Postpartum Depression Part 1

I remember my first doctor appointment after I had Brett, they made me fill out a questionnaire.   I thought it was silly because it was asking me questions like, "Do you have thoughts of hurting yourself or your baby?"  I couldn't fathom the thought that anyone who just had a baby would want to hurt themselves or their baby.  I was young and completely clueless at the problems that mother could face after having a baby.

 Fast forward to a couple months before I had my sweet Emma, I was excited to welcome my sweet Emma into the world.  I have always had very tough pregnancies, with Emma's pregnancy it was no different. We had a few extra complications that were very frustrating and painful to deal with, but nothing compared to the sadness that I was starting to feel.  The worst part of the sadness was the inability to pin point the problem, I had no clue why I was so sad and so I just lived with it.  When Emma arrived I was so excited and she was perfect, but the excitement was short lived when we had to re-admit her to the hospital 48 hours after her birth.  It was three days of agony to watch me sweet Emma having problems, and the tubes and cords coming out of her didn't help my sadness at all.

Things got really bad when nothing in my closet fit, during the course of my pregnancy I had gone from 190 lbs to 150 lbs and then shooting to a whopping 210 lbs!  Nothing fit, not even at the store and the sadness grew and grew, until it had finally consumed me.  I was not in a good place and it was awful   I didn't know what to do, I was always tired and unmotivated to do anything and most of all I hated myself.  While controlling my weight after a bout of Hyperemesis is not easy for me, I hated myself  for not being able to control my body.  I had tried to exercise but I couldn't stay consistent enough to make any difference.   I felt so awful that I would lay in bed at night and just cry for hours.  Jon kept asking what he could do and I couldn't give him an answer.  I couldn't even explain to him how I felt, it was difficult to put into words.  I finally figured out a way to tell him.

 Do you know the story of the donkey in the well?  A farmer's donkey fell into a well, and seeing that there was nothing that the farmer could do to get the donkey out of the well he started to bury the donkey in the well.  With every shovel full of dirt the donkey would shake off the dirt and step up, eventually the donkey walked out of the well.  I am the donkey in the well, and my sweet husband the farmer.  There were a lot   people at my well, but all were confused and had no clue what to do so the just stood around and talked.  My farmer tried to reach me but the well was too deep and so a helping hand would not work and not knowing what else to do he just held his hand out there just in case I could eventually reach it.  Someone was shoveling dirt into the well and I couldn't shake it off, it was burying me, crushing me.  I just felt crushed and desperate.

Part 2 coming soon.