Pregnancy is hard for every woman. That's a fact. It's also a fact that it is hard in different ways for every woman. I feel like I've tried to be honest with my motherhood experiences, but I know that there are times that I need to open myself up more in order to be entirely truthful.
My two pregnancies have been very different. During the first one, I was nauseated constantly. I had never felt so physically ill in my life. During my second pregnancy, I was depressed constantly. I have never felt so mentally and emotionally ill in my life. Although I have struggled with anxiety since I was a child, that was the first time that I was able to recognize the dark clouds hanging over my head for what they were: depression.
I felt so low, so tired, so worthless. And though I was meeting with doctors on a bi-weekly basis, not once did any of them ask about my mental health. Perhaps I would not have shared if they had, but part of me knows all I was waiting for was someone to extend a hand to my drowning self and say, "it's okay. There is help."
That hand didn't come until a few hours before we were discharged from the hospital, my infant son in my arms. A blonde nurse dressed in maroon scrubs looked over the survey I'd filled out and with kindness and understanding in her eyes told me that my answers indicated I was at risk for postpartum depression. "It's nothing to mess with," she said. "I've been there. You don't need to be embarrassed." She encouraged me to ask for help, and six difficult, tear-filled weeks later, I finally did what I should have done years before.
Although my son is well past the baby stage, I still struggle. Daily. Medication helps heal my mental state, but not as much as knowing someone cares and that I am not alone. A hug, a text, an email, an honest conversation with a friend--these are the things that have the power to heal emotionally.
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