“We have to do a C-Section.” The words shattered all my dreams of a natural childbirth. It might be a bad birth, but it would light a fire for the rest of my life.
I had tried so hard to relax and open up and it had not worked. I was stuck at 6 or 7 cm and just uncomfortable in the hospital. In hindsight, it was a typical progression for a hospital birth. At the time it was traumatic. And it set off a series of unfortunate events that culminated in the person I am today.
I came out of Labor and Delivery very sad.
When my baby and I were separated for 4 hours, I got very angry and roller-coasted between the two for the next year. Nursing got off to a bad start and took about two weeks to get comfortable. I spun into Postpartum Depression. I cried all the time. I lived in a half woken state. I thought about putting my baby in the oven. I hid the knives and then moved them again and again. I knew it was a bad idea to kill him, but the thoughts haunted me.
My family organized.
My mom got me breastfeeding help. She and my sister came over to help with my baby and take me out for lunch and shopping. My husband called La Leche League. He made me come back to work in our business, so I wouldn’t be unsupervised and tried to distract me. He called therapists and took me for a physical. We started going to therapy as a family.
“Have you had thoughts of hurting your baby?”
“NO!” I lied. I thought they would separate me and my baby and probably hospitalize me. Whether or not this was true, it is what I believed. Separation would end our nursing relationship and THAT was the only thing going well.
At that time, anti-depressants were untested on nursing mothers. I refused them, preferring to nurse. Over time, we now know that not only are antidepressants safe for breastfeeding, but also that exercising is shown equally as effective as drugs in studies of nursing mothers.
My baby was a fussy baby who didn’t sleep.
He was a 2.9 in the “Colic Rule of 3″ which was still enough to rattle anyone. And nursing was the way to soothe him. I thought if I could just keep nursing and get some sleep, I would be OK.
Then, I did what turns out to be a key piece in overcoming depression.
I joined a playgroup. When my baby was six months old, I met 4 women at La Leche League and we (very shyly) agreed to meet weekly. This, more than anything, pulled me out of the hole. By one year, I still felt tired and angry, but only sad intermittently.
It was at that time, I was invited to be a La Leche League Leader. I started the application process and the rest is another story.