After the euphoria of having a healthy baby girl, I came home to wonderment, delight and joy. I was in awe of what I created. Even more, I was completely amazed at what a good baby she was—sleeping and eating just like they said a perfect newborn would do. And although I had felt it the first time around, eight years ago with the birth of my son, I really hadn’t expected to revisit with the postpartum blues.
However, about a week after my baby girl was born, I started feeling sad. Increasingly sad for no justified reason. And so I started doing something stupid—I started justifying the emotions. I wanted to understand why I felt sad and didn’t accept ‘hormones’ as an answer. Like a delicious dish I wanted to recreate, I started going into my head to try to figure out the recipe for the sadness.
I knew I was fortunate. I knew she was perfect. I was healing fine from my cesarean section. It was only ten days postpartum, but yet I felt like I was at the bottom of a very dark cave and couldn’t see any light no matter which direction I turned. I still loved my baby girl and didn’t want to feel disconnected from her. But I wanted to understand these tears.
I would go into the shower for an hour at a time and just cry. Tears that would flow like they were from the showerhead and when I turned the water off, the tears kept falling. I felt so guilty—why was I so sad? I tried to legitimize the tears. I tried to understand why I was so sad.
I wasn’t mourning the end of the pregnancy—I was happy to be done. I was coping fine with the sore boobs and the restless nights. My son from a previous marriage was feeling fine with the new baby. My partner couldn’t be more supportive. My family and friends were all happy for us. But I just wanted to cry and cry. It didn’t take anything special to set me off either.
