In a culture that claims to want to embrace vulnerability, acceptance, difference, and equality...I can't help but to be frustrated by the contradiction that comes with post-partum stigmas.
To preface the rant about to come, I'll jump on the vulnerable bandwagon and share a brief [haha, do you know me?] synopsis of my struggle. My daughter just turned two, and while as a parent these two years have flown by, as a woman battling post-partum, these two years have felt more like 10. It has been a long, difficult journey. One that has only seemed to get harder with the stigmas attached to me as I try to move forward.
My pregnancy wasn't perfect, but looking back, it wasn't terrible. I had gestational diabetes [commonly referred to as my friend "Beetus"] which, quite frankly, sucked. That Beetus, she's a handful. I hate needles...and had to prick my finger four times a day. I love food...but I could basically only eat lettuce. I thought pregnancy was the opportunity to eat for two...splurge on milkshakes....Oreos...ice cream... But no matter how well I regulated my post-meal glucose levels with a strict diet, my body just went cray cray each night causing my fasting levels to be high...100% out of my control. This led to me needing medication, yet I'm allergic to the medication for this. Again out of my control. Great, so insulin was our next option. More needles.
Around the time they determined this was what we had to do, I was 36 weeks. Reaves was having to be monitored twice a week for growth and movement...and those tests don't come cheap. We were already strapped financially as a result from various other things going on in our life. An extremely sick dog, a haunted house [as I like to call it] that kept taking our money by falling apart, and simply bad decision making/poor stewardship of our resources. That's a whole different story.
So here I am, 36 weeks pregnant, we're broke, I need medicine that I can't take, my body is freaking out...as it should - helloooo, I'm growing a life. I'm tired, I'm fat, I'm stressed, I'm scared, I'm excited. Insert God's sovereignty. I went into natural labor at 36.5 weeks. Before the insulin had begun and only a week after the expensive twice weekly tests were implemented. What could have totaled thousands of dollars over the remaining 4 weeks of my pregnancy, was now done.
Labor was great [post-epidural], I pushed for 10 minutes, and boom...we were parents. However, during labor, I contracted an infection that passed on to Reaves through the birth canal. This led to me needing extra time in the hospital and Reaves needing to spend the next two weeks in the NICU. I think we maybe had four hours with her before they came to take her back. Maybe. I was sleep deprived from a night of labor, and a sleepless day of joyous anticipation of spending time with our new child. There was still joy...don't get me wrong. But it was short-lived. Doctors and nurses flooded our room for consent upon consent upon consent to run this test and that test. I was trying to educate myself on risks/benefits, understand necessity, break down medical terminology that I couldn't recall from college, work on breastfeeding in between the tests [while I was on the other side of the hospital], meet deadlines for insurance and FMLA by notifying umteen thousand people, update family...all while trying to shoo out the billing department wanting immediate payment and more importantly, take care of myself. Um, I did just push a watermelon out of my body. That's not exactly a walk in the park on a spring South Carolina day.
The bills piled up after we got home. Bills were due almost immediately, and a payment plan was discouraged unless it was an even payment across a 12-month time frame. That forced our hand to pay more than we had coming in monthly. Not to mention, the next 12 weeks we were trying to make ends meet on one income, because in the U.S. maternity leave isn't paid. Debt upon debt.
So that's my brief synopsis. Ha. I don't do brief. I'm a details person. The next several months were rough. Not because we had a difficult baby, we didn't. She was [and is] WONDERFUL. She slept, she ate, she was happy, and so so cute. We were rested. Grace, grace, God's grace.
Over the next several months, as rested as I was, I was different. I wasn't sleep deprived. I wasn't dealing with a colicky baby. I wasn't struggling with breastfeeding. I wasn't the mom of a difficult baby at all. But I was struggling. To this day, I can't explain it...but that's what's so scary about post-partum depression and anxiety. Our body just does crazy things...out of our control. Hormones...they must be friends with Beetus. Those stinkers.
I did not recognize myself. I started checking Reaves' soft spot 20-25 times a day...I became obsessed with thoughts like "Is it bulging? Is it sunken? Has she peed 3+ times today? Maybe she's dehydrated...maybe she has swelling on her brain...I have a headache, what if I have swelling on my brain? What if it's a brain tumor? I'll die and she won't remember me. Nick will remarry and she'll call someone else 'Mama.'" I know how this sounds. I can assume the reaction of some people reading this. "Home girl CRAZY..."
My thoughts would spiral so fast, I would become irrational. I knew this, but I could not logically process anything. After 4 months, Reaves developed a dairy and soy allergy, requiring me to stop breastfeeding and begin formula. As if I didn't already feel the knife in my gut...now the knife was twisting. I'm not Granola, but I took this hard.
It wasn't long before the debt had swallowed us. We hit our knees. I can remember crying out loud to God for help, for guidance, for Nick and I to be on the same page, for community. Help came. With the support of our church, our community group, our family, and closest friends...we made the decision to sell our house to pay off all we owed. Talk about vulnerable...laying down your pride. Heck, blogging about this brings up all of those shameful feelings.
Our house went under contract within a week, but since we had to reserve so much of what we were making to pay off our debt, our options for purchasing a home were limited. We knew and were at peace about that before listing. We made the decision to down-size. We made the decision to live a simpler life, filled with more moments and experiences than square footage. We made the decision to steward our resources differently. This was not an easy road...it left us "homeless" for a month [with a 5 month old and three pets], forcing us to move in with my parents an hour away. After losing in several bidding wars on several homes, we felt obligated to consider leaving our community in Powdersville. Homes were just few and far between in the area we had come to know and love so much.
I share that to share this: we had a lot going on. The last thing I was focused on was self-care. Until I took Reaves' to our Med-Peds doctor and burst into tears when he told me she was thriving. Confused, he asked how I was doing. And Nick interceded for me, "not well...we need to talk." I confessed I was anxious...I confessed I felt like a failure...I confessed that I was scared sometimes to take care of my child because I felt like I would just mess her up. I confessed mostly that I had no idea what was wrong with me, that I just did not feel right. I was so overwhelmed with the feeling of being less than. Our doctor immediately put me on his schedule, and we talked for the next half hour. He confirmed what I feared. I was struggling with post-partum anxiety/depression, but assured me that it was totally normal. For the first time in five months, I felt like someone else understood what I couldn't. That was just the beginning of my healing.
Side note, God was sovereign yet again. We got a call back from an offer of ours that
lost to someone else, that it was now accepted if we were interested. YES. And we love
our new home, in our same community.
The stigma attached to that diagnosis is what I was afraid of. It's what I'm still afraid of. Mom shaming has gotten out of control, which is interesting since our culture so strongly emphasizes inclusiveness, political correctness, being free to be who you feel you are. Noted. So why am I not free to feel anxious and seek help for it without being stigmatized as having mental illness? Yes, mental illness.
Nick and I recently applied for life insurance. Adulting. The intitial interview was incredibly detailed...too detailed...and that's coming from a person who LOVES details! It was almost personally invasive. "Oh you've had a baby?....okay did you file any medical claims for this event?...Oh, short term disability?...okay, let me check that box. Were you hospitalized for your disability?" Excuse me, what? That claim just gets me paid [50% of my salary - eye roll] while I care for my child [and heal from said watermelon] on unpaid leave. "Well, ma'am, it's a disability claim."
"Are you currently on any medications? Oh Lexapro?...okay let me write that down. And what are you on it for? Anxiety? Okay, mental health...let me check this box. Were you institutionalized for your illness?" Wait...what?
Side note, this is in no way is intended to minimize the seriousness of or poke fun at true mental
illness. That is real and raw and an area that needs even more attention in our country
in its current state today. This is not that.
This went on for about 40 minutes. Thank goodness I didn't have to have a cesarean section, which was also asked when we got to "surgeries in the last 10 years."
Needless to say, after the interview process was complete, I had to fill out a mental illness waiver which resulted in a higher premium by a few hundred dollars. Mental illness. No wonder we read about women who don't seek help for post-partum depression, or anyone for that matter who struggle with some sort of depression/mental illness. I can't apply for life insurance to guarantee my family is taken care of because I sought help? I'm being penalized because I chose to speak out? I found myself regretting that I ever mentioned my anxiety to my doctor, even though I'm incredibly grateful for where I am now. I feel like a new person. I'm no longer irrational. I'm logical. I'm reasonable. I can love on my daughter instead of obsessing over statistics and growth charts and whether or not her finger nails are growing appropriately. I'm a better mom. I can give grace freely...to my husband, to my family, to myself. To this insurance interviewer on the phone. But it comes at a cost. It's absurd.
I get that money is money, business is business. But this is only a small example of a larger problem. The stigma attached to women who struggle with PPD/PPA needs to end. Mom-shaming needs to end. We are not weak, we are not less than, we should not be ashamed for not being okay. If our culture wants to be one of acceptance and equality, then let's be that. The more we stigmatize women fighting this battle, the less likely they will be to seek help. Our culture has become one big contradiction and it's infuriating. If we stop stigmatizing, and start supporting, our world - though inevitably broken - may just be a little better off while we're here.
God has changed our hearts in this season and as I've mentioned in previous posts, the past two years have been a turning moment for me in my faith and walk with Jesus. Ironic, huh? But the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians, "'My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong," (12:9-10)
and again in Isaiah...
"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak," (40:29), "but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint," (40:31)
and again in the Book of Psalms...
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble," (46:1)
and in Habakkuk...
"The Sovereign Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights," (3:19).
I hope and pray that mamas going through what I went [and am still going] through will seek help without fear of retribution. If you're a mama who shares in my suffering with PPD/PPA, there is freedom in speaking out, in seeking help, and most importantly, in Christ.
We are weak, but He is strong. It will be hard, there will be groaning. "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." (1 Peter 4:12) As creation subjected to futility, we must come to expect this. But may we place our hope in that "creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God," (Romans 8:21-23). I may groan here on earth...over my anxiety, over the judgment thrown at me, over inequality, over mental illness, over insulting stigmas, over Beetus and Hormones, over lettuce diets....but I anticipate what's to come. The judgment of others on earth holds no merit on me. On us. On you, mama.
"I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." John 16:33
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