Birth Day!
Our son is two years old today! Watching him grow has been such a joy and it’s been wonderful to see him discover things that interest him. He is such a little helper and has the best green thumb that I have ever seen! If he plants a seed it will grow!
This day also has me thinking a lot about my journey into motherhood. Most that saw me while I was pregnant thought that I had a picture-perfect pregnancy. I stayed really active, walking to yoga and back once a week (from 20 weeks until 39 weeks was around a 2 mile walk) and I walked my dog every day in addition to working on projects around the house. I ate tons of fruit and vegetables, even more so than I normally eat, and I took vitamins along with plenty of water. What people couldn’t see was that I was suffering from crippling antepartum depression.
I found out that I was pregnant when I was just five weeks along. It was confirmed by a home test and then a doctors appointment at 8 weeks. I had some minor nausea and some smells irritated me, but it wan’t until I was ten weeks that things became bad. I ended up having a severe case of food aversions. Almost everything smelled foul to me. One of my favorite things in the world is the smell of coffee and barely a whiff off it had me running. I almost barfed on a woman in San Francisco because she came to a stop in front of me as I was trying to pass a coffee truck. That would have been awkward!
When I had mentioned my food aversions at my appointments I always heard “just wait until you’re (blank) weeks along. It will clear then!” It gave me hope but when that mythical date came I was even more nauseous and we were struggling to find foods that worked. My mental state was also deteriorating because in addition to every smell making me nauseated I also had really bad vertigo. Even the slightest movements would make me feel like I was on a small boat in the middle of a turbulent sea.
I just remember feeling miserable and wondering what the point of it all was. I didn’t feel the excitement that others felt. I was told by my midwife “just wait until you feel the first kick! It changes everything!” I waited and at 18 weeks I felt what I knew for sure was a kick. There was no excitement there. I felt detached from it. It was an alien life and I was it’s depressed host planet.
Weeks went by and J suggested that I talk to the midwife about what I was feeling. At the 20 week checkup I mentioned it to her and was officially labeled with antepartum depression. A week later per J’s advice I attended my first prenatal yoga class. I remember feeling hopeful about attending and during introductions I felt like crying. All of the other women there were so excited and hopeful about their baby and then there was me, the odd one out. I cried on my walk home and decided not to go to another. J was the push that I needed and convinced me to try the two other sessions in case they were better.
I found my place in the Wednesday afternoon class. The instructor gave me a sense of peace that I needed and her experience as a doula and student mid-wife provided me with a lot more knowledge and comfort. I made sure to attend every week. By 23 weeks I was already eating a bit more, nothing special or fancy, but cooked foods no longer made me nauseated. I also started to walk with my dog more.
I think I must have been around 26 weeks and Napoleon (my newfoundland dog) and I were walking along the ocean cliffs. I remember feeling the pull of the ocean like a siren calling to me. I walked closer to the cliff and looked out at the crashing waves below on the cliff side. The next day I was back, and the next, and the one after that. Each time I approached the edge a little bit more. There was always a sense of peace to it as if the ocean could wash away all of my troubles and I could float peacefully out to sea. One day I got too close to the edge but Napoleon pulled me back. He tugged on his leash and released a deep bark breaking me from my reverie. I moved back in a daze until I reached a bench. The moment he laid his head on my lap, I cried. I had never felt so broken and lost. I knew that I wanted what I was feeling to end but not like that. That was the last time that we walked by the ocean. I was too nervous after that.
I knew that I had to take care of myself while pregnant, and I did by exercising, eating well, and taking my daily vitamins. But my brain was just detached from the whole thing. I knew that the intrusive and negative thoughts weren't something that I should pay attention to but it’s difficult when it is constantly present and no matter what you do it doesn’t go away. Depression can be a bit like the rooster that crows at all hours of the day. You want it to shut up so you can think but it just keeps going regardless of how annoying its being.
One of the few images that I have of myself pregnant. I had felt hopeful enough at this point to get a picture.
My shining beacon of hope came at 28 weeks when I had my first food craving. One day I woke up wanting apples and it made me excited because food was becoming appealing again to me. I was eating a wider variety of foods and while certain smells bothered me (looking at you onions) it was no longer as bad as it used to be. The craving gave me hope that I wasn’t broken and that maybe everything was going to be okay. By this point the baby was super active and my ribs were super bruised from all the river dancing he was doing in utero. Things were looking up. I was purchasing clothes for the baby, something that I hadn’t done because I thought that I would lose him early on. I even got a second craving soon after which was grapefruit.
It wasn't until I was 32 weeks along that I started to worry again. This time my mind had me convinced that the baby was going to be stillborn. At this point I was also having issues with the midwives at the hospital that I was going to for routine check ups. I was adamant about having a natural, medication-free, low intervention birth. They began to tell me that if I didn’t progress on their schedule, and meet the timetables they had set that intervention would be needed. My anxiety was very high after that and I began to worry more. My worries became vultures circling me at all hours of the day. My dreams were plagued with worries and soon became nightmares.
My saving grace came in the form of horrible back pain at 34 weeks. I was in so much pain that I mentioned it during one of my yoga sessions and the instructor referred me to a chiropractor at Full Moon Birth Center. I started to attend the sessions and one day Caitlin, the chiropractor, asked me if everything was OK because I seemed tense. I explained how nervous I was about being forced into a medical birth, not going into detail about my mental state, and she told me that I could switch to the midwife at the birth center that I was going for chiropractic help.
Sunshine, the midwife and owner of Full Moon Birth Center was true to her name. In some of my darkest weeks leading up to the birth of our son she gave me comfort. She was a soothing balm to my stress giving me a sense of peace and hope every time I saw her.
On December 3rd shortly after 8:30pm my water broke, it wasn’t much and I honestly thought that I had peed a little bit. I ended up texting Sunshine about it and carried on with eating dinner. I knew from all the podcasts and research that I had done while pregnant that I needed to make sure to be well fed and rested because I was going to need the energy later. Around 4:30am on December 4th the contractions began. They carried on slowly at first and it wasn’t until 8:30pm that night that we decided that I needed to get to the birth center. I spent the majority of the labor time in the birthing tub until my back became so painful that I moved to the bed. I had about 3 hours or so of back labor where I felt like giving up because the spasms on my legs and body were too much. I kept thinking that I couldn't do it but J and Sunshine were there guiding me and helping me vocalize through the pain.
Photo by Bay Area Birth & Motherhood Photographer
When the baby finally moved into position and the back labor eased I was back in the birthing tub. This was one of the easier parts but it was where I was the most nervous. Every time they checked for a heart beat I held my breath and prayed. All I could think about in those moments was “please let him stay with me. Please not now. Please don’t let this be the end.” Every time that I heard the steady swoosh of his heart beating I felt like a weight had been lifted off me. It took me twenty minutes of pushing for him to be born in water at 3:21am on December 5th, his due date. I picked him up out of the water and held his wrinkly purple body to my chest as I constantly thought “breathe, please please breathe!” The moment that Sunshine had him crying was when I felt my body relaxed for the first time in weeks.
I was so sleep deprived and tired that day but as I watched my newborn son hold on to my finger in his tiny grip I knew that all of those thoughts were bullshit. They were real and they plagued me but I learned that what they say doesn’t matter. Learning not to listen and most importantly talk back to those thoughts was something very important that I learned.
The first outfit that I bought him. I remember thinking he will never wear it but at least I’ll have a memory of it. I cried the first time that I saw him wearing this onesie.
Postpartum had it’s own set of challenges but nothing compared to what I experienced while pregnant. There has been a lot of adjusting and learning and I know that I am stronger than what I give myself credit for but I also know that it has taken me nearly two years to feel comfortable enough to talk about this.
It has been a wonderful journey so far and I can’t wait to see where we will go from him. Our son is a beautiful and caring little person and I can’t wait to see him grow up. Napoleon is also fiercely protective of him.
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