Healing

Today I write as a different woman, a normal woman.

(My husband would never call me 'normal', but in all seriousness, that is what I now am.)

After each of my 4 pregnancies, I charted my fertility. My charting after my 4th pregnancy was strikingly different from the previous 3, which were all typical breast-feeding fertility charts. Not so this time, my chart showed 100% infertility.

I had been relying on a zoloft-relative to deal with my ppd. (They're called SSRI's.) What the drug did was mellow me out, take out the highs & lows, numb me. It was a much better state than life without it. (Just ask my husband. I tried to stop taking it twice.) Prompted by my fertility charts, however, I decided to contact the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, NE. I used to work at the Institute, and I was aware of Dr. Tom Hilgers' use of progesterone to treat ppd. Before long I got a package in the mail from a compounding pharmacy containing my "pio" - progesterone in oil - and 5 sets of syringes. After relying on it for 9 months, I quit taking the SSRI.

A nurse/friend taught my husband how to give me the shot in my derriere. I gave myself the second shot the next day. The third day was typically lousy. The morning of day 4, I woke up feeling as though I had come out of a coma. 3 more shots followed over the next week. That was 3 weeks ago, and I still feel healed. Signs of normal fertility have returned to my charting.

I feel normal, and blessed. "Normal" means I still get sleep-deprived when my baby is up all night with a cold, I still get frustrated when huge messes get made, I still get mad when I have a disagreement with my husband. But I am most certainly NOT depressed! Gone is that relentless desire to crawl into my bed all day long, and avoid other people. Gone is the incessant pain in my heart that weighed me down each day. And in place of the bad feelings, I am once again enjoying my children! I am exercising, reading for fun, getting my house back in order. My mind is more clear. I am reaching out to others. I feel whole again, and I want to tell the world about it. I think God has lifted this cross from me. I feel confident that my family & marriage can survive anything now!

my hardest days

Today is a hard day for me. Absolutely no reason why it should be different from any other, but I do take comfort knowing that these days are typically followed by one less painful.

Here's the main thing: I don't feel like doing anything. Not even the things I really enjoy doing. I find myself sitting in my rocking chair, daydreaming, aching, staring. One of my favorite pastimes is doing "school work" with my kids - showing them things, reading them books, explaining things to them, helping them. On my "bad" days, however, I can't get started. It's good that there are fun & interesting things all over our home for them, so they are always busy.

I keep praying and trusting, but I feel nothing. I don't know what to say to my husband. Do I hide all of this? Do I try to act 'normal'? If I tell him how I feel, will he think that I don't like my life? Because I love it so very much. I'm just going through this time of trial, waiting for it to end.

Learning to Knit

My ppd began during my pregnancy. I learned through my research that it often does.

I continued to care for my 3 other children, but all the spaces of time in-between diapers and meals and loads of laundry were hard to get through. Mostly, I felt numb. Excruciatingly numb.

I was walking through Hobby Lobby one day, and when I passed the knitting needles, I decided to give it a try. I bought some yarn and a beginner's booklet. And I began to knit. I didn't have a project in mind, I just kept making those knots over and over and over. And I let the minutes pass.

What it feels like

I am unmotivated to do anything. I feel completely empty inside, numb. Disconnected. I am on the verge of tears, always.

When I was pregnant, this led me to spend more and more of my days lying in bed. Sure, I'd get up to take care of the kids when they needed me, and if company was coming over I'd clean up. But mostly, I just stayed in bed. Oh, and I had intense and unrelenting sugar cravings. I told my OB that I was spending my days in bed, eating cake & ice cream.

Since the baby was born, I spend hours rocking her. 4 young children around doesn't permit me much time in bed anymore, but I still do a whole lot of nothing, here and there.

Beginning an SSRI helped beyond words, although the first few days it made me feel like a nauseated zombie.

I was warned that at some point after the birth, my PPD might intensify. And that's where I'm at today. The SSRI seems to have "quit" working. I need to get my dosage increased. I don't expect this "phase" of the disease to last long, but no doubt it's here. I feel back at square one, with more responsibilities on my plate than ever before, and this beautiful 2-mo-old smiling at me, cooing, and looking straight into my eyes.

My husband quips, "come on, buckle up."

I'm thinking, "I can't."

Why so quiet?

I admit I like to talk. If you asked my husband, he'd probably tell you that I talk too freely about everything. I'm a very "open" person. Except when it comes to one thing only: my PPD.

Why? Why haven't I told anyone except for my husband and a small handful of close friends?

Maybe women in the next generation will live in a society more educated about ppd, and there won't be such a stigma attached to it. My generation knows about PPD, but still has misconceptions.

I don't have PPD psychosis.
I'm not ungrateful for my baby.
I'm not a bad mom.

And lastly, I don't want people to feel like they have to hover around me.

I am a devout Catholic woman, and I associate with a lot of moms who have (or want) a LOT of children. They gush about what a beautiful thing it is to be pregnant, to go through labor, and to care for that newborn child. I understand all that. And that's the whole irony of PPD: what's supposed to bring about the greatest of joys actually brings about feelings of anguish.

I've written often before about how life "this side of Heaven" is full of contradictions and dissonance. One of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith is why Christ's redemption of the world did not result in a return to Eden for all of us. His redemption brought about the possibility of salvation. It didn't change the fact that our inheritance is to journey through a fallen and disordered world.

The chemical imbalances that women sometimes suffer during pregnancy and postpartum are a part of this disorder. It wasn't supposed to be this way, but God has permitted it to happen. Our role is to trust that we can carry this burden, relying on His strength, until He chooses to lift it from us completely. Like Corrie ten Boom wrote, "the deeper our darkness, He is deeper still..."