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I loved being pregnant. I loved birth and I loved having a newborn. One thing I didn’t like at all was the postpartum period, or the dreaded “4th trimester.” Finally at a year postpartum (13 months) I can say I feel like myself again. I also find myself 15 weeks pregnant again and often times worried about what the recovery from another pregnancy and birth will be like this time around. You could say I have anxiety about having anxiety again because for me, postpartum life was hard. It took everything out of me, and I’m not just talking about the raising of an infant, which is exhausting and physically/mentally/emotionally draining in itself. I’m talking about the physical and mental toll creating a baby took on me and how long it took to get back to my “normal” self.

I feel like have been taking motherhood in stride. Not that it’s easy; motherhood is far from easy, but it’s so hard to express the difficulty that is postpartum life without feeling as if others will perceive me as complaining about my role as mom. That’s not it at all, so let’s break it down.

In general I am an anxious person, and always have been. I’ve dealt with bouts of severe anxiety and even paranoia. I’m a worrier and have found this sometimes resulting in insomnia, unhealthy eating habits, and a general uneasiness surrounding otherwise happy times (like my wedding day for example.)

When I had Holden I felt prepared, educated, and totally ready. What I didn’t expect was a baby that would only sleep in my arms and the torture that is weeks of sleep deprivation. I suddenly found myself unsure of everything I thought I knew. My classes, everything I read and everyone I talked to never covered how to sleep when my baby only sleeps while being held. Everything we are told in American society scares women out of the idea of bed sharing. My pediatrician made scared me of breastfeeding, insisting I needed a schedule and discouraged nursing on demand, despite that being the advice of every lactation consultant I ever had heard. I wrote about both issues on my blog already and you can read them both here: Why I Dumped My Pediatrician and Why I Stopped Hiding My Bed Sharing Habit.

I was quickly losing my mind hearing conflicting information, worrying incessantly and being constantly judged and advised everywhere I went. I ended up feeling like I was doing everything wrong and that it wouldn’t have mattered if I was there or not. Nathan and Holden would be fine without me and that Holden didn’t even love me. I basically had this idea that anyone could have filled in my place and do the same job I was doing. I knew that was irrational. I knew that he did need me, and over time I knew he did and does love me. But, just because I knew it was irrational doesn’t mean those thoughts went away.

On Holden and I’s first outing alone (without my husband with us), at 4 weeks old, I was yelled at in the parking lot as I wore Holden in a baby wrap for the first time in public. An older woman rolled down her window and yelled, “SERIOUSLY?!” at me. I am still unsure of what was wrong, but I spent the rest of my trip at the mall replaying that incident over and over again in my head, and positive that everyone looking at me was judging me and all the things I was doing wrong.

Later that day Holden and I went to my in-laws company Christmas party. Holden screamed the entire time we were there. I think he was overstimulated by the lights, sounds, and the family that all wanted to hold him. He arched his back and batted away the cover as I tried to nurse him in a folding chair at a crowded table instead of the comfort of my couch with nursing pillows in my private living room. Strangers raised eye brows at me as I surrendered and nursed without the cover. My in-laws suggested it was time for me to switch to bottles and formula because his tummy must be upset and I felt like crying wanted to go home so badly. I ended up hiding in the bathroom trying to nurse alone, away from the noise, lights, and prying eyes.  As we walked to our car through the cold, I was scolded by strangers to cover up my sweaty screaming baby because surely he must be cold. I felt like the only safe place for us was in my apartment, and I dreaded leaving to go anywhere.

That didn’t last long though. I started to become scared of literally everything. I couldn’t look at stairs without seeing Holden falling down them. I pictured car wrecks happening as I drove. I just knew he’d suffocate in his swing or car seat and I couldn’t look at a knife or scissors without having disturbing mental pictures of how they could harm Holden. I was constantly on edge.I feared he wasn’t nursing enough, or peeing enough or sleeping enough. Even though he was as healthy as could be and was growing like a weed. To top it all off I felt like crap. My hormones hadn’t balanced and I still had acne, muscle aches, stiff joints, my hair began falling out, breastfeeding is no walk in the park, and I felt that no matter how hard I tried to look like my former, pre-baby self, I just looked haggard and sloppy. I wrote all about the 4th trimester also, and you can read that here: Bouncing Back is a Load of Crap.

All of this peeked and then slowly got better as I returned to work at around 3 months postpartum. I had constant fears and overwhelming guilt about being away from Holden everyday. I cried daily and worried that something would happen to Holden while out of my care. Eventually I calmed down about him being away from me, allowed stomach sleeping when he could roll over and didn’t have panicky streaks of lightning hit me though out the day as I worked. Life returned to normal. My supply balanced, my body aches and pregnancy symptoms cleared up. My belly shrank and sleep stopped eluding me.

I wish I could say it lasted.

As a teacher, I get summer vacation, so I got two and a half months off in the summer to pretend I was a stay-at-home mom. We had a blast! I don’t think I have ever been happier in my life. But as August approached and I prepared to go back to work again more anxiety plagued me and constant, ugly, scary thoughts filled my brain again. I couldn’t look at my oven or washing machine without seeing a potential danger. I would break down in tears with panic at the thought of leaving Holden for the day again and all the things that could go wrong while he was out of my sight. I had daily thoughts of him being kidnapped in stores while out with his granny, swallowing toxic cleaners, or left in a car in the August heat. I would text Nathan every morning to double check the he did in fact drop Holden off and had not forgotten him in his car seat asleep.

Eventually this bought of anxiety passed too. I wish I could say I have a solution for how it ended up going away, but I don’t. I think it comes in waves for me, just as it always has. I never got medication to help my anxiety, but that is always an option for moms who are struggling. I mentioned my anxiety in a round about way to my midwife who insisted it was just normal new mommy fears, and since I was breastfeeding I didn’t even want to consider medication anyway. But I disagree. I think there was something wrong and that those thoughts were not normal. Living with those thoughts or in a constant state of fear is no way to live. If I have the same experience again with my second postpartum recovery, I think I will make a bigger deal about speaking up.

I was ashamed of the thoughts I was having and I didn’t want it to be confused with postpartum depression (PPD), not that anyone should be ashamed of PPD either, but I wasn’t depressed. I was obsessed with my role as a mom. I felt very connected to Holden, and didn’t feel overwhelmed by motherhood. I felt happier than ever. I was just constantly worried I was doing everything wrong at the beginning, and the at the end was convinced something terrible would happen at any second. I was just worried, and anxious. I was afraid this happiness would be taken away from me. I felt as if something terrible was on the verge of happening every second and surely tragedy was bound to strike.

Part of this worry was triggered by any disturbing stories of abuse, neglect and deaths of young babies that I would somehow hear about. Once I heard these things, that are otherwise unimaginable I wouldn’t be able to get it out of my head. They would bother me deeply, and I would then be overcome with a fear of “what ifs.” What if I lost my mind or went insane? What if I did something I didn’t want to do in that insane state? How do I keep myself from going insane? I don’t think there is a scarier thought than the loss of sanity.

The reason why I tried to brush it off was of course some of the stigma. When you say you’re having disturbing thoughts you think something is wrong with you, and you worry that others will think that too. I didn’t want people to think that I imagined myself doing those things, or that I wanted to do terrible things because that wasn’t the case. It was as if my brain was hyper aware of anything and everything that could be dangerous to let me know to avoid any possibility of something happening that I didn’t want to happen.

Postpartum anxiety often takes a back seat when it comes to the discussion of postpartum mood disorders. A stigma surrounds postpartum depression and especially postpartum psychosis, so women are sometimes scared to be judged. Scared to be honest. PPD is very common and caused by the intense hormonal swings that women have to deal with when adjusting to the changes, pregnancy and postpartum have on your body. Postpartum psychosis is much less common, but is what we worry about. That is what happened to Andrea Yates, and I can’t help but feel heartbreaken for her. She now lives knowing what she did to her babies while in a state of insanity, and I honestly can’t imagine a worse hell.

Anxiety, on the other hand is  normalized to some extent in our society. People often joke about moms always being worried or nervous and unsure of themselves. When I tried to tell people about my fears, I was often times met with a comment like “welcome to motherhood, you’ll be worried forever.” When we expect new moms to be worried, anxious, and flat out terrified we are setting them up to think that it is normal, and maybe to some extent it is; but it doesn’t have to be that way, and it shouldn’t be that way. I kept hearing the way I felt way normal, but nothing about it felt normal to me. I think talking about how we’re feeling is probably the first step to getting some relief from the constant state of fear one can fell stuck in. If we open up a dialogue about what is and isn’t normal then maybe more moms will be able to get help.

We should also meet other mom’s fears and concerns with legitimacy. Instead of brushing it off as “normal”, we should respond to other moms with compassion, empathy and understanding. I don’t think it is normal to think about my son being left in a hot car all day, more than ten times a day for weeks on end. I don’t think it is normal to live in fear of everything in your home and have terrible visions of the worst case scenario. I don’t think it is normal to think that everyone in public is watching you do everything wrong as a mother.

Now that I am expecting my second baby I find all the typical feelings coming back. I am anticipating labor, excited about meeting this new person, and dreaming of those newborn snuggles. I am elated to be pregnant again, and actually excited instead of fearful about the birth, but I am dreading the 4th trimester again. I hear it is easier the second time, and I really hope that is true. I am sure in about 6 months I will have another post to let you know all about how I feel then too. I think it is important that new moms are able to have this discussion honestly, openly, and without feeling ashamed or invalidated. Pretending motherhood is easy helps no one, but it shouldn’t have to be so hard either.