My Story: Postpartum
My Story: Postpartum
Please Read Prior to Reading: First off, thanks for reading my story. It means a lot! I want to make it clear that all of my writings are raw, real and not sugar coated (the only thing sugar coated is the ice cream cone I have almost every night). My sole purpose in sharing my story is to help other moms relate and know that they are not alone. Motherhood can be extremely challenging sometimes and I want to be someone that helps moms feel heard, seen and know that their emotions are valid. I truly believe that postpartum is not talked about nearly enough as it should be. By no means is my blog meant to shine a negative light on being a mom. I absolutely LOVE being a mom and would not trade this for anything in the world. It’s my pride and joy. I would definitely say I struggled with postpartum at the beginning of motherhood. I think everyone does to an extent. Every pregnancy, every birth, every postpartum experience, every mom and every baby is different. Remember that! Just because my postpartum experience was difficult, doesn’t mean that yours will be too. The crazy thing is after all I dealt with postpartum, I would do this over 10x again in a heartbeat. Women’s bodies and minds are truly amazing. My little “stinky butt” Abby was SO worth it. Enjoy!
As I said above, I believe postpartum is not talked about enough. This could be because it’s very personal to share, or because we’re embarrassed to feel a certain type of way, or maybe because we don’t want to “scare” others by talking about it. I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out the reasons! Even though it’s personal to talk about, I definitely felt a little embarrassed to be feeling the way I felt and talking about it might be a little scary, I’m here to talk about it. First, I want you to take a look at these facts…
Around 1 in 7 women can usually develop Postpartum Depression (PPD).
Approximately 6% of pregnant women and 10% of postpartum women develop anxiety. Sometimes they experience anxiety alone, and sometimes they experience it in addition to depression.
As many as half of PPD mothers will go undiagnosed because of conflict in privacy and not wanting to disclose to close friends or family members.
It can take up to 2 whole years for a woman’s hormones to return to normal, for their brain chemistry to balance and for them to feel like themselves again.
Postpartum anxiety and depression isn’t something that happens to 1 in every 10,000 women. It happens way more frequently than we think. If it happens or has happened to you, you’re not alone!
A Little Bit About Katie
In order to fully understand my postpartum experience, I want to share a little bit about me because it did play a role in my postpartum journey.
Looking back, I’ve always had anxiety. I just never knew it. My anxiety was not terrible, but it was there. The therapist that I worked with during my “career crisis” shared something with me that really stuck. She explained that, “anxiety isn’t always a bad thing. Anxiety is the worry that makes us not run in the middle of the road when a car is coming. However, when anxiety starts to affect your everyday life, then it becomes something negative that needs attention.” I couldn’t agree more!
I most definitely am a textbook Type-A person. When I was a teacher, my binders were color coded and all my drawers were organized in sections. I can’t go to bed unless everything is put away and cleaned. I guess you could say I’m a perfectionist.
I was an elementary school teacher for 7 years and long story short, I got burnt out, thus my “career crisis.” I burnt out so bad that I actually left in the middle of the year due to my mental health. I became so overwhelmed with teaching. The summer after my wedding, I was SO anxious to go back to work. More than any other summer for sure. I figured that this was just a really bad case of the “Summer Sunday Scaries”. Turns out that it wasn’t.
After about 2 months of the worst anxiety of my life, with a never-ending pit in my stomach, I knew it was time to do something. I had lost a little under 10 pounds because I had no appetite. I wasn’t able to sleep at night due to the racing thoughts I had about work. I actually skipped my period twice because of all the stress I was causing myself and my body. There were mornings I literally could not get out of bed because I was so overwhelmed. I felt consumed by my anxiety, like it was surrounding me and there was no getting away. There were multiple times I would catch myself sobbing after work or even during work (in the bathroom of course). I couldn’t even pinpoint a specific reason why I was crying, everything just caught up to me. I think you get the picture, it was tough. Throughout all of this, my husband and I had planned to start trying for a baby. I actually stopped trying because of what my body was going through. I knew that if somehow I did get pregnant while feeling like this, it wasn’t the way I wanted to feel while bringing another tiny human into the world.
I started to get in my own head and felt SO down in the dumps. If you asked my friends and family, they would probably describe me as a positive, energetic, and bubbly person. I didn’t have any of that. With my “career crisis”, I felt lost. I had this empty feeling like I didn’t even know my identity anymore or what my purpose in life was. I started to question myself and overthink everything. It was not a fun place to be.
Long story short, I ended up talking to a therapist, switching careers and taking Lexapro. (I freakin’ love Lexapro)! Then, I started to feel like my life was back on track again. Shortly after that, we got pregnant with my now 1 year old daughter, Abby!
Postpartum Challenge: Feeding
Umm okay how stinkin’ cute and little was she?!
Why did I share the story above? Well, because it was a very similar experience to what I went through postpartum.
Prior to giving birth to Abby and throughout my whole pregnancy, I had felt like my normal self. I was so excited to be a mom and was looking forward to meeting my baby! I had even stopped taking Lexapro because I was in such a good place. I would say about a day after giving birth, things changed.
Post birth, I ended up staying in the hospital for 3 nights due to high blood pressure and having a fever. When I was pregnant, I had decided that I was going to try and breastfeed. I remember the sweetest nurse coming in the room to take my vitals. L&D nurses are seriously angels! She asked me when my baby last ate and I answered, “oh, I don’t know, I think like when she was first born” (about 5 hours ago). The nurse looked at me and started with “oh honey,” then proceeded to explain to me that the baby should be eating every 2-3 hours. LITERALLY WHAT. How did I not know this? Or was I just so out of it that I forgot? I didn't even know. I felt like the world’s worst mom. What a great start to motherhood.
Then, as I plopped her on my boob (since she was basically starving), tears just ran down my face. This was the start of my anxiety and that overwhelming feeling. I had NO IDEA how hard and frustrating the transition into motherhood could be. Like why had no one mentioned this to me?! I’m not blaming anyone for not telling me, but it would have been nice to get a heads up that I could possibly feel this bad. I literally thought she would just suck on my boob and eat, it sounded pretty straightforward to me. UMM WRONG!
After two days, my nipples started bleeding. They were red and raw. I was stressed and this is when my anxiety slowly started to creep up on me again. This was not going at all how I planned and I was a mess. For someone who loves structure and having it all together, to feel like you have no idea what you’re doing is a tough way to feel. I remember thinking to myself, “Okay Katie, you just gave birth, you’re in the hospital and not home yet. Once you get home, everything will be better. Just give it some time.”
After I got home from the hospital, I had a lactation consultant come to the house that same day. This time I thought, “Okay Katie, you had hired a lactation consultant, now you’ll be able to figure out how to breastfeed.” WRONG AGAIN. The lactation consultant was so helpful and so nice. She left after an hour and tears streamed down my face again. I tried pumping hoping that would help. Guess what, it didn’t! It looked like I had just pumped strawberry milk. The next day, I hopped on a virtual meeting with the lactation consultant (what a saint she was)! I told her that I thought my pumps were broken because they weren’t staying suctioned on. She then explained to me that I needed to either use a pumping bra or hold them to work, they don’t just stay on themselves (lol)! By the end of the meeting, she could tell that I was emotionally spent with breastfeeding and really everything. She was amazing. Later on, when I decided to switch to formula, she came up with a plan to help me wean off breastfeeding/pumping, how to stop making “strawberry milk”, and then gave me resources of places to reach out to for help with my anxiety. I swear I’m not normally this emotional wreck who cries every second! :)
That feeling of hopelessness consumed me once again. What I kept telling myself (that I would feel better once I got home), couldn’t be further from the truth. I still felt lost, sad, alone and hopeless, even when I was in my own bed/house. I’m not sure if this was a mix of my anxiety and perfectionist tendencies, but it seemed like NOTHING was going right.
Postpartum Challenge: Sleep
At this point, I had been going on 4 days of no sleep. No like actually. I’m not talking about only getting one or two hours a night, like ZERO sleep. I had been up for 96 hours straight. The main reason for this was not what you think. Abby would cry and I would have to get up, obviously she’s a newborn, but my reason for not sleeping was strictly my anxiety. I couldn’t fall asleep because all I was thinking about was how I would have to wake up every 2-3 hours to feed her, which did I mention was going AWFUL by the way?
After a few days of breastfeeding/pumping struggles and having countless mental breakdowns, it had now been 7 DAYS OF NOT SLEEP. I was a shell of a human and was SO overtired. On top of that, I had already gotten back to my pre-pregnancy weight (which is NOT a good thing in 7 days). I had no appetite. It was almost identical, maybe a little worse feeling, than what I experienced about a year ago when I left the classroom.
My mom and husband would say, “Katie, we got the baby, you just go upstairs and sleep. You need it.” I knew I needed it, but I couldn’t get it! Hands down, they are the reason I survived month 1 of postpartum. I’m not sure if they actually know how much I appreciate them both for being there for me during that extremely difficult and vulnerable time in my life. (Max and “Nonni”, if you’re reading this, I love you and thank you)!
I tried to take a nap probably seven times over the next few days. Each time I would come back downstairs crying yet again, explaining how I still couldn’t sleep. When I would go to bed, the same thing would happen. It honestly was like I was living a nightmare. Being so exhausted, yet not being able to shut my body and thoughts down was awful. I ordered a sleep mask on Amazon, sleep lotion from Bath & Body works. I then tried saying the ABCs and counting back from 100 to help me pass out. I also tried taking Melatonin. Nothing worked. When it was really bad, I cried to my mom and asked her to rub my eyes and if she could think of ANYTHING to help me sleep. I then proceeded to Google what happens if you don’t get enough sleep and what was the longest anyone has gone without sleep. 11 days and 24 minutes was the record (for those of you who were wondering). I was only 4 days behind and wanted to gauge my eyes out.
Once I started learning a little bit about what I could do to help Abby sleep (like wake windows and day/night confusion, etc.) it helped a little, but it actually made me more anxious. I remember thinking, “okay she’s been up for 45 minutes, according to her wake window, she’s supposed to be sleeping now, but she’s not.” What the efff do I do. Then, I would get so worked up that she wasn’t sleeping and was going to be overtired. It was a vicious cycle that just kept repeating itself.
I felt so prepared in other areas for my baby. I took a birthing class, had her nursery and bassinet ready, her clothes were all washed and laid out, all the baby things were put together and her diaper changing stations were set up. However, what I didn’t really know or understand was anything about pediatric sleep (or postpartum clearly- ha!). When I was going through this anxiety, sleep became something that I DESPERATELY needed and wanted to figure out. I wish someone could have sat me down and prepared me for sleep with my newborn and gave me tools to help from the beginning. That’s my main goal for my business. I’ll never know, but I swear my postpartum experience would have been at least a little bit better if I had some education or strategies to use with Abby. It would have made made me feel more confident. I mean there’s really nowhere to go but up, am I right?!
It wasn’t even like Abby was a bad sleeper, she was a newborn at this point, so she wasn’t even allowed to sleep more than 3 hours because she had to get back to her birth weight. I just didn’t understand that this was how newborn sleep worked the first few weeks. Just like breastfeeding, it was something I had no idea about. I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I was in the trenches, in the thick of it, whatever you want to call it. I couldn’t see life getting any better. I didn’t understand that this was NOT going to be what my life was going to be like forever, it was just going to take some time, patience (& Lexapro) to get through this phase!
Postpartum Challenge: Anxiety & Depression
This picture of me and my baby looks like everything is wonderful, right? Isn’t it crazy how inside I was struggling SO bad. You would never know.
With feeding going horrible and my sleep deprivation at its peak, my anxiety was also at its peak. My anxiety was so bad that it actually made me feel depressed.
As I explained before, I had felt this level of anxiety before with my “career crisis”, but the depression was something I thankfully had never dealt with prior. For those of you who deal with this on a daily basis, my heart goes out to you. It’s an awful feeling. The only way I can describe it as is scary and debilitating. I felt so confused. I am the farthest thing from a sad person, yet that’s all I constantly felt. I felt like a blanket of sadness was just weighing me down and there was nothing I could do to “snap out of it.” I didn’t know who I was and I didn’t know how to get out of this dark place. Worst of all, I had just had this beautiful baby girl. She was everything I ever wanted and more, yet I couldn’t even feel an ounce of happiness. It sucked. I remember my mom telling me, “Katie, you will get through this. I felt the same way.” I just couldn’t even fathom that someone else could possibly feel the way I was feeling. Like NO WAY. I knew my mom wasn’t lying to me. She had shared with me that she struggled too, but it just didn’t make me feel better. Nothing made me feel better.
My anxiety definitely goes from 0 to 100 real quick. For most of my life, it’s barely even there, but when it comes out, man does it come out (clearly — lol)! With these two big life events, changing careers after burn out and giving birth, it came on QUICK and I just lost control.
During postpartum, I didn’t have the “typical anxiety” that most people have (intrusive thoughts about my baby, are they breathing, are they okay, I don’t want anyone to hold them and get them sick, etc.) Mine was the opposite. I didn’t want to go near her or hold her or bond with her really at all. I love babies, but I had no desire to hold her for those first few weeks. I was not myself. This was SO unlike me. I have a shared album that my husband and I put all of Abby’s photos in to share with friends and family. Going back to the first month's photos is actually wild for me. I can even see it in my eyes that I was not with it. There’s a video of me singing to Abby. I was trying to put on a happy face like everything was all fine and dandy, but it wasn’t. My eyes had this glazed over look. We even had a newborn photoshoot and the photos came out great, but I was on the struggle bus during that.
My anxiety was really about this new life and my overwhelming feeling with EVERYTHING that being a mom was (breastfeeding, pumping, sleep for my daughter and sleep for me, and adjusting to this new life). The constant thoughts and worries about how I was going to do this?! How was I going to cook dinner for my husband and I with a new baby? Do the laundry? Go to the store? Workout? Know how much and when to feed her? When would she nap? Just SO SO SO overwhelmed with everything! I couldn't shut my brain off and there were thousands of thoughts just circling around my brain, all about my worries of motherhood.
Postpartum Challenge: Seeking Help
After about a week of feeling like this, I knew that this was not going to go away on its own and that I needed help. As I explained earlier, I had experienced a similar feeling to this with my “career crisis” and so I knew what to do, thankfully. I remember crying (again) to my husband and mom explaining that I needed to do something because I was really not okay. I was lucky because they were both SO supportive of me.
I first reached out to my OB office. I cried on the phone and they actually told me that they didn't have any appointments available. This is what’s wrong with postpartum, this example right here. If you have a newly postpartum mom crying on the phone asking for help, yet they don’t take you, that’s not right. I love my OB office and I know that this front desk woman was just doing her job and that there were probably no appointments. Regardless, it shouldn’t be that way.
I then reached out to my PCP and thankfully they saw me immediately. My husband walked in with me, holding my hand, while my mom stayed home with Abby. I knew he was a great guy, but being there for me during the lowest times of your life really does make your relationship stronger and takes your love and appreciation to a whole other level.
When they called my name and I walked into the room, the nurse asked to tell me what had been going on…I couldn't even get a word out. I just completely lost it. She handed me a tissue and gave me a hug. After we talked about everything I had been feeling, she prescribed me to go back on Lexapro.
After about a few weeks of being on the medicine, I started to see a change. I was actually able to sleep and settle both my body and mind down. Although everything was still hard, it was more manageable and I felt like I wasn’t drowning, just barely floating above water now :) I also decided to stop breastfeeding. I changed to formula and that mixed with getting my hormones in check with medicine played a HUGE factor in me feeling better. Ever since month 2 of postpartum, it has been AMAZING! Yes, it’s tough, don’t get me wrong. However, it’s also enjoyable. For me, medicine was what I needed to regulate my hormones. Remember that every women’s pregnancy, birth, baby, and postpartum experience is different, so that may or may not be the case for you. Regardless of what you do (or don’t) need to make you feel better, it’s nothing to be ashamed of!
Baby Blues, Anxiety & Depression
Those first few months were a roller coaster for sure. It can be confusing to know if what you’re feeling is “normal” or not. It also can be difficult to differentiate between Baby Blues, PPA, & PPD. In order to learn more and have access to both local and national postpartum support, check out my free handouts below.
Postpartum Blues, Anxiety & Depression Resource
I really hope that whoever is reading this doesn’t struggle like I did. PPA & PPD is no joke and is a beast to deal with. A couple things I want to remind you about…
It’s okay to not be okay. If you’re feeling a certain type of way, it’s NOT YOUR FAULT.
Seek help if you need it. There is no shame in any of this!
Although PPA & PPD is the most isolating feeling in the world, you’re not alone. I was there. I remember feeling like there’s NO way anyone could feel how I feel, but the truth is, unfortunately lots of people do.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. You will get through this mama!
