“I thought having a baby was the best thing that could have happened to me. After all, many women want to be a mother. We all want that little boy or girl to call us mommy. But after months of fatigue and feeling uncomfortable and my little girl was born it was not that happy time that I thought it would have been,” she said with a slight smile.
It has been some months since she gave birth to her baby girl and from the way she lovingly looks at her every few seconds, there is no doubt in my mind that she loves her very much.
Having this conversation with her was somewhat uncomfortable for me because I knew exactly what she was talking about and I know that guilty feeling as well.
“I was like, I am supposed to be happy because I gave birth to this perfect girl and you know she had the ten toes and ten fingers and everything was alright with her but I could not understand why I was so sad and I was crying without reason,” she continued.
“One morning I got up and… I didn’t want to get out of bed. I had this sweet little baby needing me but I can’t get up and when I finally got up I was crying. Crying for what I don’t know.”
As she spoke she held her baby close to her and I was afraid the tears might come again but instead she kissed her little angel several times as she cooed lovingly. I had asked her about the transition into motherhood and she quickly told me that it was not all joy even though it was obvious that she loved her baby very much.
“It is not like I was not getting support but still I felt overwhelmed. How can I explain it without sounding selfish? Like you are accustomed to just you and now there is this little being and everything I did had to be done around her. People were saying sleep when she sleeps if you want to sleep and then in the nights it was no sleep. But I try to deal with it and do what was best but still felt messed up and cried a lot. My partner could not understand and a lot of times I just hid the tears from him,” she confessed.
“I just bear it because sometimes I try to explain how I felt but the answers I got was like I should be grateful for what I had because the baby was not sick and all that and that my partner was with me and we seem to be happy. Is like nobody didn’t understand how I was feeling and it just made me guilty but it didn’t stop the tears. It was like until about three months after I start feeling better.
“Now the days are better. I don’t feel like that anymore and at least there are no more tears. I am enjoying her more and I am grooving into motherhood and when I look back at those days is like I can’t understand myself. It is not as if I am saying everything is perfect I still struggle sometimes with doing the motherly chores but there are many good days now and for that I am happy,” she said with a broad smile.
“I don’t question that I am a good mother. A good one, not a perfect one but at times when I look back at those early days I don’t feel that good anymore,” she said.
I told her she would get over it and I am sure that in another year or two she would forget all about those early days as she enjoys every new stage of her daughter’s life.
We spoke for about an hour and I must admit that most of what she disclosed, I had experienced when I first became a mother. It is not an issue I am not comfortable discussing, but it is a fact and I have spoken to a quite a few other women who had almost identical experiences when they became mothers. When I had my second child it was not as tough as the first time, because I was more prepared and while there were some down days they were nothing in comparison to what I endured during the initial days of becoming a mother.
What we experienced, according to the National Health Service website www.nhs.uk, which is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom, may have been what is known as “baby blues”. Women can experience a low mood and feel mildly depressed at a time when they expect they should feel happy after having a baby. “Baby blues” are probably due to the sudden hormonal and chemical changes that take place in your body after childbirth.
Symptoms can include:
● feeling emotional and bursting into tears for no apparent reason
● feeling irritable or touchy
● low mood
● anxiety and restlessness
The website said that such symptoms normal and usually only last for a few days but for me, and her, it lasted way past that. I had at least a month of these symptoms, perhaps more.
I want to hold on to the term ‘baby blues’ but we may have also experienced postnatal or postpartum depression which is believed to affect 1 in 10 women.
“Many women suffer in silence. Their friends, relatives and health professionals don’t know how they’re feeling’” the website said.
“Postnatal depression usually occurs 2 to 8 weeks after the birth, though sometimes it can happen up to a year after the baby is born.
“Symptoms such as tiredness, irritability or poor appetite are normal if you’ve just had a baby. But these are usually mild and don’t stop you leading a normal life.”
The website further advises that persons should seek help by speaking to their friends and relatives and physicians. But as my friend explained earlier she had attempted to share with others how she felt and got little or no support.
And that is the problem many of us face. People just don’t understand how you feel and they would not understand why either, because in their estimation, if you have a ‘good life’ then you should start counting your blessings and not complain.
As women, we have to learn to rally around our sisters or it may have to be the case of ‘who feels it knows it’ and those who would have experienced the same issue may understand what another woman is going through. But in some cases we may wish to forget that experience and not be as understanding as we should.
Ladies let us give a sister a hug and spare a moment to listen, you never know how far it may go and for those of you who may have those ‘baby blues’, just know that nothing is wrong with you. And if it is postnatal depression seek help.
