Thursday, May 17, 2018

Under the Dome [Part 5]: Unbroken

Trigger warning: The following blog posts are heavy with describing details of Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Anxiety and Postpartum OCD, also including suicidal ideation, intrusive thoughts and various medical procedures/complications during pregnancy and delivery. Please use caution while reading Under the Dome posts if they might trigger you. 

I always wanted 3 kids.
Well, always since right after high school when I lost a friend in a car crash and I felt horrible that his sister was suddenly without him. Without any siblings. I swore to myself that I would have three.

After the experience with maternal mental illness following my son I knew that any further attempt at having children would surely kill me. I was absolutely sure of it. I had been dangled from the edge of that cliff and if I was ever in that position again I feared that the postpartum illness would stand at the edge, bend down and hand me a scissors to cut the rope I held onto.

Life following my dad's death wasn't easy. Simultaneously dealing with my brother's new fate of a felony charge that landed him in prison on top of that wasn't easy. Feeling lost and out of place was even harder. My previous career was no longer attainable to a person with PTSD who had gone through what I had with my brother's addiction so now what? It was bad enough that the maternal mental illness had stolen who I was but on top of that everything I had previously worked so many years to achieve was near useless.

My therapist challenged me to just be.
My previous years had been so consumed with helping everyone else that I didn't realize it was ok to just sit back and enjoy being a mom.

So, I did.
And I enjoyed it. I was a mom and that was enough. I loved watching my children play and bond and that boy who I had struggled with the first few months of his life had become the love of my life. Then, just like that, one day - I realized that I wasn't done. I wanted that third baby and I would figure out how to combat my maternal mental illnesses.

I thought my plan was foolproof.
I had the following things in place (which I thought to be 100% necessary for success):
A good maternal mental health therapist
A good maternal mental health prescriber
A clinic and doctor who understood maternal mental health
A support system

I got pregnant and some of those things fell apart.
Within the first trimester my prescriber moved to a new clinic that wouldn't be able to take me on as a patient. The clinic she had been part of had not one person who wanted to take me on as a patient since I was pregnant. Thankfully I was immediately accepted into the Periscope Project which I had coincidentally previously been on a panel for at the medical college. I was immediately connected with an amazing doctor for medication management.
I had switched clinics in the beginning of my pregnancy but by mid 2nd trimester I wasn't feeling comfortable and didn't feel heard so I switched back to one closer to home. This time, I wasn't afraid to let my voice be heard. I recounted all of the previous bad experiences that I had and with the help of the doctor in the periscope project, a list of my concerns and needs were in my charts.

Despite my previous experiences, this pregnancy was the first time that I understood that I was suffering from perinatal anxiety and depression. I battled demons the whole time I was pregnant and at one point was in my therapist's office once more with the overwhelming fear that I would not make it out of this pregnancy/postpartum period alive. I felt ignorant and foolish for believing, once more, that I could keep my maternal mental health under control.

In the last trimester my anxiety suffocated me. Perinatal OCD evolved in the form of obsessive cleaning and organizing in order to calm my anxieties and shut down my brain from any intrusive thoughts.
I did what I had to.
I rid myself of unnecessary responsibilities (most that didn't really even belong to me) and distanced myself from unhealthy relationships. I succumbed to the fact that my pre-children friends circle was never going to be the same because we all now lived in different worlds that were defined by the ages of our children.
During those months I did what I had to in order to turn my house into a home during the third trimester. Day in and day out I strived off of routine and order. Then, just like the two pregnancies before, a large stressor sent me into preterm labor. At that point they finally diagnosed me with Irritable Uterus (which they then realized I had the previous two pregnancies as well) which caused me to experience frequent contractions that could not be calmed by medication or rest. If they got out of control they would trigger actual labor.

My daughter was born a few days before the new year. By then I was miserable due to higher than normal levels of fluid and regular contractions from my IU.
If there was one postitive thing that I focused on during my pregnancy it was that I would get one last "first time". That magical moment where all of the pain and agony peeked and your new baby was handed to you right after being thrown into the world.
A crying, wiggling, wet bundle of joy to prove that this was all worth every ounce of pain.

But I didn't get that moment.
After "here's the head" the midwife's face suddenly fell and she frantically asked for a scissors. My baby was entering the world with her cord around her neck. As soon as she was freed from her cord I gave one last panicked push.

There was no sound.
I didn't see her.
I didn't feel her on my chest.
Her arms and legs fell limp as they rushed her to the warming bed.
Doctors and nurses rushed into the room and the only thing I remember was staring hard at her as they tried to bring life back into her and the deafening silence that waited to be broken by her cries.

I don't know how long those actual moments lasted.
And she never did cry, not until days afterwards.
I remember thinking, "If the one thing I was looking forward to had gone wrong.... then what would I be up against this time?"
Once I finally had her with me I was afraid to move her in order to look at her. She stay attached to machines but eventually got to be skin to skin with me. Her brother and sister would come soon after and this is the moment that had scarred me with my previous two.

But this time... this time they absolutely loved their new sibling.
My daughter was proud. My son was kind and gentle and in love with the brand new baby.

And then... then I waited.
Forecast called for a wicked storm to follow in the way of maternal mental health but all I felt was happiness. My new baby was perfect. She rarely cried, she nursed perfectly without any effort from either of us, and everyone loved her even through the small struggle finding a balance in our new life as a family of five.

Someone opened the cellar doors that had entrapped me for 1,614 days.
Light filled the dark space that I had previously inhabited... but I did not crawl out. Not yet.
Instead, I waited.
and waited.
and waited.
I sat with my face to the sun, soaking in the warmth, but I hesitated. I knew that the doors could slam back in my face at any moment. Time passed, the sun stayed shining and no one closed me back in.

My dearest baby girl you're here, now I'm unbroken.