After my first baby was born, I was a mess. I don’t think that what I experienced was true postpartum depression, but it definitely qualified as the “baby blues.”
I remember pulling into the driveway when my husband and I came home from the hospital with our son. I felt a tightness in my chest and my eyes were stinging with tears. How in the world was I going to do this? What did I really know about babies? When would I get sleep? Just reminiscing about it now I can feel all of those emotions flooding back to me.
The first couple of days after we were home I was overwhelmed. People would come over to see the baby and I would numbly go through the motions of having a conversation while thinking, “Don’t leave! I don’t know what I’m doing!”
My son, Caleb, was not a good sleeper by any stretch of the imagination. He refused pacifiers and wanted to be connected to my breast constantly. My husband kept a log of his sleeping patterns about five days after we brought him home and we found that he was sleeping about eight and a half of every twenty-four hours. I spoke to the pediatrician about it and got the helpful response, “Just think, he’ll learn so much faster if he’s awake more.”
I am not an emotional person, but I couldn’t help myself. In the afternoon, when Caleb was taking one of his twenty minute naps I would start to cry. Just thinking about the sleepless night ahead filled my heart with dread and anxiety. My husband was wonderfully supportive, but there wasn’t anything he could do to really help me. I would get in the shower and cry until I heard Caleb crying again, then I would get out to nurse him because it was all I knew to do.
Two weeks after we came home my husband had to go back to work. For a full week I would start to cry about a half hour before he left and for over an hour afterwards. I called my mom, my sister and everyone I knew trying to get advice. I distinctly remember walking around with him while he was crying and just crying with him.
I wish I could say that there was a magic piece of advice that someone gave me that made it all better, but there wasn’t. People would sympathetically say, “It will get better, give it three months.” I appreciated the concern of others, but I didn’t find the answers I needed by talking to others.
Psalm 62:8 was graciously put into the Bible for me. It says, “Trust in Him at all times; ye people: pour out your heart before Him, God is a refuge for us…” In my darkest baby-blues laden hour I would cry out to God. I was beside myself with exhaustion, insecurity and fear and I had to continually lay it all at Jesus’ feet. Did I immediately overcome my anxiety? No. My depression was a valley that I had to go through, but I did not go through it alone. God knew my heart and everything that I was feeling.
I am so glad that I have a God that wants me to pour out my heart before Him and cast my cares upon Him. He was so faithful to me during that time, giving me encouragement and a deep devotion and love for my baby.
For related articles, please see:
Post Partum Depression, Not Just For Moms
For more articles by this blogger, please see:
Does God Really Expect Me to Give Ten Percent?