I realized I needed help about 4 months postpartum. I had just gone back to work and I was living in my head… reliving her birth constantly. 🤯 I kept finding myself on the OR table trying to bargain my way out of it, as if I could go back in time. I would see my anesthesia team at work all the time, and I was constantly having conversations with them in my head and wondering if I would ever get the balls to say something in real life (…I eventually did, I’ll save that for another post). I was having major panic attacks. I would walk into work in freezing cold December, sweating through my scrubs in places I didn’t know I could sweat, with my heart racing so hard I thought I might gag. My husband would have a conversation with me and I would be saying “yup, uhuh, uhuh”… and then “wait, can you start over? I’m sorry, I’m in my own head I wasn’t even listening”.  Poor Russ was so overwhelmed maintaining everything.

But when I started looking for help… a couple things stood out to me. While I had formed a much more intentional bond with Taylor compared to the immediate bond I felt with Mason… I felt insanely connected with her. ((Russ says she’s my spirit animal, idk if that’s a good thing 🤣💁🏼‍♀️)) I also wasn’t really feeling overwhelmed with adding to our family or the struggles of being a new mom again…. I was totally just stuck in her actual delivery and the events that happened that day and in the days to follow.

I knew I needed help… but for those reasons, I didn’t really feel like I was experiencing postpartum depression. Although, I don’t know that postpartum mental health issues can be placed into one box or one diagnosis. I was definitely having a lot of anxiety… but not about being a mom. I was just reliving it.

I started searching online and through my insurance provider for a therapist who specialized in maternal mental health and postpartum issues… and found that everyone and their mother had that checked as something they treated. A friend pointed me in the direction of postpartum support international… and through my state’s representative, I was hooked up with my amazing therapist Martha, and bomb.com APRN Teryn. ((Their website is www.postpartum.net and each state has their own board, and their own webpage, too.)) This is the resource I tend to pass on to my own patients if they seem like they could benefit from it, because it is the resource I found the most helpful. I would definitely recommend looking for professional help if you’re struggling with postpartum issues or maternal mental health… the women I worked with truly brought me back to the present and to my family, rather than continuing to live in the past.💜

Through this experience I have also found tremendous support online… through Facebook groups, blogs, and countless google searches. I think it’s the veil of the screen that makes people more comfortable sharing. There’s a great Facebook group called Birth & Trauma Support Group ((ran by an awesome midwife and the Birth & Trauma Support Center, which is another great resource.)) All of the mamas on there have experienced birth trauma in some way and are incredibly supportive. There are also some great organizations like Birth Monopoly ((and if you follow on insta, the founder Cristen is working on a documentary!!)) However, one negative thing I have noticed from these types of support groups, is that while it can be very therapeutic to share your story, it can also be very triggering to read other’s stories and sometimes it makes me feel stagnant in my healing, like I am back at step 1 stuck in my head. For that reason, now that I have shared my story, I want to shift focus to how to heal and where to go from here.

Everyone’s stories are different in their own way. And there are SO MANY stories. But in reading through others experiences, I’ve noticed a few themes that people struggle with throughout their healing process: bonding with baby, marriage difficulties, fear of any sort of medical exam or procedure, mom guilt (often misplaced), and anger. I’m going to address those in some future posts… but I think it’s important to realize that you aren’t alone, so I just wanted to share. 🖤