My beautiful daughter is six weeks old now. I remember with B, the six week mark was a biggie. It was when things finally kind of fell into a groove and I started to feel more myself again, and to feel like maybe I could handle this gig, after all. So, I'd been really looking forward to hitting the six week mark this time, thinking the same would happen. Instead, this weekend was basically one prolonged panic attack.
The first couple of weeks after Baby E was born were pretty great. I felt much better, physically, than I had the first time. And emotionally, I felt way more prepared. And then, after those first couple of weeks, instead of continuing to improve, things...kind of backslid. I started having MORE trouble sleeping between feedings. I started having MORE anxiety. (I'm about to unleash the crazy, so buckle up.) Specifically, I started to develop this weirdly specific hypochondria. I spotted what I thought was a mole on my back that was changing, and convinced myself it was aggressive melanoma. I started to fixate on the idea that something (like melanoma) was going to happen to me, to take me away from my babies. I love them more than I ever imagined I could love anything, so this idea is obviously completely panic-inducing.
I talked a little bit about it with my therapist, and I talked around it with E, but there was still the part of my brain that knew how completely ludicrous I was being and was hesitant to discuss just how far the crazy had gotten. But even after seeing my primary care doc and having her tell me nothing looked suspicious to her, I couldn't quite shake the thoughts, or the accompanying panic. And I started to have similar episodes with other random symptoms I was either having or imagining (not quite sure). And I mean, at some point, you have to recognize that you're probably NOT dying of four different types of cancer simultaneously.
Then came this weekend. I'm sure the weather didn't help matters, but I was just an anxious mess all weekend. And then last night, during a bout with insomnia, I was on people.com and spotted an article about Kendra Wilkinson's battle with Post-Partum Depression. And all of a sudden, all the pieces kind of fell into place and a lightbulb went off in my head. All the nights of sleeplessness, the fixation on something happening to me, the brutal anxiety for no real reason, the lack of appetite during the day and middle of the night munchies, the random aches and brutal daytime fatigue. It was like, "Ohhhh...I'm sensing a pattern here..."
And I mean, this hasn't been a crippling thing, by any means. For the most part, I've been myself. But there are enough things that have been slightly askew that I knew something felt kind of off. And then the acute anxiety and the hypochondria...yea.
So, I saw my OB this morning and she confirmed my suspicions that PDD is probably the culprit. So, we're going to treat it. I'm really big on being proactive about my health - both physical and mental, so it's a relief to feel like maybe I've got a name for what's been bugging me.
On another ironic note, I just received in the mail a parcel sent to me by my friend B, containing Brooke Shields' book on Post-Partum Depression. Serendipity is cool.
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