Postpartum Progress

Hope Feels Good Mom Needs Your Support

Warrior Chicks -- please head on over to the Hope Feels Good blog and tell this mom who is suffering that you are with her.  We all need to be there for each other because no one understands like we do.

Part 2 of Becoming Me's PPD Journey

If you read the story last week in Postpartum Progress about the blogger from Becoming Me and her experience with a postpartum mood disorder, you'll want to read part 2.  She writes very beautifully about what it felt like and I know many of you will connect to her journey.

More Mommy Bloggers Share Their PPD Stories

Here is a link to the Becoming Me blog where a mom opens up to share her story about antepartum and postpartum depression. 

And another GREAT PPD story from the Dig Your Toes In blog ... here is a highlight:

For me, PPD looked (looks) like this:

• Feeling off.  Just off.
• Feeling disconnected–from my life, from my kids, from my husband
• Feeling like I’m in a ‘fog.’
• Lacking joy.  Lacking joy in being a Mom, in little things that I normally love, in life in general.
• Guilt, guilt, and more guilt. 
• Just feeling down
• Having my ‘default’ attitude be negative and pessimistic rather than fairly optimistic
• Wanting to run away.  To sleep, to hide, to curl up in a ball.
• Shrinking when my children cried.
• Inability to focus
• “Escaping” often.  To the computer, to phone calls, to books, to anything to get me out of my ‘real life’ and my feelings.
• Snapping at my children very, very easily
• Feeling overwhelmed all the time
• Feeling like no matter what I just couldn’t get it all together.

And a link to the Unfolding... blog and another story about PPD.

Mom Tracy Kennedy's Journey Through Postpartum Depression

Here is a link to an article that just appeared in the Santa Clarita Valley Signal newspaper about Tracy Kennedy, who suffered severe postpartum depression. 

Brazen Careerist Writes About PPD & Working Women

This is a great post from Penelope Trunk of the Brazen Careerist blog.  She writes about experiencing PPD while working, and makes suggestions on what women should know about PPD if they're the breadwinner in the family.  She bravely shares what she went through, including the following:

"Then, one night, the baby was screaming and our three-year-old wouldn’t go to bed and my husband was telling me that I needed to get the three-year-old some milk and I was saying that he should and I’ll get the baby and he rolled his eyes, and then I took a knife out of the dirty dishes and stabbed my head.

I don’t actually remember doing it. I remember my husband saying, 'Oh my god. There’s blood everywhere.'

Here’s how crazy I was: I just put the knife back in the sink and went to get the baby.

Go check out the rest of Penelope's story.

Guest Author: Sarah Pond of mama2mama

Sarah Pond, co-founder of mama2mama in Canada, was kind enough to share with us her story of postpartum depression.  This is a beautifully written story, and a very comprehensive one in which she lists all of her various symptoms.  I don't normally post something this lengthy on Postpartum Progress because I like everything to be easily digestible, but this is worth it.

"The third day after my daughter's birth, a vortex of dark, deafening, and terminally sinister energy swallowed me whole. It sounds dramatic and it was. It overcame me in the car on the way home from the hospital. My baby slept soundly in her carseat, blissfully unaware that her primary caregiver was beginning a freefall into a churning turmoil. I remember commenting to my husband that I was suddenly not feeling too well. An understatement, to be sure.

Every moment after that, I struggled in the teeth of a malevolent beast, while desperately attempting to keep up the appearance of a happy, serene mommy. It felt like a struggle of life and death proportions. I suppose it was.

At the 5 month mark, when sleep deprivation was becoming debilitating, I made an appointment with my (former) family doctor. She gave me the following advice: Get some rest, eat more fatty foods and don't spoil the baby. She neither mentioned PPD nor asked me any relevant questions, nor suggested any resources. The appointment lasted all of six minutes. I timed it.

I kept on going, not following the doctor's advice. At last, on a Saturday afternoon, when my daughter was 7 months old, I crashed hard and ended up at the medical clinic trembling, pale and unable to form a cohesive thought. I hadn't slept at all for three days and nights. I hadn't had more than 3 hours of consecutive sleep for half a year. My husband took our baby to his mother's, drove me to the clinic and insisted that we see somebody NOW. A short time later, I was sitting in front of a very kind, compassionate and helpful doctor, asking him for immediate help. Looking back, I know that I was very close to being hospitalized. Instead, the doctor, bless him, sent me home with three prescriptions: one for an antidepressant, another for a sleep aid, and a final one to do whatever it takes to get some decent sleep.

That night, with a lot of support from my husband and some pumping of milk, I slept for five hours straight. The next night it was six. After an entire week of sleeping "through the night", I was on the road to healing. By the time my baby was 10 months old, I was a new woman.

Recovery has been a path of ups and downs, of good days and bad. But no days have ever come close to the darkest days of all, when my perceptions were distorted by anxiety, fear and sleeplessness. When the primary emotion I felt toward my beautiful child was pity, for having such an inadequate mother. When I felt the hot breath of those notorious black dogs of despair on my throat, heard their hungry snarling, and knew that I was their weakening prey.  These days, pretty much every day is good. Great, even.

I have found a new balance. All the balls I juggle as a mother, a wife, an employee, friend, family member and upstanding citizen are staying miraculously aloft (WooHoo!). I practice self-care and I make it a priority. Most of all I enjoy mothering my little girl as I have never enjoyed anything else. I look at her now and I know that she has a good mother – one who loves her and nurtures her as best she can.

During the worst of it, I tried natural therapies, such as herbal remedies and homeopathy. While these took the edge off the most severe symptoms, it was the antidepressants that ended up saving me. The journey through PPD is unique for each of us and so are the ways we heal. I don't advocate any particular method of finding balance; I simply share my own passage. Until this experience, I was resistant to pharmaceuticals such as antidepressants. Now, I feel fortunate that such drugs are available and that they worked so effectively for me.

The best and most important therapy for me, was reaching out for help. Finding the guts to talk to other mothers about what I was going through opened the doors that lead me to health. It was other mamas who inspired and guided my way.

Now my wish is to do the same.

Some of the symptoms of my postpartum experience were:

Physical

       • Insomnia

       • Jittery, shaky

       • No appetite

       • Weight loss

       • Low milk supply

       • Adrenalin surging constantly

       • "Fight or flight" mode all the time

Mental

       • Inability to turn off my mommy-brain, which was running at 1000 RPM. Like an engine revving way too high in the lowest gear

       • Loud clamoring noise in my head at all times, especially at night when everyone else was asleep

       • Uncontrollable intrusive thoughts of harm coming to my baby (from earthquakes, wild animals, disease, car accidents, intruders, electrocution, drowning, choking, SIDS, etc, etc, etc)

       • Difficulty concentrating or focusing

       • mental fogginess, sluggishness

       • Nightmares

Emotional

       • Anxiety about everything to do with my baby

       • Terrible, awful apprehension when the baby cried

       • Extreme discomfort when I was separated from my baby

       • Feeling certain that I was a terrible mother

       • Fear of harm coming to my baby

       • Fear of dying and my baby being left motherless

       • Exhausting mood swings between the elation and joy of loving my child and despair and anxiety over my perceived inability to care properly for her

       • Anger and resentment towards my husband

       • Guilt, guilt, and more guilt

       • Dread

       • Rage

       • Heartfelt desire to live in a secluded cave with only me and my baby

Behavioral

       • Crying fits

       • Micro-managing everything

       • Not allowing anyone else to care for my baby

       • Not taking any breaks

       • Unable to relax

       • Raging at my husband, up to and including threatening divorce

       • Obsessive coping behaviors, such as counting to 500 while soothing my crying baby

       • Clinging inflexibly to routines

       • Insisting that things to do with the baby be done EXACTLY SO and freaking out when it wasn't

Please reach out for help if you think that you need it. And if you think you MIGHT need it, too.

Writer Looking for PPD Stories

Doula Tiffani Lawton is writing an article for a South New Jersey moms magazine about PPD, and is looking for stories -- treatment success stories, alternative treatment success stories.  Her deadline is February 20th, so if you'd like to reach out to her and share your story, please do so as soon as possible by emailing her at support@pamperedpreggerandbeyond.com

News Roundup on PPD

Story from Bismarck, North Dakota's KFYR-TV on postpartum depression - click here

Story from the National Catholic Reporter on the postpartum experience of Sylvia Lasalandra, author of "A Daughter's Touch" - click here

Another story from the National Catholic Reporter on a new postpartum depression education program for clergy, religious and lay leaders lead by the Archbishop of Newark, NJ - click here

Guest Author: MommaSteph of MomSquawk

Following is a very honest piece about intrusive thoughts and postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder, written by MommaSteph, a blogger at Mom Squawk.

I would never put my baby in the dishwasher.

But I've thought about it.

I've thought about putting the baby in all sorts of major household appliances: the washer, dryer, fridge, microwave, oven. I don't have a trash compacter, but if I did, well, that probably would have occurred to me, too.

And I'm not particularly unusual in this regard.

I remember the first time I had a violent intrusive thought about my first baby. It happened shortly after I had brought him home. My brother and his children were just leaving from a visit. I stood at the window holding Henry up and waving goodbye. My brother turned to wave and smile back. And suddenly I thought, "What if I dashed Henry's head against the radiator? How quickly would what happened register on David's face? How quickly could he get in here to get the baby away from me? When would his kids realize what had happened?"

It all occurred to me in a flash. I started to sweat, my heart started to beat quickly, and I moved away from the radiator. I was horrified, ashamed, disgusted, and scared. Was I one of those crazy women? How could I have such an awful thought? And how could I protect my baby?

From there, it just got worse. And I told no one -- how could I? What if they took my baby away?

For the rest of this EXCELLENT article, click here to go to Momsquawk!

Guest Author: Theresa Borchard of Beliefnet

Therese Borchard, who writes the Beyond Blue blog at Beliefnet, shares her postpartum anxiety story with Postpartum Progress today:

   Although I can’t remember a time in my childhood or adolescence that I lived without depression and anxiety, I guess you could say that I officially joined the elite mentally ill club in 1989, my freshman year at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, when I went by the Counseling and Career Development Center to inquire about local support groups (I was just a few months sober). One of the therapists politely invited me back.

   A few months later she rattled off a handful of diagnoses: obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorder, anxiety disorder, and depression. She strongly suggested antidepressants, but I resisted. Like fellow twelve-steppers, I thought they would compromise my sobriety. And with my Catholic friends and mentors, I regarded them as a crutch and a short cut from the pain that was necessary for spiritual growth.

    “Life doesn’t have to be this hard,” my counselor told me, giving me a copy of Colette Dowling’s book, You Mean I Don’t Have to Feel This Way. A year and a half later, when I was experiencing suicidal thoughts, I finally cried uncle, clinging to the lifeboat (or prescription) God sent me. After a few trial and error experiments, my doctor and I stumbled on the combination of Prozac and Zoloft, which allowed me to concentrate enough to study, and relax enough to tell a dirty joke (one of my favorite things to do).

   Then I got married, in 1996, and made small people (David and Katherine are now 6 and 4). After the two births, my hormones huddled together to ask each other what the hell they were supposed to be doing now that no baby was in the womb or on the breast. My neurotransmitters (the good guys responsible for feelings of well-being) caught an express train to another brain (the one content with instant oatmeal). Brain cells began to shrink (and I suspect croak) in my prefrontal cortex. A tumor grew in my pituitary gland (also in the brain). And I had a bona fide, genuine mental breakdown. There was nothing mini about it.

   I lost twenty 23 pounds (I could wear an Ann Taylor size 2! That was the only perk.) because I had no appetite (this alone signaled a serious crisis, given my love of all things edible), I contracted one urinary tract infection after another because my immune system was breaking down, I breathed into a paper bag every morning during a panic attack, and I trembled and flailed like Linda Blair in the “Exorcist” because my anxiety was so acute.

   Oh yeah, and the endless sobbing: in the deli line at the grocery (“No, it’s not the chicken salad, I just got my period”), in the waiting room at my gynecologist-obstetrician’s office (“I’m sorry, pictures of babies make me cry”), on the hayride at David’s class trip to the pumpkin patch (“I’m allergic to hay”), at Eric’s company dinners (“Please give him a raise”), at Katherine’s physical therapy sessions (“Will she ever walk?”), during sex (“Are you almost done? I have to blow my nose”), in church (twice as hard if we sang “On Eagle’s Wings” or “Be Not Afraid”), and yada yada yada.

   It took two trips to the psych ward, seven different psychiatrists, one endocrinologist, 23 different medication combinations, and several MRIs over two years’  time to get me well again. In other words, I upgraded to the platinum club membership in Club D. Diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder, I graduated beyond the casual, my-primary-care-physician-can-prescribe-me-my-meds to the critical, regular check-ins with a head doctor.

   Although I have cussed out God too many times to count, asking him what kind of marijuana he was smoking the day he designed my brain, I agree with Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind, that “tumultuousness, if coupled with discipline and a cool mind, is not such a bad sort of thing. That unless one wants to live a stunningly boring life, one ought to be on good terms with one's darker side and one's darker energies.”

A Roundup of Major Stories & PPMD News

You should see my inbox these days!  I can't keep up!  There is a LOT going on.  First things first, below is a current list of support groups.  Please check it out if you're looking for one in your area.

Download ppd_support_groups_52207.doc

This is a link to a good article that just came out of the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association this week.  No real new news, but it's nice to see the recognition of perinatal mood disorders as a spectrum disorder, and the fact that onset can occur anytime throughout the first year postpartum. 

This is a link to a new book called "Crazy In America: The Hidden Tragedy of Our Criminalized Mentally Ill".  It sounds like it could be good, and similar to Pete Earley's book called "Crazy", which I absolutely loved. 

I've added another beautiful survivor mom to our Surviving & Thriving Mothers' Photo Album.  Thanks Shannon for sending me the picture. 

Here's a link to a great editorial from Newsday by Sandra Wolkoff.   One highlight that reminds us we just don't get over this in a day:

"Frequently, women convince themselves that any slight improvement is a sign that recovery is around the corner. When the black clouds of despair return hours or days later, or another medication seems to prove ineffective, they feel like failures."

Here's a link to a recent story that appeared on the NBC affiliate in San Diego about the Michael Spangler, husband of Annie who committed suicide three years ago after suffering from postpartum depression.  I'm so sorry for his and his little boy's loss, especially when we all know these tragedies are completely unnecessary.

Here's a link to a story from last week in Chicago about Tonya Vasilev, who was found mentally insane for the killing of her two children.  She had suffered depression since childhood, and had been diagnosed with postpartum depression.  The judge said he felt comfortable finding her insane because of the expert medical testimony, thus Tonya will now receive lifelong commitment to a mental health facility rather than prison or the death penalty.  (Trust me, this doesn't mean I'm comfortable with those sweet children being killed.  I can think of nothing more awful and tragic.  But we need to work harder to treat and protect the mentally ill so that things like this don't happen.)

Margaret Trudeau, the ex-wife of the late prime minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau, spoke up about mental health recently and the importance of mental health check-ups to all Canadians.  Trudeau herself suffered from postpartum depression.  Here is a link to the story.

3 New Books About Postpartum Depression

There are lots of new books coming out that are about postpartum mood disorders.  Here are three to look for:

1)  Wiped! by Rebecca Eckler.  Eckler is a parenting columnist for the Globe & Mail daily newspaper in Canada, and shares her experience with postpartum depression, as well as funny accounts of the highs and lows of being a new mom.

2) The Journey to Parenthood:  Myths, Reality and What Really Matters by Diana Lynn Barnes and Leigh Balber.  Barnes, a past president of Postpartum Support International, and Balber help couples run through a "psychological dress rehearsal" of what life will be like once the baby is born and address issues in advance of the baby's arrival.

3)  The Lifter of My Head by Susan McRoberts.  McRoberts writes about how God sustained her during her bout with postpartum depression, and she shares scriptures and prayers that were helpful during that time.

Profoundly Alone: Take 2

I posted this the other day, but because of a glitch none of my subscribers got it.  So I'm posting it again because I think it's important.

Profoundly Alone: The Disconnection of Postpartum Depression

When you suffer from a postpartum mood disorder, you walk around in a haze while trying to seem as normal as possible.  You try to make yourself feel as connected as you can to your child and those around you.  Perhaps your dearest friends and family can tell that you don't seem like yourself, but then they just brush it off as normal baby blues.  And you soldier on, trying to pretend -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully -- that everything is cool.

When my son was a little over two months old and I was in the throes of postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder I tried to host a ladies' luncheon at my house.  It was mid-December, and I guess I thought it would make me feel better to have a half-dozen women over and make them a nice little Christmas lunch.  I decorated the house.  I made goat cheese salad and butternut squash soup and little lemon tarts with sugared blueberries for dessert.

When the women came over, I'll never forget having one of the oddest feelings I've ever had.  I felt like I was inside of a bubble.  Or like I was hovering over the party watching it but that my guests couldn't see or hear me.  I was shocked out how disconnected I felt from the world, and it seemed like it didn't really matter whether I was there or not.  I tried to make small talk, but it seemed like the sentences just didn't come out right and that I wasn't making any sense -- it was almost like the air had been replaced by water that blurred my vision and muffled my sound.  Everyone seemed to have a great time, and they were chatting and eating away.  I kept trying to connect with them, to feel present, but no matter what I did it didn't work. 

To this day, I don't think they had any idea what I was thinking or feeling.  They seemed to have a lovely time.  After everyone had left and my son went down for a nap, I remember laying down on the couch in my family room and sobbing.  I had tried to do something to make myself feel better, to be a part of the world, and it only broke my heart.  I tried to be close to others and it only made me feel further apart.

One of the truly awful feelings you experience during postpartum mood disorders is that sense of disconnection from the world, from your friends and family, from your baby, and most of all, from yourself.  I felt so deeply, deeply alone. 

Profoundly alone.

This is why it's so hard for us to say anything.  We're ashamed, of course.  But we're also disconnected.  I didn't think anyone would hear me, or believe me, or perhaps even care.  I didn't even have myself to talk to anymore.  Myself had up and left and this new person I had become was clearly NOT my friend.  I had lost my ability to speak clearly and calmly and with reason.  I felt like I couldn't even communicate love to my own child.  How could I have been expected to understandably explain THIS?

I hope the people we love can try to understand why it is so easy for us to turn away.  It's much easier to run and hide, or give up, than to try and speak through the cement wall that life just erected between us and the world.  We try our best, but you may have to fill in the blanks for us until we find our words, and ourselves, again. 

When you suffer from a postpartum mood disorder, you walk around in a haze while trying to seem as normal as possible.  You try to make yourself feel as connected as you can to your child and those around you.  Perhaps your dearest friends and family can tell that you don't seem like yourself, but then they just brush it off as normal baby blues.  And you soldier on, trying to pretend -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully -- that everything is cool.

When my son was a little over two months old and I was in the throes of postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder I tried to host a ladies' luncheon at my house.  It was mid-December, and I guess I thought it would make me feel better to have a half-dozen women over and make them a nice little Christmas lunch.  I decorated the house.  I made goat cheese salad and butternut squash soup and little lemon tarts with sugared blueberries for dessert.

When the women came over, I'll never forget having one of the oddest feelings I've ever had.  I felt like I was inside of a bubble.  Or like I was hovering over the party watching it but that my guests couldn't see or hear me.  I was shocked out how disconnected I felt from the world, and it seemed like it didn't really matter whether I was there or not.  I tried to make small talk, but it seemed like the sentences just didn't come out right and that I wasn't making any sense -- it was almost like the air had been replaced by water that blurred my vision and muffled my sound.  Everyone seemed to have a great time, and they were chatting and eating away.  I kept trying to connect with them, to feel present, but no matter what I did it didn't work. 

To this day, I don't think they had any idea what I was thinking or feeling.  They seemed to have a lovely time.  After everyone had left and my son went down for a nap, I remember laying down on the couch in my family room and sobbing.  I had tried to do something to make myself feel better, to be a part of the world, and it only broke my heart.  I tried to be close to others and it only made me feel further apart.

One of the truly awful feelings you experience during postpartum mood disorders is that sense of disconnection from the world, from your friends and family, from your baby, and most of all, from yourself.  I felt so deeply, deeply alone. 

Profoundly alone.

This is why it's so hard for us to say anything.  We're ashamed, of course.  But we're also disconnected.  I didn't think anyone would hear me, or believe me, or perhaps even care.  I didn't even have myself to talk to anymore.  Myself had up and left and this new person I had become was clearly NOT my friend.  I had lost my ability to speak clearly and calmly and with reason.  I felt like I couldn't even communicate love to my own child.  How could I have been expected to understandably explain THIS?

I hope the people we love can try to understand why it is so easy for us to turn away.  It's much easier to run and hide, or give up, than to try and speak through the cement wall that life just erected between us and the world.  We try our best, but you may have to fill in the blanks for us until we find our words, and ourselves, again. 

Profoundly Alone: The Disconnection of Postpartum Depression

When you suffer from a postpartum mood disorder, you walk around in a haze while trying to seem as normal as possible.  You try to make yourself feel as connected as you can to your child and those around you.  Perhaps your dearest friends and family can tell that you don't seem like yourself, but then they just brush it off as normal baby blues.  And you soldier on, trying to pretend -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully -- that everything is cool.

When my son was a little over two months old and I was in the throes of postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder I tried to host a ladies' luncheon at my house.  It was mid-December, and I guess I thought it would make me feel better to have a half-dozen women over and make them a nice little Christmas lunch.  I decorated the house.  I made goat cheese salad and butternut squash soup and little lemon tarts with sugared blueberries for dessert.

When the women came over, I'll never forget having one of the oddest feelings I've ever had.  I felt like I was inside of a bubble.  Or like I was hovering over the party watching it but that my guests couldn't see or hear me.  I was shocked out how disconnected I felt from the world, and it seemed like it didn't really matter whether I was there or not.  I tried to make small talk, but it seemed like the sentences just didn't come out right and that I wasn't making any sense -- it was almost like the air had been replaced by water that blurred my vision and muffled my sound.  Everyone seemed to have a great time, and they were chatting and eating away.  I kept trying to connect with them, to feel present, but no matter what I did it didn't work. 

To this day, I don't think they had any idea what I was thinking or feeling.  They seemed to have a lovely time.  After everyone had left and my son went down for a nap, I remember laying down on the couch in my family room and sobbing.  I had tried to do something to make myself feel better, to be a part of the world, and it only broke my heart.  I tried to be close to others and it only made me feel further apart.

One of the truly awful feelings you experience during postpartum mood disorders is that sense of disconnection from the world, from your friends and family, from your baby, and most of all, from yourself.  I felt so deeply, deeply alone. 

Profoundly alone.

This is why it's so hard for us to say anything.  We're ashamed, of course.  But we're also disconnected.  I didn't think anyone would hear me, or believe me, or perhaps even care.  I didn't even have myself to talk to anymore.  Myself had up and left and this new person I had become was clearly NOT my friend.  I had lost my ability to speak clearly and calmly and with reason.  I felt like I couldn't even communicate love to my own child.  How could I have been expected to understandably explain THIS?

I hope the people we love can try to understand why it is so easy for us to turn away.  It's much easier to run and hide, or give up, than to try and speak through the cement wall that life just erected between us and the world.  We try our best, but you may have to fill in the blanks for us until we find our words, and ourselves, again. 

Mom Shares Her Story

This is from a mom out there who shared her story with me, and I thought you'd want to read it.  I highlighted my favorite sentence, since it is so descriptive about how many of us feel while we're experiencing postpartum mood disorders.  Many of you will recognize yourselves in her:

I found this website the other day.  I too have had a hard time talking to anybody about this.  I have 3 very young childen (ages range from 3 months to 3.5 yrs).  I was diagnosed early thanks to the pediatrician who insisted I go see my dr for PPD. I reluctantly went and now am ever so grateful because while I am not 100% yet I feel soooo much better than I did 3 months ago today.  I was put on Paxil and at first I did not get any better.  It turns out that the dosage was too little for me so I had to double it.  I can tell you that getting help for this disease has been the hardest thing I have ever done.  I had to admit to myself and others that I no longer had control of my feelings and actions on a regular basis.  At first I was ashamed.  I did not want to admit that at any point I could sink to such lows that I did not feel I would ever get back up again.  I used to lay on the living room floor wishing that I would get sucked into it so I could disappear.  I wanted to climb into bed and lay there until I disappeared.  I would stay in bed for hours during the day.  It would take me 4-5 days to change my clothes and take a shower.  Sometimes when it was time to make dinner I would lay on the kitchen floor for over an hour until I would be able to stand up and cook.  I have had thoughts of suicide.  I have put a knife to my wrist with a full hand of pills.  My subconscious was reaching out to my husband but the right words for him to understand still have not come out of my mouth.  He still does not understand exactly what goes on inside of me.  He has tried many times but just can't.  I think that the only people who truly understand are the ones that visit this website to post their own experiences with this disease.  I used to get so tense that I would try to reach into my arms to pull the bones in my forearms out.  I would get in the car and drive to get away.  I could not focus.  When I went back to work I would lay my head down on my desk for sometimes an hour at a time.  I just could not get my act together.  I have been seeing a therapist who has helped me tremendously.  Since my kids are so young and so close to each other in age I have a tremendous fear of being alone with all 3 of them.  I can't face the responsibility for taking care of all 3 of them.  I am so afraid that I will be busy with the baby and something will happen to the other 2...they will fall and get hurt, they will do what kids their age do and just get into kid-type trouble.  I have been slowly getting better.  It helps tremendously that my baby is a very calm baby.  She does not easily cry.  She will cry and fuss with a dirty diaper and/or when she is extremely hungry.  In the beginning of my depression I felt so guilty...I thought that God had given me such a good baby because he knew I was going to have a hard time and that I would not be able to handle a generally fussy baby on top of my 2 and 3 year olds.  That guilt still stays with me.  I have been lucky that I have not had too many thoughts/feelings of hurting the kids.  When it comes to those feelings my mind focuses on myself.  I just want the depression to go away.  Last week I convinced myself that I wanted the feelings to go away so bad that I almost didn't care about whether my family missed me or not.  Today as I was getting my daughter ready for her first dance recital I looked around the house as I was trying to get all 3 kids dressed and thoguht out aloud..."this family could not survive without me".  My husband instantly agreed knowing that the responsibility of work and taking care of all 3 kids and their numerous trips to dr's for checkups and dance class and soon preschool would be too much for him to keep up with.  I admitted to him that I had put together a calendar loaded with all activities (regular and sporadic) as well as the birthdays of all our extended families' birthdays so that he would be able to carry on in case I did commit suicide.  He didn't say it in so many words but I could tell that he was shocked, confused, and touched all at the same time.  He doesn't understand me...my mother tells me to "hurry up and get over your baby blues"...and in the meantime I feel like a sinking ship.  I was quietly laying on the living room floor tonight...resting, not because I was having a meltdown moment.  My husband asked if everything was alright.  I responded with..."yeah, just tired".  He said he was asking because he did not think I was having a meltdown but wasn't sure if something was wrong.  For the first time in forever it felt like he might be slowly picking up on my feelings.  He went on to state..."usually if you are having a meltdown you have a blank stare..like you are an empty shell".  My response was..."that's funny...that is exactly how I feel when I have a meltdown".  Meltdown is what I call it when I am having a hard time dealing with my depression.  I feel like I am on the way up the ladder back to who I once was.  I think that I may even end up better for having this disease.  It has changed how I view things.  I think I manage the kids and their behavior better now.  I'm not sure if it is the antidepressants or if it is just me maturing as a woman.  My 10-11pm obsessive cleaning sure has left my house in the best shape it has ever been in.  I have started exercising.  I have lost all the baby fat but still would like to lose another 60 pounds. 

I know this was a long comment.  I know that every woman's experience is different.  I just hope that some of the words I have left tonight may help somebody else in the future.  Good luck to all of you who suffer from a form of PPD or whose partners suffer.  The best advice I was given during the past 3 months has been..."if everything else is too hard to face...focus on making it through the day.  Whatever it takes to physically get through the day.  Don't worry about anything else than ending the day with the same headcount you started it with". 

Father in Kansas City Shares Poignant Perspective on Wife With PPMD

The following is a very poignant letter from Jim, a new father in Kansas City whose wife is experiencing a postpartum mood disorder:

At first hearing about postpartum depression, I will be the first to admit I thought that it was a fictional event created by women to explain or excuse their behaviors after the birth of a child. I was irritated that Andrea Yates was allowed to walk after drowning her five beautiful children. Then it hit home by attacking one of the strongest people I have ever met: my wife, a woman with a master's degree plus forty hours and an accomplished teacher.  This illness transformed her into a withdrawn, hollow person who had so much self-doubt that she could not even muster up the words to describe what she was feeling. It was then that I came face to face with this horrible illness and realized it is very real. There is not any information that comes to you in pregnancy classes or even a pre-evaluation to see if you're susceptible, and the OB/GYN doesn't even see their patients for six weeks after delivery. This seems convenient since most women have symptoms in their first month of being a mom and that way it is some other doctor's problem. The fact that this was told to me by an OB/GYN should show society that this is a VERY common illness that they have no clue how to treat. How can a doctor deliver a baby and not be there with the necessary tools to help cure the mother to protect her, the child and the family as whole and guarantee that this remains the happiest times of their lives?

It all started out innocently enough.  We were leaving the hospital when a nurse told us that this illness was out there and if we see it to get help right away. This is the same nurse my wife blamed for her breastfeeding problems. According to my wife she said the baby lost 9% of his weight and she was not breastfeeding right. I was not there at the time, and thinking back on this illness I wonder if that is really what transpired. Maybe this experienced nurse saw something in K. that made her think K. had had the onset of this illness. When we got home K. was quiet. I thought it was due to her recovery from her c-section and nothing more. In my mind this woman was too strong to have postpartum depression. Then she thought the baby was not getting enough breast milk when, in fact, he had the required diapers to prove that he was sufficiently fed. She went to pumping and bottles to assure her that he was getting the required ounces. This was not enough to quell her irrational thoughts. From there the next item of irrationality was how much sleep the baby was getting. According to her, he was getting too much but according to her pediatrician and books he was sleeping the normal amount. Part of the problem was that K. never met a goal that she did not surpass and then some, but this baby did not come with a to-do list and it was eating her up inside.

K. is brilliant and loves kids. She is the chosen person that my brother and her sister had decided to take care of their children in case something happened to them. She also runs an infant room at our church and has taken care of her nieces and nephews from a very early age. In short, she has a lot of experience with babies and infants. That made it even more shocking when she first uttered the phrase that our son would be better off with a different mommy. My heart sank and I knew we were in for the fight of our lives. She later confessed to me that she thought of harming herself.

Then all of a sudden one Saturday night she was her old self for about four hours and then the roof caved in. In the early stages of this illness she would get up and pace all over the house and get the baby out of the bassinet no less than ten times. I thought that she was just a very nervous first mom, dealing with a lot of anxiety. Well, this Saturday night was no different; she got up and I mean got up a lot. Her mom and sister called her because they were supposed to go to the pumpkin patch with her nephews and our son that morning. I was asleep when my mother-in-law came into my room and said "Get up, we need to do something about K". When I found her she was almost catatonic with our son on her lap. What followed was a ten-day hospital stay where most of what she would say was, "yes, no or okay." I talked to her doctor twice to figure out what was going on with her and what is sad is the conversation was initiated at my request and my phone calls. Is there not a need to ensure that there is a solid support team set up for these women when they come home and face their fears all over again?

Prior to this illness it was a joke of mine that if K. wanted to talk and no one else was around, she would talk to a mannequin. It was hard for me because I knew less about babies than anyone ever placed on this green Earth. I was about to get a crash course as the only care giver and full time worker. I have a new-found admiration for single moms. Luckily for me, my parents and mother-in-law helped me with day-to-day events and even watched our baby some nights. This was a big help.

We are still dealing with this illness and K. has shown some improvements but not a lot. I came to the realization that doctors either don't know much about this illness or they don't care enough to learn more about it. That is when I found my own help (the Kansas PPD group, Helena Bradford [who is a Godsend], Postpartum Dads, Dr. Ronald Rosenberg, Carol Blocker, Katherine Stone and others too many to mention). It is strange to me that regular people are leading the way to learn more about this illness and that there is not a bigger push from the medical community. We, as a society, are all about protecting children, so it is hard to understand the lackadaisical approach we have about this illness that effects so many and has a potential for such dire consequences. [AMEN, Jim!]

Where we are today: K. still thinks she is a bad mom and thinks she will never feel better -- no matter what I tell her. We are lucky to talk to her doctor once a week. Her mom took off work to help us out, and I could not imagine what we would do without her help. If this can happen to K. it could happen to anyone. Think about that the next time you are with a group of people.  Look at them and think, "They could suffer from this illness sometime in their life". It could be a CEO of a company, a teacher, a doctor, a secretary or a senator. Postpartum Depression is not prejudiced and attacks the strong and weak with the same vigor. One quote I read about this illness is the most accurate: "A mother lion will fight to the death to save her cubs, and this illness is what happens if that lioness turns that same ferocity on herself." Lastly and most importantly this could have been your mother, sister, daughter or scariest of all, your wife. If it is then know you will be in my prayers because as Helena told me,"I would not wish this on my worst enemy". These are my notes from the battle -- from the front lines, and not after the war is over.   Believe me when I say "War is hell!!"

Another Mother's Story

Helena from the Ruth Rhoden Craven Foundation sent me this story from the Palmetto Parent, known as the "Family Magazine of the Midlands". As always, I think it's good to read about the experiences of other mothers just to remind us that we're definitely NOT alone.

Link: Palmetto Parent: The Family Magazine of the Midlands.

The Chronicle: 3/18/2005: An Unquiet Memorial

Thanks to my friend Jeff for sending me this story from the Chronicle of Higher Education about Mine Ener, the Villanova professor who suffered from postpartum psychosis and ended up killing her baby and herself. It's a very balanced story, which I appreciate. And it's also one that must be read, as it demonstrates yet again what can happen to women who don't get the right treatment. There is no one single person at fault for what happened. There were simply so many missed opportunities to educate her and those around her, and to care for her in a way that could have prevented the horrible tragedy that ensued.

Link: The Chronicle: 3/18/2005: An Unquiet Memorial.

Mary Jo Codey's Story

Helena Bradford of the Ruth Rhoden Craven Foundation sent me the link to this story about Gov. Cody's wife, Mary Jo.  I knew you'd be interested in reading it, so here it is: http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2005/02/15/news/life/lif01.txt.  Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

By the way, I'll be at Helena's 3rd Annual 5k Run/Walk for Postpartum Depression Awareness on February 26 in Charleston, and I hope to meet some of you there.