B has been our hardest baby. She came out crying, cried most of the time she was awake for the first six weeks+, popped on and off all the time nursing, her tongue tie led to excruciating pain while nursing, was gassy, had reflux, and was easily overstimulated (not sure if that one is different than the other two; it’s easier to be overstimulated with two rambunctious big sisters). All of that sounds like a recipe for PPD again… but it hasn’t come in earnest.
Ultimately, that’s due to God’s grace, especially looking at those circumstances! That’s not to say it’s been perfect: we have had a LOT of hard days, but they have been days, maybe a whole week here and there, but they have not characterized life with B.
I think the reason they have only been days is that I have been able to fight this time. In Dangerous Journey (an abridged Pilgrim’s Progress), when Great Heart decides to fight Giant Despair, he says: “Have I not been commanded, he said, to fight the good fight? And with whom should I fight, if not with Giant Despair…. The giant struggled hard, and was very loth to die. He had, as they say, as many lives as a cat. But Great-heart was his death, and severed the head from his shoulders.”
Those words have been so important to me and summarize how many days felt this time. Fighting so hard every day to not let depression rule, and with His help, winning overall.
There are factors that I think helped a lot:
– we weren’t moving with a 2.5 month old this time, nor were our lives as tumultuous in other ways.
– kids 2 and 3 are farther apart, so E can dress herself, go potty, etc. and my maternal stores probably weren’t as depleted.
– I know it’s the stage, not the baby, I don’t like this time. With S, each stage was new and the first time I had experienced it. So I didn’t intensely dislike any of them, which made me feel like I didn’t like E when I was in the newborn stage. I actually expected to dislike it this time, which made the moments of enjoyment a very pleasant surprise, especially because they were fairly frequent!
– I have survival only expectations for the first 3 months, then low expectations for the next 3, and don’t expect to feel adjusted to having this new person in our family until a year.
– Expecting (sensing a trend with expectations…) inconsistent sleep for the first 3+ months. Even swaddled, in the dark, with white noise and the swing on high, B would take 30 minute naps (or sometimes 2.5 hour naps) with no rhyme or reason, and we expected her to end up sleeping on my chest some in those first months because the other girls had (and good thing, too, because she had reflux!). Even with that expectation, it was rough in that area still.
– knowing that neither very hands-on sleep coaching in the dark nor cry it out are good for my mental health, but neither is her sleeping on me – so finding smaller steps to work towards independent sleep (like the swing) was necessary. Reflux also made this necessary, because she was used to only sleeping on me and needed all the things to soothe her because of her discomfort.
– Being ok with un-ideal if needed. Again, reflux made it so we needed to do more to get her to sleep than we would have liked. Overactive letdown and oversupply meant that nursing was hard and would take a long time for her to settle down, which sometimes meant I couldn’t nurse her to sleep when I wanted to but also that sometimes the only good time to nurse her was when she was mostly asleep (again, unpredictability)! And all that was okay, even though it wasn’t ideal in lots of people’s eyes, it was what we needed.
– Having a support team in advance: I was open with my midwife, had a counselor lined up (which was helpful in getting me un-stuck in the anxiety I’d been dealing with since the car accident, and some of those tools for processing my thoughts helped with moments of depression too), friends checking in on me that I could also reach out to easily, and in-laws upstairs for extra help with the big girls.
– Ezra working from home. This has been a lifesaver, not only because I can get more sleep because he gets the girls up if needed and does dishes and helps with lunch and is off right at 5 instead of having to commute home afterwards, but also because I have someone there to rescue me if needed or remind me of truth – especially when B was really inconsistent and I was losing my mind with all the options – “was she awake too long? not enough? etc.” He helped stabilize me in those moments.
– Allowing myself to mourn the changes in our family dynamics – this is always one of the hardest things for me about welcoming a new baby, the way the relationships all change.
– Very limited sugar, social media, and news. I wasn’t super strict about this, but it definitely helped my body feel better and take some things off of my mental/emotional plate in the fragile postpartum state.
– Also on my support team was my physical therapist. I was really surprised to find the PTSD from the birth (which again was more mild than after E) was greatly alleviated by strengthening my pelvic floor.
– Understanding overstimulation. This was a HUGE development in understanding myself since having E. I think a lot of my worst moments after PPD stabilized were actually just overstimulation. I have to turn off music, ask the girls to sit farther away, do just one thing at a time, etc. Being overwhelmed can send me into panic mode, so to know what’s going on and take a step back, turn things off, take a deep breath, etc. has been a useful tool.
– staying in the Word: 3×5 cards taped up near where I nursed, hymns and worship music, audio Bible, podcasts – all were key in being saturated in truth on days it was too crazy to physically open my Bible.
I still expect the “sun will come out” around 6 months and I will enjoy life a lot more, but it’s pretty good right now too. Thank you to all who prayed for and supported us in this time. When B was 2 months old, I looked at Ezra and told him I felt so different from after E. He said he could tell. It’s been a fight and the first few months are ones I often just don’t like, but not having full-blown PPD this time was such a gift and a huge answer to prayer.
Kyleigh Dunn 