? Apparently the hospital didn't see it that way because two days later they sent us home. It didn't get any easier at home.
By the third day at home, PB's pediatrician decided she was too jaundiced due to her body trying to reabsorb all the blood from the shrinking bruise on her head. The doc said she needed to be in a bilibed, which is a special bed that uses light therapy to help the body break up the extra bilirubin that the liver can not process. The bed and special biliblanket were sent to the house that night, and my sweet new babe spent the next three days in the bilibed. The only times I was allowed to hold her was when I was nursing. Even then she still had to be swaddled with the biliblanket, so I was trying to nurse a baby with a bruised head, wonky neck and a three foot cable attached to the wall. It killed me to not be able to snuggle my precious PB all day long. Was this hurting her, I wondered? Would we still be able to bond after three days of not holding her? And to see her tiny new body laying in this hard plastic, strangely lit box was almost more than my heart could take. But after three days, the jaundice was all but gone and I could finally hold my baby whenever I wanted. The torticollis still needed attention, though.
At two weeks of age, Punkin' Butt started physical therapy. We had a wonderful therapist, Jessica, and the folks at Mission Children's Hospital were fantastic. Jessica taught us exercises and holds to use to help stretch out the shortened neck muscle. She even showed me the best ways to nurse PB to help further strengthen her neck. While this was great for her physical development, it made nursing that much harder. I _had_ to use a Boppy pillow to nurse, there was no real way around it. Which made leaving the house next to impossible. And I didn't want to start her on bottles until we had really established a good nursing pattern. So at home we stayed. Alone. As anyone will tell you, the best way to avoid postpartum depression is to NOT isolate yourself. And boy was I isolated. My mom could only stay for one week, The Bearded One worked long days, his family was an hour away and I didn't know anyone in Asheville yet. I was ALONE, and that was my second mistake...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)