One Year and Counting...

A year can go by fast or slow, depending on your perspective.  It's fast when you stop and realize how much your child has grown and changed in that amount of time, how they seem so much older, yet you don't feel any older.  The moments within that year can go by slowly though, and many of them can be lost when you are battling Postpartum Depression.

I am blown away by statistics I read.  As many as 1 in 7 mothers suffer from anxiety and depression during their pregnancies or after their babies are born, yet only 15% of those who suffer ever seek treatment.  Since so much is not reported I wonder how accurate these statistics even are, I fear that the numbers are even higher.  It breaks my heart to think about all those Mamas suffering alone in the darkness.  I know the thoughts that go through their heads, those thoughts have gone through mine.  I know the feelings of guilt and selfishness, the sadness and self doubt.  I know how it feels to compare yourself to every other mother you know.  I have learned that everyone's life can look perfect on Facebook, but everyone has their own challenges in life to deal with.  No Mama is perfect, no human is perfect, we all just have to try to be the best we can be with the challenges life has brought to us.

For me it started one year ago, January 2012, when my son was five months old.  Postpartum Depression can hit any time during the first year of baby's life.  It started kind of slow for me.  I would have bad days, but then days where I felt fine.  I called the good days "windows".  My professional background is in social work, so I knew what was happening pretty early on, but I had enough good days where I could ignore it to some point.  I had my yearly exam with my gyn in February. We briefly discussed what was going on and the possibility of medication, but I was breastfeeding so I decided to stick it out.  Then those windows of feeling okay rapidly decreased.  I was very "angry" depressed.  My then two and a half year old tried every precious bit of patience I had and then some.  I felt like a horrible mother, and felt bad that she seemed to get the brunt of my short temper because she was with me all the time.  It wasn't as difficult with my baby because he has been a happy, easy going little fellow from the start, but my daughter is just like me and knows exactly how to push all of my buttons.  I felt like I spent many days just yelling at her, and desperately waiting for naptime and bedtime.  My biggest struggle with my son was if he woke up in the night.  I had and still have such a difficult time sleeping that I often have nothing left when the kids wake up at night.  I will lie there and feel guilty that I don't want to get up, because I am just so exhausted.  Thankfully my kids have a great Daddy who will get up with them when I can't, I don't know if he knows how much this Mama appreciates that support.  I kept hoping it would pass, that I would just get better, but it didn't, it kept getting worse.

I knew that two major barriers existed to my getting help.  1.) Our health insurance does not cover mental health services, and 2.) I was breastfeeding a baby that wouldn't take a bottle, and I really didn't know if it was safe to take medication while I was breastfeeding him.  Since I didn't have the energy to really research and find my way....I just waited.

Then one afternoon I just couldn't stop crying, and I had absolutely no reason to cry at all.  My little girl kept asking me what was wrong and why was I crying.  I called my husband to come home and he did.  I could not stand the fact that my child had to see me so broken down like that. The next day I called our pediatrician and asked him what anti depressants were safe to take while breastfeeding, he told me absolutely none.  That really threw me.  I was so desperate and ready to get help at that point and then I just felt like there was nothing that I could do at all.  Then I found a website that led me to a support group in my area.  That is when things started to change.  The facilitator happened to be a lactation consultant who quickly set me straight in the area of medication.  My pediatrician was wrong and she had the information to back it up.  The group also provided me a list of services in the area including places that provided counseling to people without insurance.  So with the support of my OB, talking to my pediatrician for me, I started medication.  I also started counseling and was lucky enough to get a counselor that I really clicked with.  This was all last April 2012.

Since then it has been a constant journey, a constant battle.  The medication and counseling are helping, I am definitely stronger than I was, but I have not won yet.  We have changed my meds a few times.  I am still dealing with a lot of mood changes with every cycle.  There are still bad days, it is still hard to get up some mornings, but I am getting stronger.  I have been blessed with being able to find the right support from professionals and from family and friends.  I can deal with the bad days much better now.  And there are a lot more good days and I am able to enjoy more precious moments than I could before.  My kids are healthy and happy despite everything I have gone through, and I thank God daily for that.

There is so much more that I could say about it all, and I will.  That is why I started writing about this in a blog.  I felt really alone in the beginning until I found resources online and in local women around me and that helped me to move forward.  Overcoming PPD is a long and difficult journey that I am still traveling.  I just don't want anyone else to have to go it alone.

I fight this fight for them and I fight this fight for me!  Love my babies!