Joy and happiness ... or fear and sadness?
Coping with the postpartum blues
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| Carmela Rodriguez cuddles her 15-month-old son, Alex, during playtime in their DePue home. Rodriguez suffered from postpartum depression after Alex was born, but she returned to normal after being diagnosed and treated by her doctor. (BCR photo/Barb Kromphardt) |
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DEPUE — For many women, a new baby means joy and excitement.
But for another group of women, a new baby can mean sadness, fear and panic attacks.
For Carmela Rodriguez of DePue, the birth of her son Alex in February 2008 meant tears, fatigue and an overwhelming need to escape.
“You think like once you get pregnant after trying and having to do treatments that it’s just going to be the greatest thing in the whole world,” Rodriguez said. “But from the moment he was born, I think I was kind of terrified of him.”
Rodriguez said movies and television portray birth as a wonderful experience, and in some ways, it was. But Rodriguez said everything wasn’t wonderful.
“You’re supposed to feel a certain way, and it’s supposed to be this great occasion. I don’t think I felt like that,” she said. “I was just scared.”
It was a little easier in the hospital, where there were nurses available to help, but after Rodriguez and her husband brought Alex home, they found him to be a real challenge, needing to be held all the time. And all Rodriguez wanted to do was cry.
“I didn’t enjoy my child at all,” she said. “You want him, and you love him and you take care of him, you feed him and you change him, but it was kind of like I was mourning some kind of loss.”
The lowest point came about three weeks after Alex’s birth. Rodriguez was holding him, as she usually was, and he finally fell asleep.
“I just started bawling, and my whole body was shaking,” she said, holding back tears. “I looked at him with tears in my eyes, crying, and I looked up at heaven and I said to God, ‘I don’t want you to hurt him, but please take him away. I don’t want him anymore.’”
Today, Rodriguez can only shake her head as she remembers those days.
“I love him so much that I can’t believe I even thought that, but my mind was so irrational,” she said.
Rodriguez had family and friends in the area, but no one seemed to understand what she was going through until it was time for her six-week check-up with her doctor.
“I’m sitting in the chair inside the office waiting for her to come in to see me, and she walked in, and she kind of looked at me and gave me like this soft, sympathetic look,” she said. “It was almost like she could tell in my face that something wasn’t right.”
Rodriguez said the “floodgates just opened,” and she sat there crying and telling the doctor how she was feeling. The doctor knew all about what Rodriguez was going through.
“She said, ‘You don’t have what I would classify as postpartum depression, but you’re on your way there,’” she said.
The doctor prescribed an anti-depressant.
“She said, ‘It’s not a happy pill. You’re not going to feel not like yourself, it’s just something that helps you cope,’” Rodriguez said.
And that’s just what happened. Rodriguez started taking the medicine, and suddenly she wasn’t always on the verge of tears.
Despite that, Rodriguez is hesitant to give all the credit to the medication.
“Someone had listened to me,” she said. “Someone finally acknowledged that I needed some help.”
Today, 16 months later, all of Rodriguez’s symptoms are long gone, and she’s madly in love with her young son. She wants to help others who might be going through what she went through, and speaks to the parenting classes at Putnam County High School about her experiences both as a parent and the struggle she had with postpartum depression.
“It’s so important for these kids to realize it’s not just a cake walk in the park,” she said. “I want them to know it’s OK to feel these things.”
For more information:
In Illinois, the Postpartum Depression Illinois Alliance works to promote awareness, prevention and treatment of maternal mental health issues throughout the state. PPD IL offers a helpline (847) 205-4455) and Web site (www.PPDil.org) for women and their families, so they can learn more about pregnancy and postpartum mood disorders and access local resources such as support groups and trained healthcare providers.
According to the PPD IL Alliance, about 15 - 20 percent of pregnant women and 15 percent of new mothers experience major or minor mood disorders in the first year after giving birth. Symptoms may include:
• Feelings of sadness, fear, anger and guilt
• Appetite and sleep disturbance
• Difficulty concentrating and making decisions
• Lack of interest in the baby
• Many worries and panic attacks
• Possible thoughts of harming the baby or oneself
