I recently saw an interview in The Saturday Age on PND. I read things like “It was a nightmare,” or “I felt like I was in a black hole.” But I couldn’t even begin to express my true feelings. As I read, it dawned on me. If I had been able to truthfully convey my ordeal with post-partum depression under the glare of those lights, I most likely would have said no words at all. I simply would have stared at the article with an expression of deep, deep loss.
I found out I was pregnant a few days before I was ready to fly back to Malaysia to see my family. I had plan to help my sister, yeeling, redecorate her apartment in Jln Kuching but I had to later forfeit my air Asia tickets , on March 2008.
After taking the pregnancy test, I held the paper strip while waiting for the telltale sign to appear and thought, “I have to be pregnant! I will not be okay if I am not pregnant.” But as the slender strip turned blue, I leapt into the air with joy. However, what was in store for me was plainly unplanned and never anticipated.
The first 6 months of my pregnancy was like a roller coaster. With Lya, I had no none knowledge of how bad morning sickness can be and how to reduce the agonizing nausea and endless vomit. Oily greasy chinese cooking only made me puke even more. I ate small meals and preboil everything to avoid puking out any digested food. I was gravely concerned about eating right for my first baby. Before the China's milk scandal begun, I had drank endless cartons of Chinese produced milk, not knowing if it really had any adverse affects on my unborn child.
I loved being pregnant. Yes, I threw up every day for five months, and yes, the stretch marks were (and still are) obscene. I threw up, gained weight, and threw up some more, I entered the final month with nothing but confidence and blissful anticipation.
Lya was destined to be a special child and to be born breached. I rejected Mercy's appeal to turn her and opt for a c-sec. Being in Government, they could not confirm a bed for me till 9th November and even when the operation was scheduled at 8.30, Lya arrive in this world by 5.30 am. My water broke at 3.03 am precise.
Mostly I recall the moment someone handed my baby girl to me, and I heard shouts of joy, and my friend sheila crying, “Charlene, you’re an incredible mother!” And then...
Nothing. I felt nothing.
Memories of the following events are hazy. In fact, I can;t recall how I managed to survive the first year of Lya;s birth but somehow, time just slipped away.
And yet, in those moments after giving birth, I felt nothing. Someone encouraged me to sit up, and slowly, one by one, friends and family visited. Some were crying, others bursting with joy. Glassy-eyed, I politely listened to their impressions of our new baby girl. I had no impression of my own.
My anxiety was made worst without the presence of any single family from my side. My mother in law was strict, relentlessness, no emotions or a kind word. She kept comparing her own experience with mine. I Broke down the day I had a blocked duct on my right breast and had failed to nurse properly.
For me, breast-feeding was even more painful than giving birth. And despite a lactation consultant offering help, I felt incompetent. I refused to give up, forcing myself to do everything possible so that my baby girl would consume only my breast milk with no supplementation. I forged on, barely sleeping, always either breast feeding or pumping and never getting the hang of it. Occasionally I drifted off for a few minutes, but that decision to “feed at all costs” left me no room for recovery, no space to explore my feelings, no time to rest.
I even attended a nursing seminar, a one day course in Mercy, with the lactation consultant. They were warm, nurturing and ever so understanding. They were destined to ask me to keep on trying and not give up. I myself was eager to provide for my little baby girl. However, I really did neglect to see the signs of me asking the people around me for more understanding and less judgmental.
I distinctly remember the first night I was alone. Because of the stitches, moving even an inch sent daggers of pain tearing through my body. I tried to sit, but finally gave up and lay still as my tiny daughter cried. I thought, “I’m going to die here, lying next to my newborn baby. I am literally going to die tonight.”
It was not the last time I felt that way.
It is strange for me to recall what I was like at that time. I seemed to be suffering emotional amnesia. I couldn’t genuinely cry, or laugh, or be moved by anything. For the sake of those around me, including my baby, I pretended, but when I began showering again in the second week, I let loose in the privacy of the bathroom, water flowing over me as I heaved uncontrollable sobs.
When I visited the midwife for a checkup, she gave me a questionnaire, rating things on a scale from 1-5 so that she could get a sense of my emotional state. I gave myself a mediocre score. Despite my daily “shower breakdowns” months passed before I even began to acknowledge my true feelings. The midwife did gave me a referral for a psycho, but I refused to admit that I needed help. I refused to admit my defeat in handling this little baby. She literally thought I was going to hurt myself but I assured her the stress of dealing with strict Chinese in -laws is getting the best of me and I needed time and space to adjust accordingly.
Before lya was born, I had been in good humor about my weight gain, but I was now mortified by it. I felt I was struggling at breast-feeding. My house was a mess. I believed I was a terrible dog owner. I was certain I was an awful friend and partner. And worst of all, I definitely felt I was a rotten mother--not a bad one, a rotten one. Because the truth was, every time I looked at my little girl, I wanted to disappear.
Although perceptive, intuitive, and sensitive individuals surrounded me, my numb performance of “delighted new mom” seemed to fool everyone. Not having that freedom to admit to needing that space to evolve and change, especially with a very impulsive mother-in-law, I had more break downs that I could ever anticipated.
“How can I take care of my baby girl if I can’t take care of myself?” I sobbed.
My husband began a new role in marketing by November 2009 and had frequent overseas travel, and late evenings when he returned home, I would meet him at the door, shaking with fury, “I’ve hit the wall and gone through it, and I feel I am expected to go further.”
He would ask what he could do to help, but knowing there was nothing he could do, I screamed expletives at him, behavior he had never experienced in the nine years we had been together.
Distraught and concerned, he told me he would figure everything out, tried to assure me I didn’t need to worry.
Although challenges lay ahead, little by little I have come to admit that I need some balance in my children and my own life goals. I used to feel very selfish for not thinking of my children;s sake, Not enough anyway.
Comfort did came from my Mother;s group, one woman responded, “It takes a long time for them to grow up. You’ll have time to discover the kind of mother you are.” Another woman suggested I read Brooke Shields “Down Came the Rain.” Her book was a revelation. I am keen to read her book and rediscover similar paths of recovery. I am wary about her celebrity's status quo and how a normal new mother would tackle this deep feeling of losing control of one's life. Brooke probably had access to help but what about the rest of us? How would we cope?
Then one day I was sitting in my home with my best friend and my sister, and out of nowhere I got this sudden feeling of summer. When I told them they looked at me curiously and chuckled a little. I searched for a better way to describe my feelings, “I dunno, I just got this feeling… like everything is going to be okay.”
Post-partum depression is hard to describe—the way the body and mind and spirit fracture and crumble in the wake of what most believe should be a celebratory time. . I fear more often than not, for this reason alone, we choose silence. And the danger of being silent means only that others will suffer in silence and may never be able to feel whole because of it.
Do I wish I had never endured post-partum depression? Absolutely. But to deny the experience is to deny who I am. I still mourn the loss of what could have been, but I also feel deep gratitude for those who stood by me, for the lesson that we must never be afraid to ask for help, and for the feeling of summer that still remains.
P.S. - As I write this, my little girl, now one and a half, is waking and happily talking in baby words. It’s true. In the face of everything, Lya and I are two little peas in a pod.
As for the arrival of the new tiger baby, I vowed to be honest with how I feel and take as much time out as possible. I need to be heard, I need to be cared for and I need as much support as I can possible get.
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