PPD

I've been having a rough few weeks.  One minute I'm fine, the next I want to cry.  Most moments I manage to keep it together, but there have been a few days in which I've just cried for a while.  I am, as I've blogged before, a crier, but it isn't like me to sob for an entire morning.  Archer asked me how I was doing yesterday, and I said, I feel like I'm having good days and bad days.  He asked if he could make an observation, and I said yes.  He said that my cycles are more regular following George's birth than following Wild Man's and Bear's.  He has noticed that I am more uneven than usual about a week before my period starts and at least three days into my period.  I immediately knew he was right, and now I'm trying to keep track of my cycles.  Prior to having Wild Man, I was on the pill, and I was also on the pill immediately following his birth as well as Bear's.  While I primarily took the pill for birth control, I found that it helped regulate the hormonal shifts I seem to be experiencing lately.  I told Archer I may go back on it for that reason, but then I don't want to do that.  So I started doing some research.  Now I wonder if I don't have a late-onset PPD.  I know that mothers can experience PPD up to a year following the birth of a child, and I'm still within that time frame for George's birth.  But honestly, all the descriptions are so different.  Do I have the Baby Blues (a term I hate, by the way, as it is just so dismissive) or more severe depression?  Or am I just tired and struggling to compensate for a lack of sleep?  Most of the time, I feel like myself.  I feel good.  But several times a week I have an urge to just cry.  But then, so do most mothers I know.  I mean, parenting is a hard, hard job.  It is exhausting and draining, and it can be demoralizing.  It's full of high-highs and low-lows.  Mothering is an emotional roller coaster in and of itself.

Baby blues

I really hate the term "baby blues." I think it is dismissive of what the emotional changes that many women go through following the birth of a child. That said, I'm trying to determine if I'm experiencing a case of the "baby blues."

Following Bear's birth, I was emotional for a few weeks. Given the tendency for women in my family to get depressed, C and I talked about my emotional state a lot. In fact, since my sister was diagnosed as bi-polar, C is very aware of my moods and mood changes, but that is a topic for another post. Given the mood swings I was having, I talked to my mid-wife, and she encouraged me to get more sleep and to allow myself room to be upset and to adjust to life with two children. After a few weeks, I started to feel better, so I stopped worrying about it.

In the last few weeks, however, I've been wondering if the "baby blues" are returning. Putting Bear in daycare has upset me much more than I anticipated. I mean, I knew I would be upset, just as I was upset with Wild Man. I didn't anticipate, however, that thinking of him being with other caregivers would make me burst out in tears and feel so sad. I asked C his opinion a few days ago, and he said that I seem to be much more sensitive this time around, but he thinks it is because Bear will likely be our last baby. I am also experiencing a profound sense of disappointment that I was not able to stay home with him. I've been thinking about that a lot, as Wild Man started part-time daycare at 3 1/2 months. I've been trying to determine what the difference is with Bear, and I really think it is all about our geographic and cultural location. I live in a country where it is the norm to stay home for a year, and I didn't get to experience that for a variety of reasons, primarily financial. And that has left me sad. So I've been trying to gauge if I'm depressed or if I'm just really upset by this particular situation, and while I do think it is the latter, I think I'm going to be smart and talk to my doctor at a check-up next week.

Stupid, stupid name

I have a doctor's appointment today--my annual check-up. Thus, I've been researching various forms of birth control since I know my doctor is going to want to take me off of the mini-pill now that I'm not breastfeeding so much. In my research, I ran across this article on moms ingesting their placentas to stave off the "baby blues." I don't know what I think about the placenta ingesting, but I do know that I think of the term the "baby blues." I think it is a stupid, stupid name. It trivializes and dismisses what most women experience after giving birth. I do not think that all women experience post-partum depression, but I do think that all women suffer from the drastic changes that occur in their bodies as a result of giving birth. I recently read an article (I can't remember where) that more accurately explained what happens in a woman's body. We are not, in fact, hormonal after giving birth. We are the opposite of hormonal as our bodies literally suffer from a complete lack of hormones. All the hormones we've been accustomed for 9 months suddenly stop to be replaced by newer, but drastically fewer, hormones. This is exacerbated by the lack of sleep that we experience after child birth. I could go on and on about this, but I will only make myself angrier. Suffice to say, to call what a woman experiences after giving birth the "baby blues" is inaccurate, dismissive, and just plain stupid. I know the emotions that I experienced (both good and bad) could not be described by that term. I wish people, particularly doctors, would stop using that term because I believe the term only encourages women to deal with their emotions on their own rather than seeking help. We believe "Oh, I only have the baby blues; things will get better," when in fact many women could be suffering from something much more serious.