I Had Postpartum Depression and That’s Okay

Wow, I’d never thought I’d be the mom to say this. I had postpartum depression.  

I have been wanting to be a mom since I was 6 I’m not exaggerating. My brother had a son and when I met him and my mom brought him for us to watch my life changed and I deeply wanted a little blob of my own. 15 years later I became a mom. About 18 months after, I had my second. And things were just different with him. Even my pregnancy, I wasn’t excited I was honestly a little upset. He wasn’t planned. I thought I was getting my body back. But nope ready or not here he came. 

When I was in the hospital bed waiting for him I became more excited. When I held him in my arms I cried tears of joy (and overwhelming hormones). But I just didn’t feel connected with him like I did with Naomi. At first I thought it was just the postpartum blues. But, I felt detached, useless, exhausted. I cried ALL THE TIME. I cried and begged Josh to take him from me. I would cry while nursing him because I just didn’t want to hold him. I shut myself out from the world. I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t want to eat. I was at my lowest of lows and I didn’t think I could climb out of this bottomless pit of darkness. What helped?! At first nothing. But then I told Josh look I’m not happy I can’t do this. Please help and he took some of the load off of me. My oldest sister came over and was like what’s going on why aren’t you talking to me and I just balled. And she just knew it was ppd. She was the one who made my appointment. Without her I probably NEVER would have gone. My daughter Naomi who loves to help me. And her random attacks of love. I saw posts from Jayme from @thehellajam. Who is one of my top 3 FAV influencers. She was going through what I was going through and I sort of found comfort in that. I found comfort in the fact that someone I looked up to would be so raw about something so scary, and personal. It made me view her so differently. She was already a boss babe to me but to come out and say hey I am a mom and I have ppd and it’s okay just blew me away. I reached out to Lily @ohheylil a friend from instagram, who is just a strong, STRONG women. She’s real, she’s so open, she has a beautiful way with words. And she really is an AMAZING friend. Even if you’ve never even met her. She also had ppd. I messaged her literally the night before my appointment!!! And I simply said “hey can we talk about ppd” and after I hit send I started balling. She and I went back and forth and virtually held my hand through it all. And here I am a few months later back to my normal NEW self. Loving my blobs and feeling connected to BOTH of them. Feeling so blessed and content. 

Why am I sharing this with you? Because of many reasons. 1. your mental health is EXTREMELY important 2. you aren’t a bad mom or a bad human if you are dealing with this or anything similar 3. If you need a friend I am here 4. If you can’t talk to me I want you to know people do care about you people in your life want you to open up 5. to tell you hey you’re not alone there are more than 3 million cases alone dealing with PPD. And that’s only of women who had the courage to tell someone 6. Have the courage to make an appointment, and if not have someone do it for you, have them take you. It could LITERALLY save your life. 7. It’s not okay to bottle it up and it’s not going to just go away. Okay wow that was really deep. If it helped just ONE person then it was well worth it. Love you guys and thank you for reading! Xx, Sam