My experience with postpartum depression and Anxiety.

When I became a mom 7 years ago I was young, I was doing my best and I was stressed. Overall though I had a normal pregnancy, a fairly normal delivery and Brooklyn was generally speaking pretty calm/content most of the time. I had some anxiety related to breastfeeding and being a new mom but in general the whole experience was very good. She was a great toddler, she hit all her milestones, she ate well. All the things I worried about as a new mom, were no longer worries I had. 

About four years ago, my husband, my daughter and I moved across the country to further our careers. It was a very hard decision but the best one for us at the time. Even though we have a fairly small support system out here, the decision to grow our family was an easy one. We were excited to have another baby and excited for Brooklyn to be a sibling. In the winter of 2019 we found out we were expecting. We were over the moon and because we had a family vacation planned to an area with Zika we had to inform our families pretty early on in the pregnancy. Everyone was so excited for us. Around 11 weeks pregnant I had a miscarrriage resulting in an emergency D+C as I was retaining placenta. This was hard on me and I struggled with it for a few months after. 

In the fall we found out we were expecting again and I would say this is where my struggle began with perinatal depression and anxiety. We were very excited but I immediately had my own concerns about the pregnancy. When my doctor booked a dating ultrasound, I told my husband he didn't need to worry about coming with me. He was working and to be honest, I fully expected them to tell me I had lost the pregnancy. It ended up being quite the opposite. This is the day I found out we were having twins. I was in complete shock. I called my husband right away and we were both ecstatic. This was a very exciting time but I still had concerns about carrying the babies and those worries didn’t go away. 

At 19 weeks I was admitted to the hospital to have a rescue cerclage placed. The night I was admitted I had 6 different doctors tell me I likely wouldn’t make it to viability and the cerclage likely wouldn’t work but it was my best shot. At this point, I was alone due to covid restrictions and all I had was time to sit by myself with my thoughts. I thought about how my body was failing me, I thought maybe I did something wrong, I thought about how I had contracted covid 19 just a few weeks prior and maybe that is why this was happening. 

I prayed a lot. 

I cried a lot.

Every appointment after that admission was much of the same thing. Being sent to the hospitals for monitoring, for steroids for whatever they could do to keep these babies cooking. Then at 29 weeks I went into labour and we welcomed 2 beautiful girls. I had lost control of everything else so I fought to have them vaginally or atleast attempt to. I successfully had both girls vaginally, Brielle coming out breech but everyone was just fine. I think at this point I was in shock. I cried a lot. We went home to get situated and I thought it was a good time to unload my winter tires from my SUV and go to the DMV to register my vehicle. Jonathan urged me to relax and take it easy but I was just trying to stay busy. We spent 2.5 months between the NICU and home after this and that brought on an overwhelming amount of postpartum depression and anxiety. I couldn’t wrap my head around it because I was literally in survival mode just trying to get through each day. I had a lot of people reach out to me during this time with much of the same concerns. 

How are you doing?

Hey, haven’t heard from you in a bit, is everything okay?

You’re dealing with a lot right now, how are you coping?

Hey Jen, I’m worried about you. You’ve got a lot on your plate. You should take a day off and stay home.

To be fair, they were all right. But most of these texts either went unanswered because I didn’t want to deal with it or I would say “I’m good” and divert the conversation to talking about the twins or brooklyn. I had a friend ask me if I was dealing with postpartum depression and we had a really honest conversation about it but I was still in denial. I just figured I was dealing with a lot and once I got the girls home I would be fine. Once we got them home I realized I was still struggling so a few months later I started writing about our experiences which really helped me organize my thoughts. I was able to compartmentalize all of the things. 

The things that helped me with this were

1. Journalling
2. Therapy
3. Talking about our story
4. Doing things for myself that spark joy
5. Make a conscious effort to eat well and exercise (arguably I did this the least but when I did, it made me feel a lot better)

A year into our journey, I can say I am finally coming out the other side.