Results tagged “postpartum depression” from Mom's the Word

I DID try the anti-anxiety breathing exercises the psych lady gave me. I was already eating as healthy as I'd ever been, steering clear of caffeine because I was nursing, napping when Joseph did, but my PPD didn't go away.

When my midwife called to check in, I told her nothing was helping. That's when she got on the horn and got me my meds. Ahh, salvation, thy name is Serax. I got the smallest dose, 10 mg. and could take it twice a day max. It was safe for breastfeeding and the best part was I could take it at the first sign of an attack and it would work within minutes. I started feeling stronger. I could enjoy being a new mom, finally.

PPD for me was so tied to my hormones no amount of yoga or herbal teas could change it. It was real and it was so chemical and could only be helped by medication. Did I get hooked? Not at all. Because I started taking it months after I suffered the first PPD symptom, I was only on meds for about two or three months before I felt well enough to stop taking it.

I was back. And happy. And grateful. PPD was behind me and I did all I could to talk to new moms I met, telling them not to be ashamed if they felt this or that, to be assertive with their doctors and get help. The farther away my last episode was, the more I could talk about it.

It would be three years before all my hard-earned knowledge would be tested.

I got to the Kaiser mental health office in Baldwin Park OK. That was miracle enough. That I had gotten dressed, put on a pair of matching shoes was another. But I knew my blotchy face told tales. I couldn't even stop crying in the waiting room, which thankfully was almost empty. And the other two people there, one stocky man, and an older woman, didn't look the least interested in my sniffling, ragged self.

The psychiatrist who met with me for a good, oh, 10 minutes? also told me all I had were the baby blues. "It'll go away in two weeks," she assured me. When I informed her that I had been having anxiety attacks and crying jags every day, she said, "Hold on for two more weeks."

"If all of this is hormonal, couldn't you give me something to balance me out?" I asked.

"By the time we get clearance for a prescription, you'll be over it," she said, ever so kindly. "Meanwhile, try to breath when you start to cry. I notice you're hyperventilating."

Brilliant.

I haven't read Brooke Shields' book about her whirl with postpartum depression. Don't need to. I, and my sainted Hubby, lived through it. Twice.

The first thing I need to tell you about it is: It's real.