This quote really struck a cord inside me because I felt like it truly summated the reason why I struggled with how my second birth went. For a long time I felt like it was because I felt guilty for opting to have an epidural after having had an amazing unmedicated birth with my first child, but after reading this quote I realized the issue was not that I had failed myself or let myself down by getting an epidural or that my epidural birth was somehow second rate to my unmedicated birth, it was that my epidural birth was not empowering to me and ended up being a traumatic experience. It's taken me two years of thought work, journaling, medication, spiritual pondering, self care and much more to reach a point of clarity regarding it all.
I know so many mothers, and have read the stories of many other mothers, who have had amazing and empowering births with the aid of an epidural. I know it is not about that now. I mentioned above that for a while I felt that my disappointment lied in the fact that I felt guilty for receiving an epidural after having an unmedicated birth. I know that was not the reason, but it definitely played a part in my initial grief and confusion for what I was feeling about the whole experience.
I feel to paint an accurate picture of my whole mental state, process, and journey I need to rewind to my first pregnancy, birth and post-partum experience. With my first pregnancy I had actually initially decided I was going to have an epidural. It wasn't until 30 weeks along, after reading all the birth books, watching The Business of Being Born, and talking with several women I knew personally who had had unmedicated births that I started to feel like I wanted to try it too! My own mother had had 5/6 of her kids unmedicated (1 Caesarian) and I thought, "well, hot dog, if my mom and all these friends could do it, so can I!" A little pride probably played into this decision, too. LOL, like, I'll show them. Challenge accepted. Of course, that's never a great way to make a choice, but thus was how 23-year-old Mary Katherine would have it.
May 10, 2016, my first's due date, and all things considered it was a practically seamless birth. My water broke first, contractions were immediately 5 minutes apart, was dilated to a 6 when I got to the hospital, about 8 hours total of laboring and then...3.5 hours of pushing, which was probably the only rough patch of the whole thing. Other than that, my first baby boy was perfect. I was on cloud 9. Holy crap, I did it. I felt like superwoman.
Fast forward 2.5 years later, October 2, 2018, my second's due date (I have TWO due date babies, it's crazy), I'm depleted already. Tired from the whole pregnancy while also simultaneously caring for a toddler and household. Still dealing with undiagnosed or treated post-partum depression and anxiety, feeling completely unconfident in my ability to do again what I did two and a half years prior. And then as I mentioned in my birth story, once I was confirmed strep B positive the floor shattered before me. I did not want to do the hard labor stuff strapped up to monitors and IVs. With my first birth I had the freedom of mobility and position changing. Granted, I am sure I could have made it work, but these physical barriers only exacerbated the mental barriers I had already been facing leading up to my second son's birth.
Yes, so my first birth truly was amazing and empowering and I still stand by everything I've ever said in regards to having a low intervention birth being an incredible experience. With that said, even though my first birth experience was amazing my post-partum experience was horrible. Honestly probably a total 180 from the high of the birth experience. The issue here was, I felt AMAZING about the birth that I'd had and felt so lucky that everything worked out the way I was hoping. Birth can obviously go many different directions, but for the most part it's an A to B to C scenario, contractions to pushing/C-section to holding your baby. Post-partum experience to me seem to be like a magic eighty ball, yes I wrote EIGHTY, and the fortune changes weekly, sometimes daily.
Total happiness and bliss. - Horrible sleeper. - Loving all the cute baby outfits. - Pelvic floor issues. - Great sleeper! - Breastfeeding goes great! - Breastfeeding is f***ing hard. - No intimacy. - Extreme gratitude for your baby. - Marriage problems. - Smooth sailing. - Tons of support. - Extreme exhaustion. - NO support. - Thoughts about running your car off the road. - Constantly checking your baby to make sure they're breathing. - People who cook for you, it's so nice. - Feeling freaking horrible about how nothing fits. - Crying tears of joy and love. - Loving all the baby snuggles. - NO TIME FOR ANYTHING. - Hating everything that once brought you joy. - Loving your partner more than ever seeing them love and care for the child you brought into the world together. - Resentment. - Feeling extreme Mama Bear instincts. - No time for showers or self-care. - Loving all the TV shows you can now guiltlessly watch while constantly nursing. - Being hungry, constantly. - Frustration and annoyance by all the comments about how often your baby nurses. (Like, he's a baby, that's what they do.) - Sleeping on your back again (if you're not nursing the baby 24/7). - Crying for no reason. - Angry Outbursts. - Love. So much love and joy.
So, I'm dealing with all of this and am told it's all normal. Yet, as a first time mom, I don't really know what the heck is normal or what I'm doing at all. I'm told it's normal for breastfeeding to hurt at first. After I have my second child I realize it is NOT normal for breastfeeding to be excruciatingly painful for 3 months like it had been with my first child, who I now realize, in hindsight, very likely had a lip and tongue tie that made it hard for him to get a good latch. He had horrible reflux and spit up issues, which I now know was also likely linked to said lip and tongue tie. Yet, I was told "some babies just spit up a lot." It's actually a miracle he was able to nurse for so long. (22 months!) Because my first was able to overcome his nursing struggles we clung to that relationship hard. In both a beautiful and destructive way. I loved breastfeeding him in spite of the struggles I faced in the beginning. He loved it, too. LOL. So much so he was attached to me 24/7. He slept horribly, probably due to the reflux also, but he also wanted to nurse all the time, so he slept next to me. Then there was the guilt that what I was doing wasn't safe, but I did it to survive. I was also terrified he would just die if I wasn't next to him monitoring his breathing, so I never put him in his crib. Even if I tried to put him in his crib, he would not have it. Our sleep patterns were erratic. The first few months I had an extreme milk oversupply and got mastitis twice. I had to pump in the middle of the night sometimes for relief and then had to figure out a way to gradually lower my supply so I wasn't in physical pain.
What I didn't know was that many of my magic eighty ball emotions and experiences were symptoms of post-partum depression and anxiety. I chalked so much of my experience up to it just being "normal." I was totally ignorant. It also is a huge disservice to women that we have ONE 6 week post-partum follow up and at that point it's honestly still too early to even ask a mother if she's feeling sane. When asked if I was experiencing any symptoms of PPD, I said no. It also didn't help that the doctor expects you to know what all of those signs are when asking you that question.
I loved my baby. He was healthy. I was healing (for the most part). I had a ton of milk, so I knew I was good there. I also felt super accomplished still from having the unmedicated birth. I'd also been raised to believe that this baby was like, the greatest blessing ever and my ultimate destiny, so in some ways I felt like I wasn't allowed to have any negative feelings about the whole experience. I should be so grateful, and it's not that I wasn't, but I was also losing my mind a little. They aren't mutually exclusive things.
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| New mom Mary Katherine. This is postpartum. |
Yet, in spite of all of the adversity I faced becoming a new mom, I did love all of the in between moments. I loved my son so much. I loved the way he smelled and being my only child, I didn't mind having him attached to me all the time. I lived to provide for his needs and was willing (at the time) to push past all of the discomforts and learning curves. My first 18 months as a mother were a roller coaster, but even with all of the hard parts Michael and I felt the desire to have another child. By 20 months I was ready, and BOOM, it happened.
So now, I'm 20 months post-partum with my first, now pregnant with my second. I decide now is the time to wean my first and by 22 months he was done. I'm growing this baby, feeling pretty good overall. Pregnancy was a little bit bumpier than the first, mainly due to caring for a toddler and a few gnarly illnesses we contracted as a family, but overall my pregnancy was fine. I am also feeling, for the most part, in a better mental state, I do however definitely still have some lingering PPD/PPA symptoms.
One particular example is extreme fear that someone was going to abduct my toddler. At our old house my oldest and I would play outside in the front yard a lot because our backyard was pretty bumpy and muddy. One day, I saw a red truck parked across the street from us on the corner. It was just sitting there. I took note, but also didn't think too much of it. I focused on my son for a while, then looked up to see it had gone. My husband was out of town on a work trip and I was home alone. The thoughts started racing. "Oh my gosh. This man knows I'm alone. If he breaks in at night I will be defenseless and he'll take Niall." That night when Niall and I went to bed I literally pushed my heavy dresser up against the bedroom door. I truly felt like I was in danger. The next day I see the truck again, but I watch it this time. A school bus drives up, a little girl gets off, and then proceeds to get in the truck.
It was just a dad picking up his daughter. I vaguely remember hearing the bus stop the day before while playing with my son outside, I had just missed that key transition. I had all this worry and anxiety for no reason. That's just one of many examples of the thoughts I would have.
So, fast forward to my second pregnancy and impending birth. I already wrote in my birth story about how I was feeling depleted and unconfident going into it. I had had an amazing low intervention birth with my first and truly wanted to have the same experience with my second, but felt my mind, body, and spirit were not in alignment to will it to happen, and thus what led me to ask for the epidural at the birth.
For months afterward my head swirled in guilt. Not because I felt like I had failed "the natural birth Gods" or the crunchy mom community or something, but I truly felt like I had failed myself. I made the choice. I asked for it. I let my own wishes down. I also tried to justify the decision by thinking things like, "well, maybe this is what God wanted for me. Maybe Hudson would have not come out as fast if I had had to deal with pain myself. Labor might have stalled and he would have passed the meconium and gone into distress before delivery. Maybe it would have led to a c-section, another scenario I would have been even more disappointed by...so maybe the epidural saved me and him from that." I also thought about the flip side of that, also. "What if the epidural CAUSED the issue with the meconium?" I specifically remember feeling a little helpless (and unempowered) when it was almost time to push. I remember feeling extreme pressure, like I needed to push, yet the doctor was not there yet, so they wouldn't let me. With my first birth, I felt the urges to push and TOLD the nurses I wanted to push. For a long time I thought, what if my baby was ready THEN and had I pushed him sooner, he would have been perfectly healthy, no NICU stay. I swirled back and forth between these scenarios for months.
On top of all of the guilt and confusion surrounding my second birth, the depression and anxiety came back. My overall post-partum healing experience was so much better the second time. I healed so fast physically. Breastfeeding was no big deal, not only because I knew what I was doing this time, but my second son did not have the physical issues my first son had that made it harder for him to nurse well.
Yet even with the physical healing and breastfeeding relationship being easier, the crazy thoughts still came to me. My second son was a better sleeper, but still not great. My need to establish a good breastfeeding relationship (especially since I struggled so much the first time) superseded establishing good sleep habits for both myself and my son. I had the same fears and anxieties about my baby dying in its sleep, so I co-slept again. I had more and more intrusive thoughts about doing really crazy things I would truly never do like drive my car into a ditch, but they were there nonetheless. I would go to church and feel extreme anger during the hymns. I hated them. I felt so much resentment because music used to be my life, but now it was creating a visceral reaction. That was the final straw.
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| Me at 5 months post-partum. Do I look depressed?? You wouldn't know. |
By five months post partum I decided this was not normal. I needed help. I called the nurse line at my OBGYN, said I was feeling super shitty and mad and anxious and I wanted medication. Just give me something, anything. They prescribed me 50 mg of Zoloft.
That medicine truly saved my life. After about a month on it I felt SO much better. Still not perfect, still had some struggles, but I felt like I could actually face them with a level head.
My doctor said take it at least six months and then see how I'm feeling. I was definitely never against medication, but I also did not want to be dependent on it for the rest of my life, so I let six months go by and thought, OK, I'm feeling pretty good, I think I want to wean off of this.
Holy crap. That was one of the worst days of my life. I tried what my doctor had recommended, to take one every other day. By day three I felt like a complete basket case. I was uncontrollably crying and experienced what it feels like to be truly suicidal for the first time in my life. This was not worth living with. I took this picture and sent it to Michael. He asked if he needed to come home from work, but I said no and somehow made it through the day.
I was not ready to stop this medication, so I gave myself grace and just continued to take it for another 8-ish months at that dose. By summer of this year I decided I wanted to give it a try again, weaning off, but I was going to do it very slowly this time. I was having some other issues that required me to see my OBGYN so I consulted her about my last experience. She prescribed me a half dose and I had no issues switching to that. I did that for about three months and by Thanksgiving of this year I decided to split them again. Only 12.5 mg daily, which is basically nothing, 25mg isn't even considered a therapeutic dose. I decided I wanted to be weaned by the end of the year. I had actually made that goal at the beginning of 2020. By Thanksgiving I truly felt it was within reach, but I was still nervous to totally cut myself off.
Then, I read that quote about empowering births and it hit me. I felt like finding true closure to my second birth experience was the small thread that was still dangling in front of my mental clarity and improvement and it felt like an answer to my prayers and desires. It helped me find the grace to forgive myself for my decision that I felt let me down and also the wisdom to go forward and know better for next time, if there is to be a next time. I now know it's not about one being "better than the other" but that it's about how you feel. I knew it all along after my first birth experience and how amazing and empowering it had been for me, and that that was missing the second time. I've told Michael since then, "okay, next time, after all this mental turmoil about my choice, you better not let me do that again," but now I know it's not about that. If I decide I want to have an epidural birth again, it's fine! If it's the choice I want, I will make it empowering. If I decide to have a low intervention birth again, that's great, too, but it's about knowing and leaning into whatever decision we make with confidence and empowerment. I know C-section mothers who have had the same experience. Birth is birth. It can be empowering or traumatic in any shape or form, and how you feel before, during, and after, is valid.
As for my mental health and healing, it is still a work in progress. Motherhood has not been a cakewalk, but I wouldn't change a thing. After a late Sunday night dinner with family this month, I forgot to take my medication, then, I decided to skip the next day, then the next, and I have been weaned now for a couple of weeks. I was afraid to do it, but I feel good about it, and overall have a lot of optimism for the new year, which for me, is a good sign.
The past two years have been hard, but they have taught me so much about myself and what is truly important to me. My marriage, my kids, but most importantly my relationship and how I care for myself. It's good to give and be selfless, but we can't forget about ourselves. I think 2021 is the year I feel like I can truly take care of myself and really know what serves me and what doesn't - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Going through trials, mental health struggles, and physical health struggles absolutely bites, but they serve us even when it sucks.
I know I'm not out of the woods, this will honestly likely be a lifelong batter for me, but I feel so much more empowered and validated knowing what I know now. Also, I do not share my story to scare anyone away from motherhood/parenthood OR to ask for pity, actually I really do not want pity (that will just make my anxiety worse, I know #yourecrazy). Writing these things is for my own healing, it is likely serving me more than anyone who will read it. Also if I can help just one new mom or even a veteran mom feel a little less alone and more seen, then my words are not written in vain.
Here's to more self-care, compassion, and love in 2021.
Happy New Year!
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