On August 15th my beautiful baby girl was born. My pregnancy hadn't been an easy one and I was looking forward to no longer being pregnant, but I was especially looking forward to meeting the little girl that had been hanging from my ribs, kicking my side, and using my bladder as a trampoline.
I went into labour in the early morning, and by mid-afternoon I was holding her in my arms. This is where most people start talking about how they were overwhelmed with awe, with love, crying with tears of joy. I felt shock. I was in shock! I'm a mommy now. How did this happen? Holy (bleep)!
The first few weeks were a flurry of diaper changes, trying to breast feed (my little girl was tongue-tied), trying to sleep, healing from the pain of birth, traveling to and from my parent's house in the San Joaquin Valley....I thought I was doing ok. I really did. It helped that I was not alone for those first few weeks. The baby's father stayed with me (we are not a couple), and when he wasn't staying with me I traveled to Mom and Dad's, so when my first night alone rolled around I wasn't worried at all. Everyone said that I had an easy baby, and we had settled into something of a routine, so I settled into the couch and watched my baby girl sleep.
So precious.
So beautiful.
So perfect.
And then she cried, which always made me feel anxious and frantic. She was hungry. My breast milk hadn't dropped yet so I scrambled into the kitchen to make her a bottle.
All the bottles I liked were dirty, and only the Playtex ones that need liners were available. I grabbed a liner and tried to put it in but I ripped the top of the lining off so I needed to grab another one. The second one I couldn't get to line up right, but my baby was screaming at this point so I pour in a scoop of formula and measure out 2 ounces of water to put into the liner, and it overflows. I put on the top with the nipple and try to shake it, but it wasn't on right so formula went everywhere.
This was within two hours of the Daddy leaving.
I tear my kitchen apart trying to find a clean Breasflow bottle. I knew they were in there somewhere because I had four bottles and only two were in the sink. I can't find one so I try the Playtex again, going nuts, bawling my eyes out (my neighbors probably though I'd lost it), grab a liner and again it only holds 2 ounces. I make sure its on right and shake it up, and run over to my baby to feed her.
I feed her. She stops crying.
Silence, except for the noises she makes while eating.
Peace.
Golden.
I put her one my shoulder to burp her. She vomits. I'm talking projectile vomiting. It misses my shoulder and lands on the couch, then drips down and starts soaking into the back of my pajamas. I don't care about that. She's crying, again, and understandably so.
I grab the nipple guard that the Lactation Specialist gave me to help her latch on and eat from my breast. My hands are trembling, I'm crying, frustrated, generally upset...and so is my daughter. My hands are shaking and I'm having a hard time getting the nipple guard to stick, but I do. We are both upset so she has trouble latching on, but she does.
Again, silence except for the noises she makes while eating.
Eventually my tears dry, and I calm down taking deep breaths.
My world is at peace.
She finishes eating and falls asleep. All seems better now and over the next four hours I clean up, get things organized, find the other bottles (they were in the diaper bag), and clean the ones in the sink. I sit back down on the couch. I'm tired, drained, and I look down at my sleeping baby and am thankful she is asleep.
Midnight, baby wakes and I am ready with a bottle of formula (which I am reluctant to use) and the nipple guard. I am able to feed her from my breast, but something is wrong, she won't stop crying. I check her diaper...clean, I had changed it before I fed her. I put my finger to her mouth but she doesn't try to latch, so she is not still hungry. I watch her, trying to figure out whats wrong.
There it is, she's out of her swaddling. She likes to be swaddled when she sleeps, in fact, won't sleep without it. I swaddle her again, and she is calm. Then she starts wriggling, and within 30 seconds is out of her swaddling and crying again. I swaddle her again. Same result. This isn't working.
I lost it. I couldn't stop crying. I kept swaddling her and she kept coming out and there was nothing I could do.
We didn't get to sleep until 5am.
Later that day I was diagnosed with Postpartum Depression.
I thought my crying all the time and sleeping all the time were just a part of my hormones balancing out and my recovering from birthing. That's what people had said it was, anyway. I believed them. I'd never had a child before, how was I to know that my behaviour was not normal. My doctor explained to me that they were all part of PPD, and that I was not a horrible mom. I felt terrible because I had not felt like I had bonded with my newborn daughter. I felt like a bad mother if I couldn't soothe her when she cried, and was still awkward when it came to holding her, bathing her.
I was prescribed antidepressants, and thank God! I started to feel better in two weeks, and pretty normal after two more weeks. a few weeks ago my mother said that for the first time I sounded like myself again, and I was pleased to say that I felt like myself again.
I felt good.
I feel good!
Being diagnosed with PPD gave me an extra month of disability, for which I am so grateful because it gave me that extra time to actually enjoy my daughter. I can really enjoy her now. I even enjoy her crying. I think its cute, the face she makes, and I no longer feel frantic panic when she starts.
I told you that story so you can truly understand this next sentence: On December 5th I return to work, and I am so happy to say that its going to kill me to leave her for so long. I am so thankful that I have had as much time as I have. I went to work today to drop off my portion of the insurance payment and two women that I work with who were pregnant with me (one went on leave the week before me, and the other a month after) are already back to work. All my coworkers told me how good I look, and its not just because I've lost all but 9 pounds of my pregnancy weight, its because I look happy. I look healthy. Apparently when I went to work the time before I was diagnosed with PPD I gave them cause for concern. They said I didn't look good. I wish they had said something to me then, and not after I had been diagnosed, but they didn't for whatever reason.
Either way, all turned out well.
I'm in love with my baby girl, which is how it should be.
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