Up to 15% of women experience postpartum mood disorders after the birth of a child.
This is her story of postpartum depression:
Growing up, I often changed my mind about my chosen profession - I wanted to be everything from a ballerina to a doctor.
While that changed regularly, the one thing that never changed was my desire to be a wife and mother.?That wish came true in August, 2008 when my then-boyfriend and I found out we were expecting a baby. We got married that October and settled down to start our family.
Pregnancy wasn't what I had envisioned.
My first trimester was absolutely awful. I had morning sickness that routinely lasted through the afternoon. I was so sick that I had to quit my job sooner than I'd planned. I can't remember when the sciatic nerve pain began, but it was so severe that many days, I could hardly get out of bed; that is, unless I wanted to end up on the floor. I'd anticipated some mood swings but what I experienced was over-the-top severe. The amount of weight I gained was much higher than it "should have been," even though I was watching my diet and exercising.
Childbirth was absolutely awful.
I was pushed to have an induction. After 32 hours of back labor and abdominal contractions, followed by three hours of pushing, my baby was born.
I was exhausted.
But I thought, "It's over now - this is when the fun starts!"
That wasn't quite the case.
My mood swings became steadily worse - I'd find myself in tears for no reason or over stupid things. I'd be sad one minute, filled with rage the next, and numb immediately after that.
I spent a lot of time simply rocking my baby and staring out into space. I can't remember what I thought about during those days, but they weren't happy thoughts. I was constantly exhausted but couldn't sleep at night. It was awful. I had no idea what was wrong with me.
I felt like a horrible wife and mother.
One night, I couldn't sleep. I found myself standing at the top of the stairs looking down. I thought about how miserable I was and how easy it would be to throw myself down.
I shook myself and walked away, deciding maybe I'd better go to bed before I did anything dumb. As I headed to bed, the thought popped into my mind: my husband still had pain medications left from his ankle surgery. It'd be so easy to take a bunch of those before going to sleep.
The intensity of these thoughts rattled me and I realized that what I was experiencing wasn't the normal "baby blues" and that I needed help.
My husband is in the Army and, mostly still asleep, recommended I call the Battalion chaplain first. The Chaplain told me that I needed to go straight to the Emergency Room at the hospital on base. He would meet me there.
I was diagnosed with Postpartum Depression and ended up hospitalized twice. I was on medication as well as seeing a therapist for six months before some lab-work finally showed that I'd developed hypothyroidism (did you know pregnancy can cause hypothyroidism? I didn't!). Treating the hypothyroidism also treated the PPD and I was able to come off of the antidepressants.
Postpartum Depression is a monster and a beast; a nightmare I thought I would never wake from, but I did.
I just wish I hadn't waited so long to ask for help.
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