PPD? Or is it just me?
My son just turned 8 months old and I’m back to my old self. Unfortunately.
He clings to me, his little starfish hand clutching at the button on my shirt, his mouth clamped onto my flesh sucking, sucking, sucking as if his life depended on it. His life does depend on it, after all. Eight months in and he still has no teeth.
His feet clench, his legs tucked into my side, we lie there, the two of us, eyes closed, bound together in our mutual need for one another.
In a few minutes, I know, he will fall asleep and I will try to extract myself, slowly, gingerly, picking up his soft, fat, cushiony limbs and placing them down carefully on the bed, my heart skipping beats when he stirs, rolls over.
And I will go, leave him here alone in this huge bed, surrounded by pillows to hamper his impulse to roam on waking.
I won’t go far, perhaps just to the kitchen to prepare his lunch, perhaps to fold laundry or put on yet another load, barely even metres away I will listen out for the tiny sounds of his sleep — the snuffles and breaths, the cries and laughs, wondering what adventures or terrors his dreams are presenting to him.
I will breathe a little deeper now he is asleep, knowing that, for the next twenty minutes at least, maybe longer, he won’t need anything. Even these few metres will feel both too far and not far enough. Too far to be comfortable, not far enough to be carefree. Nowhere is far enough, nowhere is close enough. I will never be carefree again, I realise, ever since I became aware of his existence. But this watchfulness, wakefulness, this preoccupation isn’t burdensome to me.
It is me.
I wring out the cloth nappies soaking in a bucket in the bathroom, hold my breath against the smell, tip away the dirty water and carry them to the washing machine, turn the dial to the baby care setting and pour in detergent and conditioner, and tears start to roll down my cheeks.
Why, when I can without reservation say that being this little creature’s mother has brought me happiness I never thought I would experience, why does it feel like a hole is opening up inside me, swallowing up that joy and leaving me nothing but an outline?
It started off so small, this hole. Tiny, even. Not worthy of consideration. Days after his birth a midwife, being helpful, wanting to make me more comfortable, tries to remove my stitches. Unsurprisingly, it hurts. Unlike the pain of the delivery, this pain stays with me.
I feel it at unexpected, unwanted times, even months after all the wounds have long since healed. Feel stupid, such a silly thing. You can push a live human out of you with no pain relief, endure God only knows how many stitches, and it’s having them removed that haunts you? When you consider what some women endure with their twenty hour labours and emergency caesarians, you should be ashamed.
And I am ashamed. Of this, and of the feeling of being unclean — because washing tattered labia wasn’t a straightforward endeavour in those early days. And still, even though the folds are whole again now, no matter how many times I wash, I always feel dirty. Ragged and dirty. I have barely dared to look at myself, let alone touch myself.
When my partner touches me, I feel nothing. Hormones, probably, we tell one another. And maybe it was at first. Or maybe now the part of me that wanted to be touched has fallen into that hole along with the part that wanted anything at all besides wrapping myself around my baby, kissing his starfish hands as they clutch at me.
Wanting and not wanting have become abstract, alien concepts now. I’m aware of parts of me that want a moment away from him — to swim, to write, to eat, to sleep, to love and be loved — but they announce themselves quietly, are drowned out by the echoes of those animal birth cries that surged from my body as he emerged into the world, those cries that want only to be near him, to hold him, to feed him, to see him.
Everything else fades into the distance, shadow-wants, frivolous and unimportant.
The washing machine churning in the background, I push the bedroom door open a chink, peer in, search anxiously for the sign of his chest rising and falling. His pouting lips suckle gently as he sleeps. His face is the most beautiful thing in existence. Fresh tears fall down my cheeks.
I wrote this two days ago in the midst of one of the intense lows I’ve been experiencing since my baby was about six and a half months old. I don’t feel like this every day, only on the bad days. The good days are great. I’m filled with love for my baby and my partner and can’t get enough of them.
The bad days, it feels the same, only there isn’t enough of me.
I don’t know if this ‘counts’ as postpartum depression. I was fine immediately after the birth and in the early months when you’re supposed to go crazy with hormones and sleep deprivation and everyone’s constantly asking how you are. By now I should have this thing nailed.
And in some ways, I do. I rarely have days where I lose my patience with my baby or my partner (I say rarely, not never — I’m not a saint) and never feel like motherhood was a mistake, or is in any way worse than I imagined.
In fact, it’s all better than I could have ever imagined. So much so that I’m crushingly sad that I might only get to do it this one time.
This doesn’t seem to fit with the kinds of postpartum depression I’ve heard other mothers talk about, where they can’t bond with their baby or they lie awake all night having murderous thoughts about their partner because they have the audacity to be asleep.
So what is this beast I’m dealing with, that drags me into its hole every other day, robs me of my energy and the sheer joy I feel the rest of the time I’m caring for and playing with my baby?
This isn’t the first time I’ve felt depressed. In fact, I’ve had bouts of depression for as long as I can remember. The only difference this time is that, when I’m not feeling low, I’m insanely happy.
Before, when I’ve experienced a down, I had things to be unhappy about. I was grieving, in non-functioning relationships, or jobs that demanded I play a role that didn’t suit me.
This time round though there’s nothing to justify this feeling, not even the monotony and minutiae of motherhood, which some women hate but I apparently seem to find quite fulfilling (which no doubt says more about me than it does about them!).
So is it PPD, or is this just me, now the rush of pregnancy hormones is wearing off and my body and mind return to something like ‘normal’?
Answers on a postcard please.
