It was never officially diagnosed, but when I sobbed my eyes out for no reason on the young, new, gynecologist’s exam table at my “well” visit after having my second son, it probably would’ve helped if he did.

When I had my first son, although I was in active labor (pushing) for SEVEN HOURS, once he popped out with his giant cone head, all the pain and misery was gone. I wasn’t even tired anymore; the adrenaline had me on the most natural high of my life and I stayed up all night staring at him. I actually felt my heart grow bigger like the Grinch at the end of the movie.

When we got home I just wanted to hold him and snuggle him and give him a bazillion kisses. All the doubts I ever had about becoming a mother were gone. This is what I was meant to do.

With my second son, I had an an emergency c-section. All the factors that led up to it and the things that happened after – none of them the fault of my precious baby – made me so tired, so drugged-up, so weepy. I just wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t. They were no-longer allowing mothers to send their babies to the nursery. They believed it was better to be with them for bonding purposes.

What makes me most sad is that the memories of the first night with my son are of me crying and holding him and praying that I could just go to sleep. It makes me tear up just to write that.

When I got home things didn’t get better. I’m really weird about sounds as it is, but one day I was particularly disturbed by the sound of the basketball that my neighbors were bouncing in their driveway.

Teara came by to see us and I was sitting in my living room, holding the baby and crying hysterically over the bouncing ball.

Teara cautiously and sweetly said, “Here, let me take him” and then offered up some solutions about the basketball that sounded like a jack-hammer to me.

My friend Andrea once told me that when you have postpartum depression, you don’t even realize how bad it was until you’re out of it. Truer words have never been spoken.

Even when the weeping stops, the dark and sad feelings are still there, but because you’re not crying anymore, you fool yourself into thinking you’re better.

I attribute it to women expecting that caring for an infant will be difficult – the lack of sleep, the raging hormones, your shape-shifting body – of course all this will mess with your mental health. But PPD is different than all the “normal” things that occur.

On top of all those things, there was the guilt of not wanting to hold and kiss this baby as much as I did with my first. I actually questioned my love for this baby – and that is THE most awful feeling in the world.

The reason I’m telling you all this a decade later is not for sympathy. I’m telling you because if there is one single person I can help by letting them know that it will get better and it will be ok – that’s what I wanted to do.

The stigma of PPD is starting to go away, but I don’t understand why it was ever anything to be ashamed of in the first place. Probably because of what I wrote above – you don’t want it to look like you didn’t/don’t love your baby.

BUT IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT!!! Why be ashamed of something you have no control over??

And it is SO common. Have a real conversation with your doctor and tell them how you feel. Or be open and honest about it with a trusted friend. I’m sure you’ll discover that not only are you not the only one, but there are many others feeling the same way. And if you have no one to talk to, I invite you to contact me. Seriously. You need someone right now.

And don’t worry, once the dark cloud passes, your love for your baby will catch up to your love for everyone else you care about, and it will spill over and you won’t be able to stop kissing and hugging and loving them too.

You’ll look back and wonder how you possibly could have ever felt anything less than the love you feel for them at that moment. What you should understand is that it was never about your baby, it was just that you needed a little extra time to love and take care of yourself ♥️♥️