Crazy? I Was Crazy Once.

A year has passed since Beulah was born. As I reflect on my time as a mother, one thought comes to mind; I was CRAZY!! I haven't talked about my PPD (postpartum depression) here since I confessed my need for medication. It has been a process. There have been ups and downs. But, I want to praise the LORD today that I am Zoloft free!!

When Andy married me, I think he thought he had it easy. No one, including me, could tell a difference in my moods when I had PMS. I never had cramps. My periods were light and short, and I was always bubbly and positive. All that changed the day Beulah was born. We have several ways of referring to the period of time (Beulah's first 8-10 months) that PPD ruled. Andy is a good and sweet husband and kindly refers to it as the time when I was in a "fog". I just say, "I was crazy!"

When I was in the fog, I didn't realize how crazy I was. I thought everyone else was crazy. But, coming out of it and looking back, I see that I was, in fact...crazy!

This weekend on our way home from Atlanta, we decided to stop at the outlet mall in Commerce for a while. We had a great time walking around with Mike & Ria, wandering in and out of shops, and enjoying the beautiful weather. Beulah took a short nap on Andy in the Baby Bjorn, I fed her in the car, and Ria & I played peek-a-boo and other games with her on the way home. At one point she started to get fussy, and I didn't know what she needed. I felt myself get the tiniest bit anxious, and then I remembered. I remembered what I was like before...when I was crazy. I played the whole scenario in my head and allowed myself to image what my reaction would have been like if I were still in my fog.

My PPD manifested itself in several different ways; ways that mimic a combination of other disorders. The most overt manifestation was my obsession with numbers. The hospital asks you to keep records of food intake and diaper output while you're in the hospital. Pediatricians don't require you to continue record keeping once released, but I did anyway. That was one early clue that something was wrong. But, it seemed right to me. While I couldn't control HER and I couldn't force her to eat or go to the bathroom, I could control the numbers on the paper.

I have always been a slave to the clock, but when my PPD was at it's worst, I could not deviate from my self-imposed schedule even one minute or the anxiety would take over and that would lead to anger. I also obsessed about the amount of food she took in. As you may remember, I kept a rented hospital scale at our house for a month or longer. I weighed Beulah (naked, no-less) before and after every breast feeding, and whatever she didn't get from me, I supplemented with formula. I was terrified about not knowing how much she took in while nursing, and I did not trust my instincts. But, I trusted the numbers. And, poor Andy, if he made a bottle and didn't put in perfectly level scoops of formula, he was going to hear about it. It was even worse if he was pouring breast-milk into a bottle and didn't get every last drop of that "liquid gold" into the bottle she would drink! Poor guy couldn't do anything right in my eyes during that time. (More on that later.)

I also had to put Beulah down for naps on time or I would implode. If I needed to go out for any reason during the day, I would get every single little thing we might need while we were out ready while she was asleep, and when she woke up it was go time. If she woke up before I was finished getting ready...well, how many times can I say "anxiety" in one post? If we were out and it was getting close to time for her to go back down, the anxiety would start to rise, I would start rushing, Beulah would start to sense my anxiety and start fussing, then we would just feed off each other creating this vicious cycle. (I managed to get "anxiety" in that sentence two more times! Woo hoo!) It was all about the clock. And, again, I refer to him as "poor Andy", but if he made the slightest sound within Beulah's ear shot while she was sleeping, he saw my eyes turn red with anger.

The Zoloft definitely helped. I could feel myself start to relax a few short days after I started taking it. My doctor wisely recommended that I stay on the medication during the holidays, as they tend to be stressful. So, in January I started to wean. A lot of my old symptoms resurfaced in January. In February, the symptoms were present during ovulation when the hormones shift drastically. In March, the symptoms continued to decrease, and now in April I am starting to feel like my old self again. Praise the LORD!!

I have so much joy every day now. Being Beulah's mom is more than I could ever ask or imagine. Andy and I look at each other everyday and shake our heads in amazement at how happy she is and how blessed we are to be her parents. Andy's mom described it best, we've gone from "Rags to riches!" That's exactly how we feel.

I still try to keep to a schedule, but most of the time I'm WAY more laid back if things aren't going as planned. I'm still obsessed with her cleanliness. For some reason I can't stand the thought of her clothes getting stained or ruined, so I can be pretty controlling during feedings. I tell myself it doesn't matter and I shouldn't be that way, but it doesn't change. And, I'm still trying to figure out how to cope when I'm cooking and she's hanging on my legs. That's the one time I get really anxious. I think it's because cooking is so time sensitive and I can't always just stop and tend to her when there's food on the stove.

In my fog, I felt justified in all of my thoughts and actions. I couldn't imagine feeling any different. I thought everyone else should feel exactly like I did, and I got angry when they didn't. I would tell Andy through tears that I just wanted somebody else to care as much as I did and to understand how important all this was. He and my mom got the brunt of it. They are saints in my eyes. I seemed to control myself better around Andy's mom, but I wasn't hiding anything. She saw it and was a huge help too, as was Andy's sister. Others would come just to sit with me and keep me company, encourage me, or help out if I needed it. I thank God so much for putting people around me to help ground me.

I'm sure I haven't even begun to see all the damage that was done during that time. I know that my controlling behavior effected Andy's confidence as a dad. It made him gun-shy to try anything. He was afraid that I would reprimand him for not doing things like I thought they should be done. But, thankfully, our LORD is in the healing business, and He has started the healing process already. I try to give Andy freedom to become the dad that God wants him to be. I try to stand back and let him find his own ways of interacting with Beulah and his own ways of accomplishing the tasks related to her care. That's not always easy, but it is necessary. It's not just women who go through PPD. Men go through it too. If you know a man going through PPD with his wife, encourage him. Send him a link to this so that he can see there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I thank God for His grace in healing our family. It gives me hope that we could do this again if He chooses to bless us with another child!

Depression Confession

The week after my last post was the best week Beulah and I have had together. I could literally feel your prayers. Those of you that I talked to personally, I told you that things were better; not because the situation had changed, but because God had changed me. That week, I started to write a post about how God had turned my mountain into a mole hill and had given me peace about Beulah’s problems. He opened my eyes to other people's struggles that dwarf ours by a long shot. It put things into perspective and helped me to cope. I also stopped expecting things to go perfectly so that I didn't freak out when they didn't. Andy found his own way to cope. He made the point that Beulah could have been born to any family. What if she had been born to a family with a dad that had anger problems? What would happen to her? Thank you, God, for blessing us with this precious child!

This new perspective certainly helped, but so did YOU. I received such an outpouring of love and support after my last post that I don't have words to express my gratitude. Not only did I discover that there are many MANY more of you that had a rough start with your little one(s), I've also had offer after offer for help. One friend even blocked out a weekly time to help with whatever I happen to need that day! People have brought us food and cleaned our house. Some have even offered to hold Beulah during worship so I could go in to hear the message! You people are amazing!! Thank you, and thank God for meeting me where I am and acknowledging that what I am feeling is very real despite the fact that it pales in comparison to the problems of some others (Romans 14:1). You have been, for us, what God intended community to be (1 Corinthians 12). THANK YOU!!

Now for the update...


The week Andy was in Guatemala, I took Beulah to GA to stay with my parents. Up to that point, Beulah had only been waking one time every night, which didn’t bother me a bit. I actually liked the nighttime feeding. It was a peaceful, quiet time with my little angel, unlike the daytime. Andy didn’t have to help because it wasn’t like I was up for long. But, the week we were in GA, she started waking five or more times each night. After the third night of it, my mom came in around 7 AM when she heard Beulah crying. She offered to take Beulah for me, which I gladly accepted. After I passed her off, I went to another room and stated sobbing. I had already put her down five times and she had just woken right back up. I was exhausted. I went back to sleep for two more hours while Mama took care of Beulah.

Unfortunately, things didn’t get back to “normal” when we got home. She continued waking 5+ times every night. And, because the pattern had been set for me to do the nighttime feedings without Andy’s help, I was doing it alone. He would have helped, but I knew he had to work, so I didn’t ask him to. Several nights she woke up every single hour. Most times, she wouldn’t nap during the day either, unless she was being held by someone. Sadly enough, I can’t sleep with her on or even near me. Trust me, at that point I would have considered co-sleeping if I thought I could sleep. To top it all off, I started to have insomnia. I don’t know whether it was anxiety because I wasn’t sleeping, or if I was just laying there waiting for her to wake up. I was more than exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. Insomnia helps during the night when your baby wakes up every hour, but it does nothing for the daytime.

After three weeks of this, my mom came to stay a week and help me with Beulah. By that point, I was so exhausted I was literally losing my mind. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture. That became more apparent to me every day/night. The second night my mom was there was one of the nights I was up every single hour. At 5 AM, when Beulah started crying, I finally asked Andy if he would go get her. It hadn’t been long since I put her down, and I was getting so angry, I thought it would be better for someone else to care for her. I wasn’t angry at her or even God anymore; I was just angry and tired. Andy tried for about 10 minutes to calm and satisfy her, but nothing was working. I knew that the only thing that would help was nursing. So, very frustrated, I told him to bring her to me. I started nursing her. But, the anger had welled up inside of me and it had to come out. I didn’t want to hurt her, and I didn’t want to break anything, so I just wacked myself in the forehead with my fist two times really hard. That’s when Andy knew that this was serious.

The third night, when Beulah woke up at 10 PM, then 11 PM, then 12 AM and I knew I had the rest of the night like that to look forward to, I lost it again. I left Beulah in the crib crying and I sobbed on my knees in the bathroom. That night, my mom & Andy sent me to the couch with some Tylenol PM (I had been fighting a headache all day) and they did shifts taking care of Beulah. That was the most consecutive hours of sleep I’ve had since Beulah was born. It was great! But, the next day, I was still exhausted and showing signs of anger. So, the fourth night, they sent me to the couch again. The fifth night, I tried to get back in the mix. I was going to take a shift or two. But, when she woke up after having only been asleep for 15 minutes, my reaction made it apparent that I wasn’t quite ready yet. Couch again. You’d think that after three nights on the couch I would have felt better. But, I only felt more exhausted. The next day, Andy called and made an appointment for me to see a doctor about the possibility of postpartum depression (PPD).

The potential need for medication had come up before. But, so many people had warned me about the hormones and how “crazy” I would get after the baby was born, that I thought this was normal. I wouldn’t even consider that I—someone who had waited 6 years for this—could have postpartum depression. I was supposed to be the happiest mother on the earth! I always ignored the articles and chapters on PPD because I thought it could never happen to someone who was so happy to have a baby and I didn't have any of the risk factors. But, Andy, my mom, Andy’s mom, and some others reassured me that THIS was NOT normal. So, I went to the appointment.

The Doctor was great. He took the time to listen and evaluate. He said, “We underestimate our need for sleep.” I told him that the anger was so intense that it was potentially serious. He said, “It’s not ‘potentially serious’, it IS serious.” He recommended medication temporarily to help get me through this rough time. I agreed, because I knew that my stress was passing on to Beulah and creating this cyclical nightmare. So, I, “smiley” (as some have called me in the past), am on Zoloft. Yes, me; the one whose glass is always half full; the one who laughs at every little thing. I am on an anti-depressant.

I still don’t want to call it PPD. In my mind, that would mean that I don’t love and enjoy my baby (that's what I thought PPD was), which is SO not true. I haven’t wanted to harm her nor do I resent her in any way. I adore her! We have loads of fun and laughs during her wake time. It's the feeding and sleeping that trigger the anxiety and anger. I have to remind myself that postpartum depression is not borne out of my heart, it is my body's response to delivery. I also don’t feel what I have imagined people who are depressed feel; no suicidal thoughts. But, if anxiety, anger and a sense that things will never get better is depression, then that’s me. If I submit and call it “postpartum depression”, my fear is that it will steal the glory of God’s miracle in having created Beulah in the first place. But, as my dear mother-in-law and cousin reminded me, the miracle was her conception. Nothing can take that away. God didn’t promise that life would be perfect for me or for her.

I would much rather say that it is “situational depression”; that I am having this anger and anxiety because of our current situation. This is happening to me because I am exhausted, and once I get some rest, it’ll all go away. But, the reality is, there have been signs of this from the first day we brought her home. I have been completely obsessive and neurotic. Our moms saw it. Andy saw it. You may have even seen it too. If you have been reading my posts since she’s been born, you’ll notice that there is a stark change in tone from the posts before she was born.

Sometimes I think that God is into bartering. For example, I thought that this would never happen to me because I suffered through infertility. In other words, if I make it through one trial, I deserve a break. I've earned it. It's my right as a Christian. But, nothing could be further from the truth. Besides the fact that we live in a fallen world and should never expect anything to be perfect (until heaven), just the fact that I'm a human means that I don't deserve anything...well, actually I deserve God's wrath (Romans 3). But, that’s why God sent His son, so that I don’t have to get what I deserve. That’s what mercy is. Instead, I get what I don’t deserve; an inheritance with Christ in Heaven! That’s what grace is. And, that's what really matters; not all this other stuff. But, I'm still here in this flawed world. So, after six years of infertility, I have a baby with colic who won’t sleep or self sooth and I’m tired. It seems important to me now. It reminds me that I can't do it alone, that in this life, we need a Savior. Trials force us to rely on Him.

“But,” you say, “Christians shouldn’t need medication. God should just fix us." And, the debate ensues. But, despite where you and I stand on the issue, I AM on medication, and it seems to be helping; that, plus the fact that Andy is taking a very active role in my recovery. He's a huge help in the night time. I am no longer anxiety ridden, and the insomnia seems to be subsiding. Praise the LORD!

Another step towards freedom will come when I learn to let go of the “should do’s”. The doctors, books and articles all say you shouldn't nurse your baby to sleep. But, sometimes she's so keyed up that I have to get her almost asleep before she'll eat, so of course she falls asleep while she's nursing. They also say you should put your baby down for naps (don't hold them while they sleep). But, when I've done that, she wakes up after 15 minutes or less with her legs flying in the air from gas. On me, she can sleep up to 3 solid hours. And, the rules go on and on. So, what if you follow all those rules, but your baby won't/can't comply? That's enough to drive a rule follower like me out of my mind! So, I'm trying to let those "should do's" go so that I can relax and do what is best (and what works) for Beulah. Sure, I may have a hard time breaking many of the habits that are forming now, but for the most part, we don't have a choice. We're in "survival mode", as we call it.

Since my appointment, I've discovered that postpartum depression is much more common than I knew. The Doctor told me that, but I didn't really know until I started telling people. It seems like more than half of the mothers I've talked to have had postpartum depression with at least one of their pregnancies. Some of you reading this may now suspect that you may have had it too, but either you didn't know it at the time or you didn't get a diagnosis. I don't know if there's just such a bad stigma about it that people don't talk about it, or if I've just been blind to it in my years of wanting a baby. Either way, I'm thankful for the women who have opened up and shared their story with me so that I don't feel like something is wrong with me that I need to keep hidden.

I receive weekly e-newsletters from The Baby Center that tell me about my baby's development and how my life might be effected as a result. This excerpt is from an article sent in the first couple of months that stuck with me. I was impressed with the honesty and thankful for the permission to admit that things weren't exactly what I expected.

"Even when you're the happiest person on earth to be a new parent, it's common to have nagging little feelings of disappointment. Not that you want to tell anyone. But you spent nine months imagining what your baby would be like and now here he is — perhaps not exactly what you'd pictured. Parents of a baby born with a health problem are especially vulnerable to this feeling of not getting what they'd bargained for. But parents of healthy children often have such feelings too. In all of these situations, there's a wonderful new baby to celebrate. And yet there's often an imaginary baby to mourn before the real baby can be fully embraced. Rarely does anybody talk about this phenomenon, but it's perfectly normal and human. So if your joy is tinged with a little regret, don't feel guilty. Give yourself a little space to privately grieve, and then count the blessings you do have."

I love y'all, and am so thankful for your support. I'm thankful for the calls and e-mails, even if I don't return them. They encourage me. And, one day, I will find it easier to respond. In the meantime, thank you for continuing to reach out to me. You truly are the warm arms and hands of Christ to me.