Postpartum anxiety

Okay, it’s time that postpartum anxiety is talked about. In fact, it’s way overdue, but better late than never.

First of all, it isn’t even really a thing. Which is absurd. There’s no test for it, no evaluations for it. We kind of have to be aware of it and self-diagnose it to then even know to reach out for support.

Postpartum psychosis is fairly easy to diagnose – yes, I’m having thoughts of hurting my baby and there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind: that’s not normal.

Then there’s postpartum depression – no, I have no enjoyment in anything, I feel hopeless, I’ve withdrawn from family and friends. But that is sometimes hard – because, after you’ve had a baby, of course there are times you feel hopeless. Will I ever sleep again? Will I ever stop bleeding? Will she ever stop crying? Of course you don’t enjoy anything – you don’t DO anything other than feed, change diapers, soothe. And of course you’ve withdrawn from family and friends- there’s no TIME to connect or maintain relationships. Consequently, I think too many people get told “Yep – totally normal, it’ll get easier as she gets older!” (Which IS true, but it’s only helpful if what the person is experiencing is typical and not pathological. Also, don’t get me started on the lack of postpartum care – both physical and mental, and how there is ONE screening for PPD at your ONE postpartum physical.)

And then postpartum anxiety – a whole other ball game. Postpartum anxiety gets normalized. It’s also a really fine line, because it is NORMAL to be anxious as a new parent – but there’s no method for rating/qualifying just how intense the anxiety is, and just where normal ends and pathological begins. Do you have constant worry? Of course you do. You’re a new mom. Moms worry about everything. Do you worry something bad is going to happen? Of course. You’re responsible for this tiny human.

You see?

When you have (undiagnosed) postpartum anxiety (and/or OCD – I’ll lump them together per my own experience), it goes multiple steps further.

People talk about giving birth and kind of laugh it off – “Yup, gooooood times,” they joke. Oh. So it must be normal that I can’t stop replaying my horrific labor experience in my mind, that I can’t stop thinking about all those days in pain, that my body still feels it happening, that I know I will never in my entire life not recall every awful moment of it.

“Oh yes, I definitely obsessed over how much my baby was eating!” they say. Well, I check and recheck that her bottles are filled with EXACTLY 4oz of my pumped milk – not a speck over or under. Is that normal too? She eats every 3 hours, so I tell day care that they need to feed her at 9:05 exactly, and then 12:05 exactly. Um…that’s also normal….right?

“Yep, the days can definitely be long,” they say. So is it normal that I burst into tears every Friday afternoon because I’m afraid of how we are going to get through the weekend, just us in our house? It’s better at day care, she’s happier at day care, every other baby is happy at home….something is wrong with me.

Others joke about how complicated it can be to get a baby out of the house. I agree. That’s why I never, ever take her anywhere other than to and from day care and to and from my parents’ house. It’s just too much. The world is too unsafe and it’s better to just stay in our own little bubble. Right?

Some mothers talk about making sure their babies are warm enough. Oh, good. So it must be normal to open the hourly weather forecast every five seconds and then wonder if I should put her in a long-sleeved shirt with an undershirt underneath or a long-sleeved shirt with a sweater over it. What if one way she’s too hot or one way she’s too cold? What if it ends up being 70 degrees in the day care room instead of 71? What about when she sleeps at night? What if the temperature in her room rises from 72 to 73? Will she overheat?

They talk about making sure their babies are safe in their cribs. You wonder if that means it’s “normal” to reach over to feel your newborn’s chest and make sure it’s rising and falling, multiple times every night, to the point where it interferes with your own limited sleep. You wonder about the times you wake up gasping, frantically searching the sheets, because you know you fell asleep nursing her and now she’s going to be dead in the sheets – but then you reach over and she’s actually in her bassinet, because of course you put her back, you always do. And by the time your breath slows and the sweat dries, she needs to nurse again and it starts all over.

You wonder about how you can never nap while she naps because you just know that if you aren’t awake listening to the monitor and watching her breathe, she will die, and it will be your fault. I’ll just check one more time. Just one more time. Just. one. more. time.

But every parent worries, right?

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Look, I had a physically hard pregnancy, a unimaginably hard labor and delivery, and an even more long, awful recovery. I had panic, anxiety, and OCD prior to pregnancy – it’s no wonder I developed it all postpartum also. But the point is, it’s so often a fine line. It’s easy to question the normalcy of our thoughts and behaviors, even if we are primed for it and are expecting it. We second-guess ourselves. I was primed for it and I didn’t even realize what it was.

And not nearly enough focus is placed on the mental health of postpartum mothers. And I’m not just talking when they’re infants – this can take hold and not go away, even into toddlerhood. Trust me.

I will always be an anxious mother. It’s in my wiring. I have my moments, but overall right now, at least for now, I’m not pathologically anxious or obsessive, and I am very aware of that line. I just am who I am, and who I am translates into parenthood. I am working on caring about the things I care about, and standing firm behind my beliefs as long as they are rooted in a healthy place, which nowadays, they are (even if other parents raise their children in different ways or have different beliefs – but that’s a post for another day).

But this – motherhood, postpartum experiences, labor, delivery, parenting, relationships after having a baby – it really needs to be talked about, so so much more. Better out than in, better to know than not know, better to have people to relate to than to feel alone, better to heal collectively than suffer silently.

(Seems that’s the case for everything, am I right?)