For the first two months of being pregnant, I would go into the bathroom to cry.
The Man would come to the door and ask “Is it a sad wee?” It was a sad wee, but sad in a strangely unfocused way that was impossible to articulate even to myself. When you are pregnant and you didn’t really set out to be, it is a difficult position to be in. You are not really allowed to be anything less than joyful and glowing.
By around the sixth month some of the initial shock was wearing off (as one of my friends said to me “Married Woman Becomes Pregnant” is not making headlines anywhere but still it had come as a shock to me) and I did enjoy a lot of the amazing sensations of growing a baby, not to mention the side-perks like indulging in my love of PopTarts.
I thought I had shaken off the blackness that had settled on me during early pregnancy. But about two weeks before the baby was born I became plagued by profound anxiety. Like many heavily pregnant women, I couldn’t sleep and spent my nights pacing the house. Occasionally I would go and stand in the baby’s room and look at the various newborn accoutrements we had amassed for our baby, and I would experience a terror so strong I would feel physically sick. A few times The Man had to come in and get me, sporting the unnerved look of a man who’s wife appeared to have developed a bizarre phobia of the changing mat that said “mama’s little giraffe” on it.
Things that were totally benign, the tiny baby-grows, the knitted caps had taken on nightmarish proportions and I tried to avoid baby-related items as much as possible. Not easy when you’re nine months pregnant. Also I found there was this constant self-reflexive sensation of feeling the feelings, then worrying about what the feelings meant and then worrying about worrying about what having the feelings meant. The anxieties were like a set of Russian dolls, each anxiety containing another even more acute terror about what the first terror might mean.
10 times I kind of suspected that I had PND…
1. When The Man first showed me the baby in the delivery room and I felt quite frightened, not of the magnitude of parenthood or anything, but actually frightened of the tiny creature, and then frightened of the very reaction of being frightened which was surely not the right or natural way to be feeling.
2. When I felt like crying ALL THE TIME but was too terrified to cry in case I literally never stopped. I had heard about the baby blues, and the phenomenon of crying all day on day 3 or 4 or 15 but to still be feeling this on day 168 was draining and so terrifying. I didn’t allow myself to cry. I really tried to keep it in at all times. I felt very paralysed but also certain that if the crying started it, it would never abate and I would cry forever.
3. The first time I left my son with my mum in the hospital room to go and get a coffee. I skipped down two floors to the coffee shop feeling temporarily free; then the strange giddiness subsided replaced by a strong urge to be sick at the thought of him up there without me. In that moment, it hit me that this is the prison of parenthood. We will never be free. I abandoned the coffee order to get back up to his bedside, where he had lain blinking and perfectly serene since I’d left. It was a strange catch 22 of being unable to be away from him and yet wanting to run away.
4. When on the day I left hospital a kind, very young and very wise midwife suggested that I go to the showers, turn on the water and scream and cry it out. I did this. It provided temporary relief from the strange feelings that were roaring inside me at all times.
5. I was petrified of being left alone with the baby, which, as the child’s mother, is an unfortunate state in and of itsself, but I was even more terrified of the fact that I was terrified. What did it mean???
6. I was relentless in my quest to appear fine. My hair and makeup was perfect at half seven in the morning. I was not fine. My friend came to see me and said quite simply “you’re in the hole”. Since then I have met others in “the hole” and can now get a sense of how far I’ve come, but yeah I think I was in the hole.
7. When even just displaying the baby cards from well-wishers was out of the question. Just encountering a powder blue missive exclaiming “It’s a boy” was enough to send me back to the bedroom with the blinds drawn. The Man put all the cards away in a box as and when they arrived, looking understandably perplexed with the tiny baby lolling on a muslin over his shoulder.
8. When I thought my son hated me. When I thought I hated my son.
9. When I spent Christmas morning staring at a wall and blankly wondering “what have I done to my life” and also strangely not really caring.
10. When I really, really felt nothing for my son. And hated myself for it. Every night I put him to bed and said “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me” and willed myself to feel it.
Postscript:
I was never diagnosed with postnatal depression, I never sought professional help or medical advice. The Man and my mother were very concerned about me, but I wouldn’t listen. I was obsessed with being fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. I was too scared to admit that something may not have been fine about how I was feeling. I also saw a close friend who was so very, very not fine and bravely adressed it. And felt that I had no right to complain about my healthy baby and my charmed life when others were struggling so much.
I guess what I wanted to say with this piece is that there are degrees of not fine, and all of it is okay to feel. I didn’t think I would ever get to the stage of feeling like I truly, madly adore my beautiful boy, but I have. Maybe I would’ve got here sooner had I accepted some help. Maybe not. Either way I got here. He’s f*cking deadly and I love him.
He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
