Baby Blues and Postpartum Depression: My Experience As a First Time Mom

Baby blues and Postpartum Depression….two things that I went through personally and I kind of knew I would get the second part of it but didn’t really understand what it was before having my daughter. 

According to Google, Postpartum Depression is  “depression suffered by a mother following childbirth, typically arising from the combination of hormonal changes, psychological adjustment to motherhood, and fatigue”

While Baby Blues “are feelings of sadness a woman may have in the first few days after having a baby. Baby blues are also called postpartum blues.”

Now that I know both go hand in hand, it was definitely a new and scary experience that I didn’t know would involve months of me trying to figure out why I was feeling the way I did.

As a new mom, it’s like you think about the baby and forget what the new mom would be going through as well. So I’m here to tell you my story. 

After delivery  

Once I had my daughter, I was tired, excited about being a new mom, and ready to take care of her. Now I never thought of taking care of myself but this would be my first experience of why it was important to take care of myself too. 

We went to our postpartum suite so that my mom and myself could settle into our new normal with baby Luna. She was quiet for the first two hours!

Soon it was feeding time and I was just getting used to breastfeeding. This girl knew how to latch right away with no problems! 

I would wake up every two hours since the nurse advised me to and I had a timer on my phone to wake her up to feed. Now that I have some mommy experience, I would have let the timer go and have her eat whenever she felt like it.

So as I’m feeding the first day every two hours in the middle of the night, the tiredness didn’t bother me until the next day. 

The nurse comes in and checks me to see if I’m ok and then hands over a chart about postpartum depression.

I remember seeing things like if I felt suicidal or wanted to hurt my baby etc. I was a bit confused thinking it was too early for that but then something happened to me the following day. 

My realization 

During our second day of being in the hospital and feeding all day with Luna I had a realization. 

I’m waddling to the bathroom every few hours to use the restroom and then look at myself in the mirror. 

I felt like I was in an out-of-body experience. I couldn’t accept my new life and couldn’t understand how difficult it was going to be. 

I was scared, anxious, and worried. Although I knew I had to take care of my baby for the rest of my life and be a new mom, it just didn’t feel right at the moment.

I’m the type of person who likes to control my environment and in this case, being a new mom means there is absolutely NO control. I had to let it flow. Something I wish someone told me but then it’s like you really don’t understand until you personally go through it. 

I felt like I also needed a break. I was crying in the bathroom and I had to get myself together before going out because I didn’t want my mom to see me cry. 

There was a voice in my head telling me that I can do this and that although it was hard, it’ll get better. I believed in that voice although it didn’t seem like it at the time. 

I’m always a positive person and when situations get tough I always believe I’ll survive it since I’ve survived A TON of things that went far left in my life. 

So as I gather myself back into my room with my new baby, I realize I’m always anxious, crying, felt jumpy, and a bit heavy in emotions. 

I was curious to know what I was going through and although the nurse came in my room with a chart explaining postpartum depression, I really thought that was something that would occur a few months after having my baby…not a few days. 

I didn’t ask my nurse anything about it because I didn’t want to accept what I had so I “googled” my symptoms and it came up as baby blues. Most of my symptoms were exactly what was online and that’s when I realized ok I have this but it should disappear within two weeks. If not then I’ll talk to a doctor.  

I believe the baby blues lasted for 2 weeks, and then it carried on to PPD. 

I felt like I could handle all of this myself since I’ve always been the type to handle everything myself. Motherhood will teach you that you can’t do everything and sometimes you will just have to accept help!

My Postpartum Depression

I’m embarrassed to say this but I never took the time to schedule an appointment to see the doctor about my symptoms. 

I noticed I was more irritable after a few months and not only did I deal with this but having in-laws with me didn’t help either. 

Transitioning into the way I mother and how my in-laws wanted to parent were two different things and I always had to stand my ground. 

Mentally it was draining.

Not having my personal space or time for me to vent was problematic as well. I kept telling myself I could handle everything and that definitely snowballed into a heavy emotional time for me. 

When I would go to sleep I would always jump up in the middle of the night and check on Luna. I wasn’t well rested and was very anxious. 

Every time she cried I felt a piercing irritation in my soul and couldn’t handle her crying. I would try to calm her down by singing or watching youtube videos for myself to get rid of the anxiousness. 

There were times when I was super overwhelmed, and exhausted, my mind was a blur, and I didn’t even want to live in my own house. 

I would get so mad when Luna would cry for hours and everyone asking what was wrong and just wanted everyone to shut up. 

I felt like I wanted to live someone else’s life for a bit so that I could get away. 

I tried to join mom clubs but I wasn’t mentally connecting, I just wanted to be alone but not alone at the same time. 

It was really sad how I felt like that and couldn’t understand how this could be. I also felt like I didn’t get enough help at home or maybe I just didn’t want to accept the help.

I realized I needed to be more spiritual to get rid of the negative thoughts and so I would take Luna to church with me and that’s when things started to get a bit better.

I needed to pray more and be attentive to the word. Praying helped me so much and being around people who were spiritual helped my spirit. 

It was a few months before my depression wore off but I think it took me about a year and a half to notice I wasn’t having those feelings anymore. 

Postpartum depression is real. I know there are women out there who get severe depression or no symptoms at all. 

I didn’t think that this would happen to me but glad to say I was able to see normalcy now and went through it. It’s definitely something I don’t wish anyone to experience but be willing to be open to speaking about it. 

Having friends who had babies at the same time as me helped me navigate my feelings and also felt like I wasn’t by myself on this journey. 

We should normalize that this is real and help a new mother out. We just gave life and sacrificed our bodies to create life. Hormones are all over the place and sometimes you’re just feeling stuck. 

I pray for anyone who is going through this to get help. Even if a doctor can prescribe you something it can save your life. 

Did you ever get PPD? Let me know in the comments.