My mom stayed at our house for the first two weeks after we had Cove. She happened to catch me crying one day and immediately knew that things weren’t right. She suffered postpartum depression when she had me. With this foreknowledge, she was able to share with me the things that she felt during her darkest days. It was a bond I never hoped to have with her, but I am thankful for it nonetheless. She said so many amazing things to me that first week home that I wish I would have written down, but I will never forget the one conversation that gave me the most hope.
“Baby girl, I wanted to give you back so badly. I thought I would never bond with you. I felt so incapable. But now? I’m crazy about you. You’ll be crazy about Cove too one day, I just pray it doesn’t take you long to get there.”
My mom and I have an incredibly close relationship, and I am so thankful for my mom taking the step to tell me how she felt when she had me. I hung on to that conversation, hoping she was right – that one day I would be crazy about Cove. It didn’t happen over night, or even over a week. Cove had been home with us for a full month before I ever even uttered the words, “I love you” to him. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows at first, and even today we still have hard days.
I think one of the most difficult things about postpartum depression is that if people know that you have it, they expect you to be fine once you are taking medication or once so much time has gone on. Maybe we put those expectations on ourselves too – I know I did (do). I thought that a year into this journey my life would look drastically different – that I would 100% love being a mom. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I 100% love Cove, but there are still hard days. I sometimes wish that I was like my other twenty-something friends that can go and travel the world or move to fun new cities or even just SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT!
For me the difference in 2019 Emily vs. 2018 Emily is that while I have hard days, I also have hope. Hope that the darkness won’t last forever. Hope because I am crazy about a wild little boy. Hope because I know that I am not alone in this journey. Most importantly I have hope because I am so deeply and fully loved by a God who never wishes I wasn’t his kid. How incredible is that? God never tires of us or grows weary or wants to give us back. He knows all of the struggles and heartache that we are going to bring him in the future and he still chooses us every. single. day.
Postpartum depression brought me into a sisterhood that I never asked to be a part of. I am so thankful for people like my mom and other dear friends of mine who have held my hand, let me cry or be angry when I needed to, and loved me through the hardest days I have lived. If you are walking the hard path of PPD alone, I hope you will reach out to me, or someone you know, who has been there as well. Having someone who knows what you are going through makes such a big difference. If you are the friend of a new mom, don’t hesitate to ask her how she is really doing. Give her the permission to share in a judgement free space. Don’t just assume that because she has this new “bundle of joy” that she is actually feeling joyful. Together we are stronger.