This is going to be a brutally honest post. I can honestly say that I never knew how challenging being a new mom was going to be. It is TOUGH. I started feeling what they call “baby blues” in the hospital. I know some of it was normal, but I think some of it was exacerbated by the stress we were feeling. We had issue after issue after Gerrit was born, and it just was not how I thought it was going to be. Almost all of the issues stem from the fact that our little Gerrit was almost a preterm baby.

1. Jaundice
Gerrit had elevated bilirubin levels that required phototherapy. He would lay on the light blanket and also have lights shining down on him. He hated the lights in the bassinet, because he was most content being swaddled, and he was constantly trying to pull the mask off of his face. This resulted in him screaming. A lot. The nurses suggested a pacifier, which we didn’t want to use, because we were already afraid he was having difficulty breastfeeding. We ended up using bottles at home for a bit, so now I feel silly for resisting the use of the pacifier, although we still haven’t introduced one to him.

Andrew ended up telling the nurses that he was going to hold Gerrit under the lights instead of leaving him in the bassinet. It was the only way we could keep him calm enough to sleep. Andrew was the one who held Gerrit the most (under the lights) so I could rest. Then he would rest while I nursed. I took a few shifts holding him as well, and it was so hard to stay awake! We were both very tired for the 5 days we stayed in the hospital using the bilirubin lights. And the exhaustion just makes the symptoms of the baby blues so much worse.

2. Weight Loss
This actually goes with the jaundice. Jaundice makes babies sleepy, which makes them not want to wake up to eat. It’s normal for newborns to lose some of their birth weight, but Gerrit was getting close to losing 10% of his birth weight, so I was encouraged to pump and supplement. Andrew would feed Gerrit my breast milk through a syringe and a tube on his finger. This kind of pushed us back with latching for breastfeeding, since having a syringe pushing milk was much easier than sucking on a breast. They also wanted us to supplement because the bilirubin gets pushed out of the system through poop. The more he eats, the more he poops, the quicker he gets the bilirubin out. It really upset me that Gerrit wasn’t latching and feeding off of me. I felt like he was bonding with Andrew more than me. All I was doing was pumping out milk; Andrew was feeding him. He was doing “my job.” I was in tears about it a lot, and I had a lot of anxiety about feeding.

3. Breastfeeding
Oh, breastfeeding. What I thought would come naturally has proven to be quite challenging. I was told that part of it was because Gerrit was small: he had trouble getting a good latch with his little mouth and I was producing more milk than Gerrit could take in. Basically my boobs were too big and full of milk for him! I often had to pump just to soften my breasts enough for Gerrit to try to latch on. I had anxiety about breastfeeding: I was trying to breastfeed, but we were supplementing with bottles of breast milk when Gerrit and I just got too frustrated. I would try to get him to nurse for up to an hour sometimes, not realizing how much time had passed. I was able to get him exclusively on the breast by the time he turned 2 weeks old, and he hasn’t had a bottle since then.

I had to wake Gerrit for nearly all of his feedings, and that stressed me out too. Getting him awake, keeping him awake, getting him latched on, keeping him latched on, knowing how long to push him to eat… I looked for advice, and everyone had different suggestions. Some people said that he would wake up when he was hungry; others said I needed to wake him every 2 hours or he wouldn’t gain weight. At night, I was so exhausted that I slept through my alarms sometimes and felt so guilty about it. I was terrified that I wasn’t giving my baby enough food and that I wasn’t being a good mom.

4. Postpartum Depression & Anxiety
Before I go into all this, I should say that I have a history of depression and anxiety. I anticipated having some emotional issues postpartum, but that obviously doesn’t mean I was prepared for it. The happiness I felt in the first 24 hours after Gerrit was born quickly morphed into tears, anxiety, and exhaustion as we started dealing with breastfeeding latching issues and the jaundice (which we continued to deal with about a week after he was born). I started feeling a lot of self-doubt and a complete loss of control. Doctors and nurses suggested different things and I had no idea what to do. A couple of days after Gerrit was born, I had a panic attack in the hospital. I was shaking uncontrollably and my heart was racing. I didn’t know what it was, and it really scared me. I was fearful about leaving the hospital and doing everything “on my own.”

Thankfully, things at home proved to be better than at the hospital. But the emotional problems continued. I had anxiety about breastfeeding. I was sleeping really poorly at night. Every little sound Gerrit made made me startle. And during the day my anxiety was too high for me to settle down to take a nap. A little after a week at home, I had another anxiety attack (not as bad as the one in the hospital) while Andrew took Gerrit to the doctor for a possible eye infection (we ended up cleaning it with breast milk, and it cleared it right up). Basically, everything seemed overwhelming to me, and I didn’t know how to handle it.

The anxiety/depression also affected my appetite. When I was feeling good, I ate fine. But when the anxiety was high, I couldn’t even think of eating. Andrew was practically forcing me to eat and stay hydrated. There were days that I would eat breakfast in the morning, and when the evening rolled around, I realized I hadn’t eaten since that bowl of cereal. I was so worried that I wasn’t eating enough to produce enough milk… although I definitely had a surplus of it!

Basically, the depression and anxiety combined with my level of exhaustion made me not able to think straight. I had to write down every feeding and diaper change, because I had no concept of time. I was fixated with the clock. I would feel like hours had passed since I had fed Gerrit, when it ended up only being 30 minutes. It was a bizarre feeling. I feel like I had no common sense either. Andrew was constantly having to remind me that things were just fine. That Gerrit was eating regularly. That he was sleeping well. That we were doing exactly what we needed to do as parents. But I just couldn’t believe that it was true. In my moments of clarity, I realized that I was being ridiculous.

During my third week postpartum, I had Andrew call the hospital for me to go in to be evaluated for postpartum depression. I was sobbing too hard to make the call myself. They had me come in the next day. The doctor I saw increased the antidepressant that I was on, and I noticed a difference pretty quickly. I finally started to feel normal again. You don’t appreciate how great “normal” feels until you feel completely out of control. And feeling normal meant that I could focus on caring for our sweet boy. Besides the medication, the thing that helped me the most was my friends. I didn’t hesitate to let my friends know how I was feeling, and they were amazing. So many of them assured me that how I was feeling was normal and shared how they felt postpartum. Some of them also suffered from postpartum depression, which helped me feel less alone. My friends here in England reached out to me: coming to visit, inviting us out, and bringing meals. I am so glad I have so many wonderful people in my life!

It’s important to me to share my story, because I know that a lot of women suffer from the baby blues after they give birth. But there are also a good number of us who deal with symptoms that are more severe and last longer. And I think it’s important that people realize that they are definitely not alone. There is support out there in the form of doctors, family, friends, and support groups. And it DOES get better! I’m sure that I will still have rough days, but I also know that I have a strong support network of people to depend on to help me pull through.