Depression Sets In

I will be the first to tell you that I had Post Partum Depression in the months after I had Tyler, my second son. I didn't see it at first, but after months of crying for little or no reason and feeling like nothing was ever going to go my way, I broke down and talked to my doctor about it. I was on medication for a few months and as I started feeling better I took myself off of it. I probably wasn't supposed to do that, but I was much better and not taking the meds anymore gave me hope that the PPD was over.

This was an entirely different type of depression, this was not PPD. This time, my tears were coming from such a deep seeded place of sadness. I would have some good moments when I would just look at her while she's sleeping and think 'wow, how lucky am I to have such a beautiful little girl'. But in all honesty, the moment she would wake up and open her eyes, my heart would sink. It was like reality came back and kicked me straight in the gut. Sometimes when she would cry, I would stand and rock her to calm her down. Having her head lying right over my heart so she could hear the sounds she was used to before she was born. I specifically remember one day about 2 weeks after she was born where I just stood in the living room rocking her and crying my eyes out. All I wanted to do was protect her from all of what she was about to go through. Why couldn't I protect her? I am her mother, mothers are supposed to protect their children. How come I can't do that for her? What kind of mother am I?

I cried alot....I Cried A LOT. I knew my where my depression was coming from and honestly didn't want to waste anytime trying to fix me, I just wanted to fix her. She needed to see the doctors more than I did, so I put myself on the back burner. Trying to convince myself that I was strong enough to get through this. But where do I get the strength from? Is there a magical "be strong" fairy out there who would come in the middle of the night and sprinkle some glitter on me? Is it like coffee? Have a cup of strength in the morning and it will get your day started off right? How do I get through my day without completely falling apart? Most of the time I didn't. I would spend many days just crying, holding Emily as tight as I could, not wanting to put her down for fear something else would happen. If I put her down, I couldn't protect her anymore. So I held her, almost all day, as much as I could. Nothing was going to happen to her as long as she was in my arms.

But that is not reality, all of that was in my head and I knew it wasn't true. How could I protect her from what she was about to go through, if this problem developed while she was still inside my womb? How could I allow this to happen to her? Why didn't I have that mothers intuition feeling in my gut that there was something wrong for all of those 9 months? How did I not know this was happening to her? I felt helpless.