An ojichan (Japanese for grandpa) stopped his brisk walking to look at my baby, then at me. “How old is your baby?”, he asked. I replied, “3 weeks.” “That’s too young to take out your baby.”
Outloud I said, “The mall is almost going to open, so we’re going home soon.” On the inside, I wanted to tell him so much more. I wanted to tell him I was afraid of being home alone with my baby. I wanted to tell him this was my fifth day in a row of coming to Ala Moana way before it opened. I wanted to tell him walking in circles for 5 miles is the only way I knew how to make my baby sleep. I wanted to tell him that he confirmed I was doing it wrong. I wanted to tell him how unfair it was that he just got to meet my baby before my own grandma could.
Trying to conceive without success, going through fertility treatments, and finally IVF affected me more than I wanted to admit. I tried to have a positive attitude and focus on being grateful. In all honesty, those years were frustrating at the least and heartbreaking at the most. After being on the receiving end of frequent disappointment, I was constantly anticipating bad news. To distract my mind, I researched everything I could about IVF. I watched videos and read articles. I was prepared for every step. No surprises.
Once I was finally pregnant, I treated it the same. I kept up with pregnancy apps, read books, and subscribed to email updates. But instead of feeling prepared, I worried about every next hurdle. I had a normal anatomy scan, but still thought something could be wrong with the baby. I got to full term, but worried about having a late miscarriage. Being unvaccinated, I was weary about getting Covid. At the end of my pregnancy, I was stressed my placenta possibly wasn’t nourishing my baby since the growth had slowed. I was nervous about getting induced. Unlike IVF, everything about pregnancy came as a surprise.
As far as childbirth goes, nothing could have prepared me for how my world turned upside down overnight. I wish I could accurately depict what it physically felt like after having my baby, but one thing I can say is that since I lost a lot of blood during delivery, I had packs of gauze in my vagina for 24 hours to stop the bleeding. Maybe that small description is enough to give a peek into what I was experiencing.
On night 2 in the hospital, I learned about cluster feeding. My baby wanted to be fed basically every 10 minutes. I was tired, my nipples raw. I used the hospital phone to call a nurse because there had to be something wrong. As it turns out, babies do this so your milk starts coming in. Supply and demand.
I read about the “baby blues” in a hospital pamphlet. As I was waiting for John to bring the car around for us to take our baby home from the hospital, with tears in my eyes, I thanked the nurse for taking care of us and told her I wished she was coming home with us too. She told John to watch me. She was right to have warned him.
I cried right when we got home. I thought these were baby blues tears that would be short-lived. But every day got worse. All of my worry turned into anxiety as anyone could have predicted. Except for me.
I constantly Googled in attempt to make up for how lost and incompetent I felt. I frequently reached out to my mom friends to get their advice. I was trying to learn as much as I could about breastfeeding and newborn sleep. And in the process, I developed insomnia.
Every evening, as soon as the sun started to set, I would feel an overwhelming sense of dread. Sleep deprivation is debilitating. I was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep. I was wired awake in the middle of the night, afraid of my baby’s swaddle covering his face, afraid of falling asleep and dropping him while breastfeeding. When he was sleeping, I would squeeze my eyes shut forcing myself to hurry and sleep before he was hungry again, only to wake up in what seemed like no time because when I looked at the clock, that’s what it was.
At my 2 week postpartum appointment, I filled out a survey to be screened for postpartum depression. I scored normal. I told my doctor I thought I had anxiety and insomnia. I asked if there was medication I could take. She said I just needed to calm my mind and get to know my baby.
Remember cluster feeding? A couple weeks later, another night of cluster feeding came and I finally broke. I was pacing. My heart was beating fast and loud. I couldn’t breathe. I had racing thoughts. I felt like I couldn’t do this anymore. I was having a panic attack.
I called the ER and they told me not to come in because they had a lot of Covid positive patients. They paged my doctor instead. I told her what I was experiencing and that I desperately needed help. She said, “If you are hospitalized, you won’t be able to take care of your baby. I’ll have to medicate you. My hands will be tied. Something has got to change. You are not going to survive. How are you going to make it to next week? How are you going to make it to tomorrow?”
Per her recommendation, I popped a Benadryl and took a catnap. I packed up as much of my baby’s stuff into four suitcases. The three of us got on a plane to Maui and we never went back.
It sounds dramatic, but it’s not easy to convey how intense my postpartum anxiety was. It was dark and scary and going through it was more difficult than anything I have ever experienced. There was a point when I told John he would be better off taking care of our baby without me. I also told him our baby would be better off adopted by a mom that could take care of him as he deserved. Anxiety has a way of filling your head with irrational thoughts.
With the help of my husband, our families, our friends, four therapists, balanced out hormones, and anti-depressants, I’m here to tell you that I’m on the other side of postpartum anxiety and I’m happy to be here. If someone sees that ojichan at the mall, please tell him too.
❤️❤️❤️