By that time I saw the pink clouds but they had been grey for many weeks.
Before I had even been pregnant a lot of my friends thought I will be a great natural mother. Now I am, but after my son was born I didn't think so.
His entrance to our family came with a so many changes to my life that I felt miserable for many weeks. I recall that I cried night after night. That I would have no energy, that I was sleep deprived, that I didn't want to have any visitors, that I felt helpless at understanding my son's signals and that I didn't feel right in my new role.
I admired other mothers who were out and about with their baby six weeks after birth, shopping, looking fabulous. I was happy if I had a shower in the morning.
It took me two weeks to leave the house for the first time (for a short walk), five months before I went with my son grocery shopping; six months before I had the time and energy to cook for our family or take care of any other household duties.
Was it a long lasting baby blues or even postnatal depression?
Now in retrospective there are some factors that contributed to me feeling miserable after birth:
1) Heavy birth
As proud as I am to have given birth to a breech baby naturally without pain mediation, I have to admit it was a heavy birth for my body. It took all my energies and it took a long time to recover.
While I tried to rest as much as possible after the birth, I just didn't do enough resting. Luckily I had all the help I could need in my household but only a couple of weeks after his birth I started to sleep with him during the day. Also, I considered my diet to be healthy but some months after birth I found a different diet that was working much better for me as a HSP and gave me more energy for the day. All in all I feel only ten months after the birth my body had regained its full energy level.
2) Hormonal changes
During pregnancy I felt amazing. When my estrogen and progesterone hormone levels took a big drop after childbirth, I felt like the sun in my life just went down and a heavy grey sky appeared instead.
3) Lack of sleep
This was the one thing that hit me hardest after giving birth. As any other HSP I need a lot of sleep. I was used to 9-10 hours sleep at night. Now with breastfeeding my baby every two hours at night I was simply getting far too little sleep. Only after some weeks I made sleep my biggest priority and went early to bed and slept with my son during the day.
3) Lack of personal space
Out of a sudden there was this little bundle that needed me 24 hours. That was constantly crying for my attention. That needed to be close to me at all times. I struggled hard with this one. No more time just for me, to unwind, to centre myself. Very hard for HSPs. My son always wanted to be close. He would cry like murder whenever we put him down. He didn't want to be in his bed, his pram, on a mat. He had to be in our arms. Nonstop. He was crying a lot the first weeks. I think also due to me and him not finding our balance. As a HSP his cries touched me deeply. They felt like needles in my body. I could not let him cry. So he was sleeping on my body, we held him constantly, we carried him around in a carrier. He was with me 24/7. Even though I missed my previous freedom, I also felt I had to be close to him. It was a paradox. I missed my personal space but every time I would leave him my heart would cry out for him and I would miss him.
4) Lack of privacy
Looking back I feel after the birth was very little space for me to bond with my child. The first couple of days we had to stay in the hospital, in a shared room with another mother. When we came home a lady from the kraamzorg came for a week every day, then my mother stayed with us for a week and after that my mother-in-law stayed with us for three weeks. While all these people helped me greatly in the household and with my son, they also came with opinions and recommendations about baby care and intrusion in my privacy.
While some mothers wouldn't mind the additional people in the house and just be glad for the help, for me as a HSP, they represented an invasion in my privacy and I didn't feel comfortable in my own home.
There was no space for us to just be alone, to snuggle up in bed skin to skin, to rest during the day. There was no space for me to follow my instincts and develop my own parenting style with all these opinions in my own house.
When they all had gone, I finally had space and time to bond with my child and things went much better.
5) Too much information
When you have a child out of a sudden everyone around you feels like they own the right to give you advice on child upbringing. Not even your family: the neighbour, the doctor, your friends, countless books on the right baby care, google etc. I bought a lot of books on the topic, from attachment parenting to Gina Ford. Total extremes. I would google everything. Which parenting style should I follow? As a HSP I wanted to do it right, I had high expectations on me as a mother. I felt lost. Luckily in the end I trashed most of these books, stopped googling everything and followed my own instinct.
6) Breastfeeding problems
Already during pregnancy I had set my mind on the fact that I wanted to breastfeed. Basta. Well after birth I found out that it isn't so easy. I encountered numerous problems, had horrible injuries on my nipples and was in pain for weeks. I remember especially the nights when I woke up just feeling in pain. I was fearing the next time that my son wanted to breastfeed. There were times when I had horrible feelings towards him because his feeding brought me pain. Now I feel so ashamed thinking back of my emotions in those moments. Nonetheless, being very stubborn, I just didn't want to give up. I had set my mind on breastfeeding. Luckily I got amazing help from La Leche League. After ten weeks the problems were gone and breastfeeding became the easiest and most convenient thing on earth.
Roughly after three months the sky started to change, the clouds turned pink. They even turned extremely bright pink filled with love for my son and my new role as a mother. These days I sometimes think I am the happiest mother on earth. I even decided to not return to work just so that I can spend my time with my son.
What got me out of my postnatal misery?
A) A supportive husband
My husband was an incredible support during those months. Not only did he do everything in our household after he came from work from cooking to doing the washing, he also listened to me crying every night and had words of support. When I felt pain breastfeeding but didn't want to give up he told me "Don't worry about the future. Just think of tomorrow. If you can do it one more day, you can carry one." Somehow this advice helped me a lot.
B) Going outside and gentle exercise
For many weeks I hardly went out with my child. He was crying so much, that I feared the looks of the neighbors. It was stupid really, as once I took him into the baby carrier and started walking outside he would calm down. When I discovered that, we both started to go for walks in the nature. It did us both good. I also did a mother and baby yoga course which gave me a lot of good energy.
C) Meeting like minded mothers
With that I don't mean other mothers who were depressed, no other mothers who followed a similar parenting style and just had similar experiences with breastfeeding, sleeping issues or finding their place.
D) Following my instinct
My baby wanted to be carried around, he wanted to breastfeed often, he wanted to sleep with me and I let him. We were one unit. After the initial difficulties with this close contact I let it be and I experienced a love and joy I have never felt before. I read that breastfeeding and close contact to your baby releases endorphins and oxytocin which makes you happy and calm. It was true, I went from low to a high. From baby blues to baby heaven.
E) Time
After all I needed time to get comfortable in my new role as a mother. Time to get to know my baby. Time to adjust to the change. Time to find our rhythm. HSPs have a harder time with change and need longer to adjust. So it was. Time heals everything.
Looking back it was a hard couple of months but I found my place as a mother. Today I am surrounded by smiling pink clouds.
If you had a similar experience I would love to hear your comments and what helped you to overcome the baby blues.
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