Modern Day Humpty Dumpty August 26, 2010

If any of you are looking for someone to birth your baby for you…look elsewhere.  I loved giving birth but the ole’ baby factory is out of business.  Literally.  Even though it’s been 4 1/2 months, me lady acts like it was just yesterday that I squeezed out my delicious baby.  I have gone to the doctor so many times that they should name an exam room in my honor.  I go so often and love everyone there so much that I actually look forward to going.  That is a far cry from the girl who went at 16 and felt like she just had to walk around the mall naked.  Traumatized.

So buddies, after 4 1/2 months of giving my body time to heal, 3 medicines, and 3 exams, I, Rebecca Broken Bottom, am going to have to have surgery in the southern lands next week.  Woo HOOOOOOOOO! 

When I gave birth I was so excited because I didn’t have an episiotomy.  I really didn’t want one.  Apparently, (men cover your ears)  I tore around there anyways so I did have stitches unbeknownst to me.  Somewhere in the process of tearing, sewing, and healing, something went a rye.  I believe there are messed up nerves but I was confused about it all by the time I left.  SO how is it going to be fixed?  I have to go in and have an episiotomy without even giving birth!  They are going to cut me open, do me some fixin’, and sew me back up again.  Anyone who has had a baby knows what that means….no toielt paper for 6 weeks,  continued abstinence but hey, we are used to that now, a water bottle sprayer every time I go the bathroom, pain sitting and standing, and how could I forgot the feeling of sitting on a knife?  Actually, I did forget.  When she first told me I was going to have surgery I was like, “YES!  A mommy break!”  It’s sad when you look forward to surgery so you can get some sleep and TLC.  I get to lay in a hospital bed for 8 hours while sipping hospital juice.  Livin’ the good life baby.  I told the doctor, “If surgery is how I can have a break then cut me up sister!”  She smiled and said, “I’ve never seen someone so excited for surgery!”  I was temporarily happy for the break and, of course, for a solution for my baby garden but then I remembered the toilet paper and the Tucks pads and worst of all….having to go to the bathroom.  

After it’s all said and done, I’ll have to take 6 weeks to heal and then go for another check-up. The tally for this whole having children event goes like this:  2 years of infertility, one laprascopic surgery, one test at the hospital, one pregnancy, 6 ultrasounds, one miscarriage scare, one labor, one baby, post partum depression, 6 1/2 months of exams and healing, and at the end of the day we all eat cake and laugh.  hahahahahahahaha. Lance shall fear the bearing children from my loins from this day forward.

Goodbye toilet paper.  I’ll miss you.

No Boy Allowed June 3, 2010

Raise your hand if you are sad to not get to go to your gyno/ob on a regular basis. Me! That’s me. I had my 6 week postpartum check-up today and I’m gonna miss all my homies at the office. I love those kiddos all helping me make humans and what not.

Today I apparently learned that there is no room in the inn. Actually, there is probably plenty of room in the inn but the Dr. gave the ole’ wha-toosie a no go for activity for another 2 weeks. Someone please send Lance flowers or something.

I tried to prepare him for his devastation for the night before by telling him that even if I was cleared, I would probably un-clear myself. Due to some unidentified abrasion that resembles an episiotomy, I didn’t think I could do it even if the doc said I was good to go. She actually thought I had an episiotomy that didn’t heal. Problem was, I didn’t have an episiotomy. Then she asked if we had gone back to “marital activites” before coming in for my 6 week check-up. I thought she was a crazy person to ask me that. Who these women are that conquer birth and then conquer the marriage bed before clearance are like some sort of procreational superheros. I mean, if you feel healed that’s one thing but for me, heck-to-the-no. I love my husband, but I also love healing and the physical well-being of my reproductive system.

To help this alien tear in my southern hemisphere, she put something on it called silver…something or another. She told me it would burn. If your doctor says the word silver to you  then tell them, “You better say that to my face!!”  And when she looks at you and says, “Silver”, it’s best to just go ahead and punch her in the neck.  This way you’ll be even.

“Burn or hurt?”

“Well…it’s…gonna burn.”

My dr. warned me before she put it on and it felt something of a hacksaw going into my open wound. It actually felt like she was physically tearing my baby entrance with her fingers until I realized it was the dear burning she had mentioned. Hey, I had an easy labor though so I had to pay my dues somehow. Wait a second, I had postpartum depression….she tricked me!

Today we talked about me having future children which is something that scares me and makes me anxious given the experience I had. She shocked me and said that I had the worst case of postpartum anxiety she had ever seen in her years of practice and that she thought she was going to have to put me in the hospital overnight. I was FLOORED by that. I knew I thought I was going to die from that experience and it was extremely terrible but still, to hear her say that was like, “Whoa, wait a second sister!”  You always think that ”that” person is gonna be someone else.  I don’t know what I thought a serious case entailed but again, how could that be me?  That’s the story you tell other people.  It isn’t YOU.  Anyways, because of that she said she never wanted me to ever breastfeed again if I had another child. She said my body couldn’t handle what breastfeeding hormones do to a body and that basically, it wouldn’t be wise for me. In a way, I feel a sense of anxiety lifted off of my future child-bearing chest because of those doctors orders. I think knowing that I will be able to have help immediately from others with my future babies by bottle feeding them gives me a peace that maybe I wouldn’t go back to that dark hole via the sleep deprivation that kicked it off for me.  She told me again, “Don’t feel guilty about bottle feeding your babies! Look at Eden!  She is just fine!”

Just in case you are like me and wanted to breastfeed and felt bad about your switch to formula….even the formula companies aren’t on your side.  On the front of the formula cans they say BREASTMILK IS BEST FOR YOUR BABY.  Great because I was really wanting to do the second best thing for my baby, Mr. Sassy Can.  They want you to feel guilty one scoop at a time. 

I wish I knew I shouldn’t breastfeed before I tried.  Maybe I would’ve saved the damage to the old gals, if ya know what I mean.  Although, I would’ve never known what it was like to really have boobs if it weren’t for that.  AND I did love breastfeeding my child.  Dang these double-edged swords.  I have to start carrying only one-edged swords.

In other obgyn news, I’m going to start the pill again for the first time in 4 years.  Yay!  I really missed puking those up.  Here’s to hoping they all stay down and babies stay put in egg form for at least a little while.  After formally swearing off any form of hormonal birth control, I decided to take the pill to keep myself from having estrogen spikes which keeps endometriosis from growing ,which keeps me from going through infertility again, which equals = worth it.  I’ll start those puppies tonight.  I’m sure with all the talk I do about animals that some of you think I’m talking about real puppies but I’m not.  But if I were they’d be beagles.

So, my visit today ended with a thank you letter to my doctor that made us both cry, silver whatever it is below my belt, and a sack of puppies. (Remember I’m talking about my pills, not a real bag of puppies.  I can never explain too much when I reference the animal kingdom.)

It’s been 10 and a half months of visits for babies, then postpartum, and one final check-up and whoever thought I’d miss the lady that puts a spotlight on my ashamed parts on a regular basis.  Oh but I do!  I might just have to have children just to go through all the excitement and anticipation again.  Just kidding.  I should probably get a puppy to take care of those feelings.  A REAL puppy.  Just kidding about that, too.  I love cats.

Beautiful Redemption May 30, 2010

This blog is for Marissa, Jayna, Charlotte, & Suzanne for reminding me that this would be a beautifully redeemed experience in my life.  And to my family, friends, and husband that God had grace on me to have. 

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REDEEM (rĭ-dēḿ)

To fulfill

To set free; rescue or ransom.

To restore the honor, worth, or reputation of

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I laid there in the wee early morning hours after her 5 am-ish feeding with her fist by her face and her teensy body laying sideways beside me on the bed.  She loves to lay on her side and always has that little fist by her face.  That’s something she must’ve done constantly in the womb which I couldn’t have known just 6 weeks ago.

The birds start chirping in the background.  Blasted birds.  They are a reminder that the day is starting whether you’ve been awake at 5 with a bottle in your hand or not.  The sun was just starting to rise and it casted a colorful light on my baby’s profile as the light peered through our orange-colored curtains.  I just stared at her and listened her to breathe and squeak on that pacifier she adores while she sucked it intermittently.  I thought about who I was that particular morning in contrast to who I had been just a week or so earlier.  The difference in how I see her and the world is a stark contrast, comparatively.  I looked at her perfection of a flawless shaped nose, pure head of dark hair, intricate little fingers by her face and my heart softened.  I could look at her for hours.  I thought intensely about the past month and a half of my life and thought about what was said to me in my struggle:

“God will redeem this into something beautiful.”

I wondered if I should write this now.  This was such an intense experience that maybe it needed more time to marinate.  Barely anytime has passed and I’ve started to write this blog and stopped again just thinking I should really give this experience time to show itself redeemed in my life.  Then I realized that this will be continually redeemed and perpetually useful in my life.  I can already see the ways that God has used this to work out a purpose.

Me, being the perfectionist that I am, had less important things in life literally beat out of me. I couldn’t hold on to them anymore as the sudden mother of a newborn. If I tried to hold on to the perfectly put together house, I would’ve been consumed by postpartum all for the sake of freshly vacuumed carpet with the vacuum lines perfectly pressed in. The priority of a straightened even, dare I say, sanitized home…gone.   If I would’ve cared about the flab on my belly, I would’ve been overtaken for the sake of vanity. The need to look together….gone.   It’s funny how, even in moments of hysteria, God immediately changes your worldview and gives you some perspective in your life.  It doesn’t come in a subtle way.  More of a screaming baby and instant life change but clarity of what matters comes even in the fog of it all.  I feel more of a depth of myself now.  A wisdom.  A glimpse inside of a journey where the only things in life that matter weren’t what seemed to matter 14 hours of labor earlier.  Someone told me when I was struggling and feeling like a hamster on a wheel where time passed into time and my routine felt like that of an empty robot that…. “I was doing exactly what God intended for me to do each day: feed and love that baby of mine.”  All of the sudden what seemed like a hopeless tunnel of monotony and sorrow felt purposeful.  And even though in that moment I couldn’t fully see it,  I knew it was better than the restful days, cute homes, and toned body I had before.  It seems so obvious when you type it out but when you go through a total loss of who you were before in a hospital overnight, you don’t see how infantile and meaningless some of your everyday ways were before.  I still like a newly cleaned look on my floors.  I just like being in ragged pj’s all day and looking at a child who just smiled at me for the first time a lot better than the things that felt good to me before.  I can rest easy at night knowing that I took care of a beautiful little girl just the way I was supposed to.  Not only that but she knows me.  She senses me in the room.  She turns her head to hear my voice and she’s comforted when she cries when I whisper into her ear.  She’s mine and I get to take care of her with my unbrushed teeth and bags under my eyes.  I’m her only mother.  There will be other cute houses in my life someday.

Redemtion continues….

In a 6 year marriage and an 8 year relationship, a lot of damage can be done.  Somewhere in between “I do” and laying next to a tiny person that’s half of us both, somethings get lost along the way.  Namely, my vulnerability to Lance has been pretty well shot.  After time.  After hurts.  After daily life.  After failures.  After seasons of anger or pain.  2,012 days at a time parked me at a place with a man I loved, with a wall I despised but felt safe behind.  As I started to crumble in front of my family and Lance, I saw a man who I knew was there at an altar in Kentucky 6 years ago this August.  If I ever had doubts of the extraordinary man I married, they ended one anxious, sleepless, postpartum day at a time.  He took care of my every need.  When I would sit in an emotional void state with only hours of sleep in days and raging hunger and anxiety in my belly, he would sit up with me.  He would take our baby girl when I was crying and frustrated at 2 am and bounce her and sing her songs he had written about her being the best girl.  One night I got up to feed her and as I was pulling Eden out of her pack and play he woke up and said, “Do you want me to get behind you?”  He crawled over to my side of the bed and I sat in between his legs and laid on his chest while he held me and I nursed our baby in my arms.  In that moment, it was everything I needed. He was everything I needed. I needed him to hold me up both in his arms and emotionally and he was.  Without being asked.

Every night I would collaspse onto the bed desperate for sleep and he would come curl up behind me and spoon me for a minute.  I was like a child that needed their mother in the middle of the night to comfort them when they were sick and I craved that few minutes every night.  When you get married, you are passing the responsibility of care that your parents once assumed for you on to your spouse and he was fulfilling that role.  He would pray out loud while he held my hand each night and then we would tackle and battle through it all…together.  I haven’t been that totally dependent on another person since I was a newborn myself.  As I fell down hard and he rose to the occasion, I felt years of hurt and un-vunerability be chipped away until I found myself the blushing bride he married, ready to give her heart fully and trusting again.  I felt renewed.  I was his.  Again.

If I had to give a praise to this experience or a word to it that sums it all up, it would be rescued.  It was such a deep dark experience for me that really no one saw it but my family and husband.  I kept myself hidden.  To most people they talked to me before it hit and then when I was normal again a month later.  To most of the world, it was like it never happened.  But it was real and because of the reality of it I HAD to be rescued because I was in total dependence.  I couldn’t do anything for myself or pull from anything inside of me because I was 100 percent shot by it all.  There was no other choice but for me to be recused because I couldn’t save myself.  With every meal, prayer, my sweet doctor, and the Lord who gave me his mercy and grace to have all of those things, little by little I was being pulled from the waters I was being swallowed by. What was once drowning became floating to the surface being pulled from my circumstance.

Thank you, Jesus.

All of this to me is redemption.  Saved from my mess to wake up to a pint-sized, fuzzy-headed baby girl and find a clearer headed version of myself with a better perspective on life.  Redeemed to find a more well-rounded woman who is learning daily to be less selfish.  Redeemed to find a new pair of eyes for the man who I knew wouldn’t be a mistake to choose for forever.  Redeemed to praise God for his daily mercies and his sovereignty in my life with each family member, friend, and spouse He gave to me for such a time as this. Redeemed to praise Him for being Him.

The most wonderful thing about it all is that it will continue to show itself purposeful in my life.  Every time I can take a crying new mother’s baby so she can rest and talk to her and encourage her about the light and redemption that is hard to see.  Every time I get an email from a mom who has read my journey and says thank you and asks me how she can cope with this time in her life.  And redeeming still when I go to the hospital to see Eden’s first child and answer the phone a few days later to an exhausted and depleted new mommy on the other end.  I can tell her, “I remember when I was so weak and defeated that I couldn’t even pick you up.  I couldn’t stop crying and crying.  I felt like I could never be a mother on my own and then almost as quickly as I went under, I found myself cuddled next to you in bed as the sunlight traced your face and I loved every inch of you and being your mom.  Then I realized I was doing it.  And being your mom was the best thing I’ve ever done.”

I hear my sweet baby crying softly for me in the next room fighting the nap we both probably need.  I feel overwhelmed while I write this but for once, in a good way.  I’m so happy that after all the pills, prayers, shame, joy, rising, and stumbling that on the other side of it all was motherhood.  I suppose it was motherhood all along. 

I find myself where I prayed I’d be: a young stay at home mother to a child that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to have.  I feel rescued. I feel hopeful.  I feel an abundance of love and the richness of the blessing of a child.  And as my eyes well up with tears, more than anything I feel myself and this miraculous disaster being redeemed. 

 And just as it was promised….

it’s beautiful.

Might As Well Get Learned: Difference Between Baby Blues & PPD May 25, 2010

I figured since I wrote about my postpartum depression and had one bah-jillion readers on it that I might as well post what it clinically is and what the difference is between the baby blues and PPD.  Here is a very brief, professional, NON-exhaustive overview about the two with the site links attached.  At the end, I’ll write a little blurb about my symptoms and experience and when I knew it was beyond normal.  Remember that PPD is a spectrum and you could be anywhere from like me to sucidal or somewhere in between.  You will know when something isn’t right.

What’s the difference between “baby blues,” postpartum depression, and postpartum psychosis?

 

The baby blues can happen in the days right after childbirth and normally go away within a few days to a week. A new mother can have sudden mood swings, sadness, crying spells, loss of appetite, sleeping problems, and feel irritable, restless, anxious, and lonely. Symptoms are not severe and treatment isn’t needed. But there are things you can do to feel better. Nap when the baby does. Ask for help from your spouse, family members, and friends. Join a support group of new moms or talk with other moms.

Postpartum depression can happen anytime within the first year after childbirth. A woman may have a number of symptoms such as sadness, lack of energy, trouble concentrating, anxiety, and feelings of guilt and worthlessness. The difference between postpartum depression and the baby blues is that postpartum depression often affects a woman’s well-being and keeps her from functioning well for a longer period of time. Postpartum depression needs to be treated by a doctor. Counseling, support groups, and medicines are things that can help.

Postpartum psychosis is rare. It occurs in 1 or 2 out of every 1000 births and usually begins in the first 6 weeks postpartum. Women who have bipolar disorder or another psychiatric problem called schizoaffective disorder have a higher risk for developing postpartum psychosis. Symptoms may include delusions, hallucinations, sleep disturbances, and obsessive thoughts about the baby. A woman may have rapid mood swings, from depression to irritability to euphoria.

http://www.medicinenet.com/postpartum_depression/page2.htm

Depression after pregnancy is called postpartum depression or peripartum depression. After pregnancy, hormonal changes in a woman’s body may trigger symptoms of depression. During pregnancy, the amount of two female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, in a woman’s body increases greatly. In the first 24 hours after childbirth, the amount of these hormones rapidly drops back down to their normal non-pregnant levels. Researchers think the fast change in hormone levels may lead to depression, just as smaller changes in hormones can affect a woman’s moods before she gets her menstrual period.

Occasionally, levels of thyroid hormones may also drop after giving birth. The thyroid is a small gland in the neck that helps to regulate your metabolism (how your body uses and stores energy from food). Low thyroid levels can cause symptoms of depression including depressed mood, decreased interest in things, irritability, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, sleep problems, and weight gain. A simple blood test can tell if this condition is causing a woman’s depression. If so, thyroid medicine can be prescribed by a doctor.

http://www.medicinenet.com/postpartum_depression/article.htm

STATISTICS:

According to a report published in The New England Journal of Medicine, up to 13 percent of new mothers suffer from postpartum depression (PPD).

Since there are nearly four million births in the U.S. annually, a half million women cope with this disorder every year. For those who have suffered previous bouts of depression, more than one in four are at risk for another episode.

….70-85 % of women experience baby blues…

http://www.ynhh.org/healthlink/womens/womens_8_03.html

MY TURN:

First of all, everyone’s experiences and symptoms are different and only you know when you can’t handle it or need help.  Now that we have that out of the way…here’s my experience in bullet points.  These intense symptoms let me know that this wasn’t just the blues.

-not eating for several days

-vomitting because of anxiety

-gagging or dry heaving when I put food in my mouth because my anxiety had upset my stomach so badly

-waking up breathing hard and shallow like a panic attack with my mind racing which usually kept me up and then I’d cry and not be able to fall back to sleep again, thus, insomina

-insomnia inspite of being extremely sleep deprived i.e.- go to bed at 4 am and sleep one hour

-bouts of crying spells, many audible sobbing spells due to feeling hopeless, anxiety, defeated, OVERWHELMED and then some

-compulsive thoughts of things happening to my baby.  I, personally, didn’t have thoughts of hurting my baby although that is very common.  The thoughts I had very compulsive, anxious thoughts of things happening to her like being dropped or us getting in car wrecks etc.  In general, things that upset me greatly but the thoughts haunted me even though I didn’t want to have them and they were pretty graphic to me.

-feelings of deadness and not wanting to do it anymore, feeling incapable

-emotional emptiness and withdraw from others.  Visitors made me very anxious and I didn’t want to talk to anyone or even listen to voicemails. My phone was on silent for 4 weeks.

-irrational anxious concerns i.e.- worrying about the cats and feeling really deeply sad about not being able to take care of them

-trouble thinking/concentrating/remembering

-feeling hopeless like it would never end and so overtaken by it that I thought it was physically going to kill me if I didn’t have a remedy for my distress

For me, these things developed very quickly and were handled very quickly by seeking my dr.’s help right away.  The difference for me between these symptoms and the baby blues was the inability to function and the intensity of the symptoms.  I physically couldn’t bring myself to lift my baby to feed her when she was next to me because I was so physically shot by the anxiety and toll it was taking on me.  Lance would have to hand her to me when she wasn’t even a foot away.

I always felt love for my baby and wanted to care for her but not all women do in these cases.  However, I had feelings of “I don’t want to do this anymore” very frequently.  It was as if I wanted my baby and to be her mother but that I wanted someone else to take care of her because I thought I couldn’t do it.

To encourage anyone who reads this, if you feel this way, it is much more common than you think and most women have at least the baby blues which are intense enough.  You aren’t crazy!  You can get help and get better!  You can be and are a good mom.  Just get help when you need it.  I saved myself by doing so.  Like I said, I went down really fast and got really bad but I recovered really fast due to many factors, the Lord above, and medication.  My baby is 5 weeks old this Sunday and not only can I do it, I am doing it and I never thought I could.  Not only that, I enjoy doing it and I miss my baby when she’s gone for even an hour.  I truly love and enjoy being a mom and you can and will too when the fog lifts by whatever means it takes for it to lift.  Accept help when it’s offered from ANYONE unless they are unstable or drive a big scary van full of candy for children.  =0)  Hope this helped someone out there =0)