The Aftermath - Part One

It took a few hours for the shock of the evening to wear off. I couldn't wrap my head around how fast everything happened and just kept saying wow. Hannah instinctively made her way down to initiate breastfeeding, and we snuggled for a long while. Eventually, they took her to get weighed, measured, and cleaned off, then it was daddy's turn to finally hold his sweet baby girl for the first time while I tried to rest and let the adrenaline wear off.

We spent that night, and one more night in the hospital and then we were released to head home. Everything seemed great but in hindsight, I could see some warning flags coming with the way I was feeling. We finally had a full term baby to take home! What a different experience!

Once we got home, we introduced the boys to their new baby sister. They were smitten. We tried to settle into a new routine, with me trying to establish breastfeeding. Exactly one day after being released from the hospital, baby blues hit me like a mack truck. I couldn't stop crying...bawling. I didn't want to be near any of the kids, but simultaneously needed Hannah with me. Breastfeeding led to cracked and bleeding nipples. Baby blues left me with zero appetite. I literally went days without eating and I almost threw up trying to force myself to eat a chicken nugget. I started shedding weight at a bad rate. Anxiety entered my life. Bad, dizzying, life shattering anxiety. Anxious about nothing in particular but spinning out of control all the same. I would escape the kids to sit in our bedroom and cry, or sneak into Noah's room to sit in the rocker and just stare out the window...allowing myself to zone out. I couldn't bring myself to be around any type of company, family included.

Steve started to get extremely concerned so we made an appointment with the first available OB/GYN. We drove 40 min to the doctor's office, with me panicking inside. My face was red and my eyes a new level of puffiness from constant crying. She listened to me tell her how I was feeling in between sobs, while watching my husband bottle feed our baby girl because everything was making breastfeeding SO difficult. She prescribed me Zoloft to try and scheduled an appointment with a Behavioral Medicine Specialist to walk me through coping techniques. I left feeling hopeful for relief, but scared.

I took a Zoloft in the evening a day or so later. Immediately after, I felt really off. I went to the bedroom and laid down. Intrusive thoughts entered my mind. Bad thoughts. Harmful thoughts. I panicked and cried the remainder of the night, scared of my new reality. The following day, I met with the BMS and cried for over an hour in her office. She helped me find a few coping techniques, instructed me to stop taking the Zoloft, and to start slowly trying to drink ensure shakes and whatever other small things I could to get food into my body. I decided to stop breastfeeding since I was no longer providing nutrition to myself, let alone enough to provide good breast milk for my baby.

A few days after my appointment with BMS, I was experiencing unrelenting chest pain. It had gone on for a few days, and my anxiety was making me think the worst. I went in to Urgent Care to get checked out. Blood work, lung CT scan, lung X-Rays. Perfectly healthy. It's all in your head. (Thanks a lot anxiety). I'd never had anxiety before in my life so I didn't realize that what I was experiencing was a symptom of the beast.

The following day, I began having bad abdominal pain. Seriously. It was starting to hurt bad enough that I would grimace holding Hannah or getting up and walking around. Steve urged me to go back to the doctor. So off I went, back to Urgent Care.

Poking and prodding. Blood work. CT scan. I had an acutely inflamed piece of tissue right next to my appendix that needed to be removed immediately. I was given strict instructions to head home, pick up Steve, and head straight to the hospital to prep for surgery. I got home and sobbed. How can this be happening? I just had a baby barely a week ago and now I have to spend more time away from her to have surgery (after all the time away with the dr appointments). I was distraught. I was scared.

We arrived at the hospital and they prepped me for surgery. I remember silently freaking out as I signed the waivers and went over worst case scenarios. I tried to smile and use humor as we waited outside the operating room before they gave me the good juice to knock me out. They put me completely under, removed the inflamed tissue and my appendix via laparoscope, and I spent the night in the hospital to make sure all was okay. Walking around was extremely hard, as was using the bathroom. I was so sore for a week afterwards, unable to grab Hannah on my own or help around the house. If anything, I added to Steve's massive workload because now he also had to cater to me...but I recovered.