The Unexpected: Postpartum Anxiety
By: Lisa Kay Lindsay
Tags: Birth, Postpartum, Anxiety, Postpartum Anxiety, Pregnancy

The Unexpected: Postpartum Anxiety

Anxiety. This one word pretty much sums up my family. Yep, Anxiety. And I never realized or acknowledged it until it hit me in the face with sleepless nights after giving birth to my first child. I just never even thought of it. Not something I would have or even have thought about. I knew I worried about things, but I usually could use humor or get distracted by other people’s problems.

I knew growing up that people in my family were big worriers. My mom, my dad, my grandma (on my dad’s side). They would be the first ones who came to mind if I thought of anxiety or worry. But never did I ever think of myself that way. I always saw myself as a person who took things as they came along. Not much of a planner and more of a spontaneous sort of person, so I didn’t have much to worry about. I liked to just live each day as it came and see what happens. I didn’t think much about this way of living as some coping mechanism. But the more I learned about myself, the more I realized that I was using it to avoid thinking about it. I had an image of myself as different from the rest of my family. I always had an optimistic outlook on life. I believed everything would work out or go my way somehow. It may have been something I learned from my mom, who came across as naive but mostly just a hopeful and faithful person who was also very religious and believed God was watching over her always. Not a bad way to live, but not always realistic, which I felt was more of how I lived. I considered myself an optimist/realist if there is such a thing. I am mostly positive about things and yet I still realize that things can go wrong with anything we do. But I try to keep my head up and try my best to live my life that way.

I still felt very hopeful and optimistic when I became pregnant at 35. I remember feeling so old then to be having a child, as most of my friends and family had kids in their 20’s. But more and more women were having kids in their 30’s or 40’s and their kids were turning out just fine and healthy. I was lucky to get pregnant so easily as that was another factor that so many women who waited were dealing with, having trouble getting pregnant and having to use IVF or some other way to have a baby. It happened so easily. I learned how to track when I was going to ovulate, and I was pregnant within just a month of stopping my birth control pills. I felt so lucky and blessed too.

The pregnancy went so well. I really enjoyed it. Especially the part where I felt I could eat and eat and gain weight. I was so excited about that. I was always underweight my whole life. Barely on the charts up until a couple years before I got pregnant. I was excited to finally have a belly like other women and to have boobs finally at 35 years old. It was one of those pregnancies that you hear about. So comfortable and happy and of course I slept so well, which was another thing I grew up with, not being able to sleep that well which I never really acknowledged before. Apart from having to get up and pee a couple times at night, I had no problem sleeping. At least until the last month or so. When I was big and uncomfortable in the bed, I started to have sleepless nights. I was so ready for this baby to come out as soon as possible! I had been reading the famous book, “What to Expect When You are Expecting” throughout my pregnancy, so I was ready to do this! I was an expert and knew everything about giving birth and taking care of my baby! So come on now, let’s do it! I couldn’t wait. Only a few weeks left!

Luckily at 37 1/2 weeks, my water broke while we were at work in downtown Seattle and within just a few blocks of the hospital. We even drove those last few weeks to work in case we needed to go to the hospital from there. So, I was very excited. Finally, my water broke, so I knew I should be going into labor. We got to the hospital, and they checked me out, verifying that my water had broken. But I wasn’t in labor. I had to wait for a while so they could find a room for me, because I wasn’t allowed to go home since my water broke and that meant I could get an infection if I went home. So, they found me a regular room, not a birthing room, to try to induce labor. They tried several times that night and the next day with this gel that they put in my vagina to see if that will induce labor. But that wasn’t working, so finally when a room became available, they went for the Pitocin, which induces labor and can do it very suddenly and, in my words, violently. I know that sounds very dramatic to say violently but to me it was like that, because the contractions didn’t feel natural, they were very strong and I say that now, after having had a 2nd child where I had natural labor and where I wasn’t induced, the contractions were calmer and natural with that child.

My son was finally born after about 10 hours of labor. I was very happy to finally see him and so excited to finally try breastfeeding also as I had been planning to do and I had learned all about it and felt like a pro already in my mind. I didn’t worry about it at all. I was ready to do it! But it didn’t come that easy and the nurses were all set to teach me a different way than I had read about. I expected to hold my son in a cradle position, and he would latch on, no problem. But the lactation nurse came in and told me to hold him like a football under my arm. I was like, what the hell are you talking about? I don’t want to do it that way. That’s weird. I never saw anyone do it that way. My sister had a baby years before and she never held him like that when she fed him. But she kept insisting it would be easier and I just got mad at her and being I was lacking a lot of sleep I got hostile with her and even wanted someone to tell her to leave. I was very tired and cranky, and I needed to eat but so did my son, and he was crying so hard and sounded so hungry, but he couldn’t latch on. So that nurse came back in and said I need to do it the way she said. I was on the verge of tears and was so upset. So, they gave him a bottle of formula to at least get him happy and it was ok, although I was upset, feeling like this is wrong and if they would just leave me alone, I’d be fine figuring it out on my own. The first couple days were hard but when he did latch on, it brought back my confidence that I could do this parenting thing, this mommy thing that was supposed to be so easy and instinctual.

What does this have to do with Anxiety? Well, for the first time in my life I was faced with the fact that I had anxiety and that I needed to deal with it somehow. The first 6 weeks of being a mommy were very anxiety inducing. I slept so little, I was trying to function on a few hours a night and I couldn’t seem to nap when my son napped during the day. He was on a very erratic sleeping schedule, he’d sleep maybe an hour or two, then he’d wake up and cry so loud I couldn’t think. And the less I slept, the worse that was for me and my mind. I focused on feeding him and changing him and getting him to sleep, I didn’t even notice I was barely eating anything or sleeping much. I was so sleep deprived, I was anxious and worried about him and if he was ok, if he had enough to eat. I didn’t care much about myself or anyone else. I was hyper-focused on him and that was it. He cried a lot, and we were told he had acid reflux, which was why he was crying so much. I blamed myself, assuming my breast milk was bad for his stomach and that it hurt him. I felt so awful and felt like a bad mom. I didn’t have much of an appetite and wasn’t eating much at all. I couldn’t figure out how to take care of myself and take care of him. My husband was helping as best he could, but I didn’t know what to tell him or how to ask him for help and he wasn’t very good at asking me what to do. He assumed I would tell him what I needed. I felt helpless as I didn’t know what to tell him. I blamed myself more for not instinctually knowing what to do. The less I slept and the more he cried, my anxiety got worse. I worried about everything, so hyper-aware of everything happening. Constant anxiety.

Finally, we went to the ER and my blood pressure was extremely high, dangerously high. I couldn’t seem to put words together to explain what was happening and being in the ER room waiting for someone to see me took hours and that made it even worse. They just wanted to put me on high blood pressure medication and some sedative and send me away. We went to my OB/GYN doctor, and he prescribed medicine for blood pressure and for anxiety. At first everyone was saying “Postpartum depression” over and over and it drove me nuts! I wasn’t feeling depressed. I understood that as when a person never gets out of bed and is feeling down all the time. That was never what I was like, and how I wasn’t now. I got out of bed, taking care of my son, not laying around unmotivated, or sleeping all the time. It wasn’t until a psychiatrist said postpartum anxiety that I felt like anyone was really paying attention. It felt more real, like what I was going through. And so, I was put on medication that was for both depression and anxiety. It worked very well once I got past the first couple weeks. I also had to have sleeping pills at first to get my sleeping schedule back to normal. Part of my recovery time, I spent one week in the hospital getting back to a regular routine of sleeping, eating, and taking care of myself, while my family, my husband’s family, and some friends took care of my son. They were all so amazingly helpful. I just wish I’d learned earlier how to ask for their help.

That summer, my psychiatrist recommended I stay home for an extra 6 weeks off work to make sure I bonded with my son after that. I was just fine with that. I had the greatest time. Especially after my son started to smile and then giggle! I felt like I was finally myself again and this is what I was waiting for. This was what I expected. A happy baby who I could laugh with and have fun. This was what I heard about when they said being a mom was so rewarding.