Nothing {PPD Part 4}

Here are the previous posts in this series on postpartum depression.

The Monster is Back and It Won't Do the Dishes {Part 1}

In the Beginning, There was Hair Color {Part 2}

The Pit of Despair {Part 3}

Here's a virtual lollipop >>> --o

And here's the next part in the saga ...

***

I went into labor at 1 a.m. on August 19, 2012. I'm not super-big on sharing gory birth story details, so I'll just say I dropped more F-bombs than I had in my entire previous existence combined and at 8:14 p.m., Gracelyn Violet Walker entered the universe.

She was not all that impressed.

I can't recall anything that immediately followed delivery, not feelings, not images, nothing. It's weird. I like to think I was happy, exhausted, and a little freaked out about being a newly minted parent of two (like any normal person). I'll never know.
My first concrete memory (other than the epic amount of cussing) is when the nurse laid a freshly bathed and swaddled baby in my arms in the recovery room. I stared into her tiny little face and my only thought was, "Her nose looks weird". Other than that ... nothing. A big giant void of black horrid nothing.

The reason for this, I think, was that I was still completely convinced something terrible was going to happen. The only questions were "when" and "how". I could not connect if I wanted to survive it.

Gracie made this fairly easy. She slept in 20 minute increments around the clock. She cried and squirmed and fussed. She hated being held. And she was a terrible, terrible nurser - gagging, choking, biting, and flat out refusing to eat unless I paced with her during feedings (sooo not fun at 3 a.m.).

I cried and yelled and screamed right along with her. I was irrationally angry at everyone all the time ("You ATE the banana bread? WTF?!?! Banana bread is not for EATING!") Any spark of joy was smothered by a staccato assault of images of my child dead or dying. I blamed it all on the "baby blues" and waited for my worst nightmares to become reality.

I felt so, so, so guilty for disobeying the voice of (what I thought at the time) was God, for not being strong enough to love my child in spite of it, for everything.

Thus began my official battle with postpartum depression.

Unless, of course, you ask the midwife.

Continue reading >>> Call The Midwife (a very bad name)