Planning for Postpartum Depression.

image courtesy of Metrolic.

You can't avoid Postpartum Depression. You can't hide from it either. But you can plan for it.

I know that sounds weird. Who plans for depression? No one is counting on mental illness. Well I planned for it, or at least I made arrangements in case it happened.

I suffered from depression on and off for years as a teenager. Then just a few years ago after returning from a trip to Brazil I was bombarded by anxiety and panic attacks. I'd never had a panic attack in my life and I wouldn't have called myself an overly anxious person. It just came out of the blue for no reason. Eventually I started taking medication to keep the anxiety away and although I'm pretty sure I could now do without I've continued taking the drug, just in case. Because of my history I have an increased risk of suffering from Postpartum Depression.

I knew that if I ever got pregnant the drugs I was on would be an issue so a couple of years ago I searched for who I would turn to in case it ever happened. That's when I found The BC Reproductive Mental Health Program. Of course at the time I wasn't in any stage of reproducing so I wasn't a candidate, but I hung onto the number just in case.

Then last February after an unexpected positive symbol slowly appeared on my pregnancy test I called my doctor and asked her to refer me.

The program is run out of BC Women's Hospital. It's an amazing program that provides free services to "women and their families dealing with emotional difficulties related to pregnancy".

I started seeing a councilor right away, she stayed with me throughout my pregnancy and continues to see me now. I think the counselling is available up until one year postpartum but I can't quite remember now. I also have a psychiatrist assigned to me who checks in once in awhile.

Together they helped me decide how to safely proceed with my pregnancy and my medication. For me the best option was to continue to take a significantly reduced dose throughout my pregnancy. I also planned on increasing the dose just after delivery to ensure that I didn't lose my mind with the sudden decrease in hormones.

Having the appointments with the councilors is a great asset to my overall health. During the pregnancy they helped me stay informed on my medication and any risk factors I had and provided therapy session every month. Since Babe was born I still go for counselling every month to talk about any stresses or concerns I have.

I took other steps as well to help keep me sane after Babe was born:

Like many pregnant women I nested like crazy. I knew I would be exhausted with a new baby so not only did I have the house spotless, I also did a giant grocery shop. I stocked up on everything from snacks to toilet paper and I cooked a lot of dinners and froze them. This extra work in the final weeks of pregnancy saved me a lot time after Babe arrived. Time I could use for much needed sleep.

I read many books on Postpartum Depression while I was pregnant so that I would be well informed on risk factors, red flags and treatment options. One book I found particularly helpful was Sleepless Days by Susan Kushner Resnick. The book is a first hand account of the depression Resnick suffered after the birth of her son. My midwife clinic had a library of pregnancy and parenting books so I was well versed on all things pregnancy by the end of mine.

I also made a list of people that I knew I could count on for help if I needed it. I had enough family and friends on the list that I could have counted on having someone visit and help out every day. I think it is important for a mother who is suffering from PPD to have a time of day to look forward to when she knows someone is coming to relieve her. To know that someone is coming to take the baby for a walk or clean the kitchen. I didn't need my list but it was good to have.

After I settled in with Babe I made some other arrangements just in case:

I started getting out for walks every day. As a nanny I could never handle staying indoors with the kids all day. I would get cabin fever on days when it was simply too miserable to venture out. So of course, even though my baby was born at the start of winter I have been out for a walk almost every day. If the weather is miserable I will often walk up to the mall and then just walk laps in there. It's dry and warm and Babe will usually sleep right through it.

Exercise has always been a stress reliever for me. It makes me feel better emotionally and physically. Plus having this extra baby weight is weighing me down emotionally so it is important to me that I work to rid myself of this extra burden. Unfortunately J is so busy with school that he doesn't have the time to watch Babe while I go for a run and Babe is still too fussy to sit in her car seat while I work out in our building's gym. But I did get my parents to come on the weekend so that I could go for a run and I bought myself some new jogging gear to help motivate me. I can also do Pilates at home while Babe plays beside me on the floor and I am hoping I can find a mom and baby yoga class in the neighbourhood before Babe is too mobile for it to work.

It was also important to me that I had people to talk to and socialize with after Babe arrived. I recently started attending Baby Days which is hosted by our local health nurses. Every Thursday Babe and I go to class where we sit and chat with other mom's and babies about issues with motherhood. Each day has a theme like Sleep or Play. Last week we had a guest lecturer talk to us about PPD and then all the moms said what they found the most difficult and what they do that's just for them. It's great to be with other moms who share the same worries or who have different solutions to common parenting problems. It's helpful to know that other moms have bad days too and it's a nice social outing for both babe and me.

And just knowing where to turn before things get out of control is helpful for me. Here are a couple other helpful links:

Motherisk is a support program which is run out of The Hospital For Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto. It provides counseling and information on medications and illnesses during pregnancy.

Motherisk: www.motherisk.org

And in Vancouver:

The Pacific Post Partum Support Society provides over the phone counseling, support groups and group speakers/presentations in the Lower Mainland.

www.postpartum.org or call: 604-255-7999

I've been really lucky. My pregnancy was pretty easy and although my baby is crying too much and sleeping too little for my taste she is basically happy and healthy. Aside from a few emotional days in the first week and the frustration of the witching hour I have thankfully managed to avoid depression. Maybe I never would have had Postpartum Depression, or maybe planning ahead helped me steer clear of it, hell maybe it'll still pop up, but I'm glad that I recognized that I was at risk and took the steps I did, just in case.

Just Sharing.

Just wanted to share this. While I hope to only breastfeed for a year I found this really touching and well-written.

What I see when I breastfeed my toddler | Today's Parent

Baby Jewelry.

For Christmas I wanted to get a ring made to commemorate my baby's birth. I knew I wanted the letters stamped into the ring and not engraved but I couldn't find a local engraver that did stamping. Then one day I was in one of my favorite stores Blue Ruby and I saw a collection of jewelry by Andrea Waines. Waines is a local designer who creates beautiful silver jewelry with various messages and affirmations hand-stamped into the pieces. The pieces she sells at Blue Ruby are all necklaces and bracelets but I had my heart set on a ring. I contacted her and asked if she would custom make me a ring. She did and it's perfect. The matte finish silver band has Babe's name on one side and her birth date on the other. I wear it everyday.

And here are a few other pieces I have for Babe:

This is my gold ID bracelet from when I was a baby. For whatever reason my parents never had it engraved so the plate is still blank. I'll take it and have it engraved for Babe. It's tiny for a tiny little wrist.

Every year before Christmas some local Native American artisans come to the building that my mother works in to sell their crafts. My mom bought these sweet little beaded angel earrings for Babe. Of course she'll have to wait until she is much older to wear them.

I'm not really a fan of pearls. Fake is fine but I remember the saying, "Right now an oyster is being robbed of it's sole possession" from the old Van Halen music video for "Right Now" (which is still one of my all-time favorites). Even though oysters are just shellfish the saying has always stuck with me and I've never bought pearls because of it. But what's done is done and when I was a toddler my grandparents bought this tiny pearl necklace from an antique store in England. Now I have it for Babe.

In The News.

photo: shutterstock

I hate to admit that these last two months I haven't picked up the newspaper (or magazines, or books) all that much. Babe won't let me put her down long enough to read anything that requires more time then what I spend on the toilet (sorry).

But a friend of mine has sent me some links to some interesting articles and I've managed to come across a couple on my iPhone during late night feeding sessions so I thought I would share the links here. Enjoy.

An interesting article on our expectations of ourselves and our new babies:

http://www.conscienceparenting.com/2011/12/29/the-inconvenience-of-having-children/

A recent news story out of Vancouver:

Charity gives questionable abortion advice: investigation | CTV News

I either read this somewhere else or saw the author interviewed somewhere. Wherever I first heard about this it was probably at three in the morning when I was half asleep. A real eye-opener for me. I'll admit I'm as guilty as the next guy when it comes to instinctively complimenting little girls on their cute appearance.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-little-gir_b_882510.html

Just kinda cool:

ScienceShot: Human Hearts Beat Together - ScienceNOW

For the Dads out there:

Colic: One dad tells it like it is | Today's Parent

During my years as a nanny I learned from my own mistakes with other people's kids (sorry). How you speak really does rub off on your children. It wasn't until I heard one of my little charges saying "um" all the time that I realized she was learning it from me.

It's not just our language either, it's our body language as well. Another charge was only two when I noticed he was covering his hand with his sleeve before he touched door knobs just like I did. I didn't even know he was paying attention.

Urban Baby and Toddler Magazine

Hope you find these articles as interesting as I did.

The Trap.

"Breastfeeding is a trap!"

I yelled this at J on a particularly frustrating day last week. Of course it's not really a trap but it feels like it sometimes.

I've made no secret about Babe's fussiness these first two months. Like I've said before she has terrible gas that causes her to writhe in pain and scream bloody murder. It's painful for her and I'm certain it's even more painful to watch. She also has reflux, not bad, but enough to upset her regularly. And as if the gas and reflux wasn't bad enough, she also works herself into such a frenzy that she gags, chokes and actually stops breathing. While this only lasts a few seconds it's terrifying every time.

So on the quest to solve these problems - or at least decrease their intensity, we've tried a ton of things (which I mentioned a little in a previous post).

In December Babe had an appointment with a pediatrician to address these issues. He said that the problem was reflux and prescribed her Ranitidine. I asked about the possibility that she has an intolerance for dairy (which has been mentioned to me by many people as a possible source of her discontent) and was told that it was unlikely given her other symptoms.

I had been putting off going dairy free because it's in so much of what I eat so that afternoon I had a big bowl of ice cream.

Fuck! I paid for that one and so did Babe. That evening was the worst EVER! I couldn't handle another night like that and I woke up the next morning to face my life (or at least a trial week of it) dairy free.

So last week when I yelled at J about feeling trapped I was on day two of no dairy. No milk in my decaf coffee, no ice cream on my brownie, no pizza, no cereal etc... and on month two of not being able to leave my baby's side for fear that she will be so upset by the absence of the boobies that she will choke and turn blue. This on top of all the other things I gave up when I got pregnant (ex: smokes and booze). Not that I was ever much of a party girl but I did like a glass of red wine in the evening or the occasional night at the pub with my friends.

Now my riskiest behaviour is leaving the house without nursing pads in my bra.

And I always get the fussy baby because when she is happy J, my parents and everyone else want to cuddle her but when she starts to scream she is thrust back into my arms with the assumption that she needs my boobs (which is really only true once every couple of hours). And I always get up with her in the night because of the boobies.

This is, of course, the way it should be. I'm her Mommy and I love that I can comfort her. But on hour three of a crying jag when she has already eaten and J could just as easily pace the floor with her, the comfort my boobies provide her forces me to be the one that suffers the hearing damage.

Then there's the fidgety nursing bras, the piles of nursing pads, the vitamins, the pumping and the bonus that one boob produces waaaaay more milk than the other. I can't leave the house until the afternoon because in the mornings I have one B cup and one D cup.

It is really important to me that Babe gets breast milk. That is why I cried so much the first week when we had to supplement with formula - well, that and the hormones. Not only is it so good for the baby it has it's other perks as well, not the least of which is that it's free and portable.

And the closeness is beautiful. I know it'll get easier and that I shouldn't complain. But no one tells you how hard it can be. Before baby is born you just think that he or she will come out and know how to latch and the milk will flow and that will be the one thing that just works.

But some babies can't latch and some mothers get mastitis. Yes, breastfeeding is best - but to me, once in awhile, it has felt like a trap.

I think it is important for mothers to know that just because it is natural doesn't mean it's easy. Just because you are committed to it doesn't mean you don't feel like quitting. And just because it's good for the baby doesn't mean you have to do it.

I dedicate this post to my good friend K and all of the new mommies who have fought with their boobies in the first few months of nursing.

PS: I don't think the no dairy or the medication has made any difference.

The Photo Shoot.

So one thing on my baby to do list was to get newborn shots of Babe. Unfortunately since the hospital kept me in longer and Babe was having such a tough go in the beginning we missed out on the chance to get the early photos taken.

But a few weeks ago we said "colic be damned" and headed over to meet my friend Kendra Coupland of Redivivus Photography for a photo shoot.

Babe has been pretty fussy since birth and that day was no exception. I couldn't get her to settle into a sound sleep for some sleepy baby pics and because she was naked during the shoot we had a few hilarious accidents but we ended up with a bunch of great family shots.

Photography has always been an important part of my life and these photos of our little angel are priceless. I'm so glad that we made the time to have them done and that I can share a couple of them here.

Thanks Kendra for the beautiful photos.

The Cat Came Back.

I have two cats. They are high maintenance cats. One needs a lot of love and cuddles and one has a ton of energy and is rather naughty when cooped up in an apartment. So I knew when I had the baby I would want a break from my feline friends until I was back on my feet.

When I went into labour I called my mom to come and pick them up. My plan was to bring the lovey one home after a week or two and leave the energetic one with my parents for a couple of months.

But Babe was so fussy when we brought her home and slept so poorly and I was recovering from a cesarean so days turned into weeks and weeks turned into two months. So I only just brought my one cat home this week.

I've had my female orange tabby for almost twelve years now. She has been a constant companion and source of comfort throughout that time. She is a sweet little angel who wants nothing more than to sleep on the bed with me at night and follow me around during the day. She has been my baby...until recently.

No one could love their cats more than I do. Yet even so, having a baby changed what I feel for my kitties. As much as I missed them and knew that my lovey cat was sorely missing my affections and needed to come home, I was just so besotted with Babe and so tired from lack of sleep I didn't have the energy to rescue her from my parents any sooner.

She is home now. Has been for a few days. And it isn't going well.

She is so starved for affection that she wants to be comforted all the time. But Babe still doesn't sleep well and bawls when she is abandoned for even a few moments, so she's on me most of the time which leaves only an out-stretched foot to stroke the cat. Which the cat finds unsatisfying. She tries to cuddle with J and he is giving her some love but he's never been her biggest fan and therefore doesn't prioritize much time for her.

And she is a little stressed out and off her food...but still hungry. So she paces the apartment meowing which is driving both J and I crazy and nearly brings me to tears when she wakes the baby from the little sleep she does get. Not to mention that J is miserable without sleep and I pay dearly the next day when my cat keeps him up at night.

So what do I do? I love her and I take my responsibility as a pet owner seriously. I don't think it's fair to dump my animals because a baby has come into my life. But it's a little too much right now.

She could stay longer with my parents, the other cat certainly enjoys being there and playing outside, but while my parents are willing to have the cats at their house they don't bother much with stroking and cuddles. I know my tabby was lonely without me and needs my attention. But I am already stretched so thin by Babe's needs I have little time or patience left for the kitties.

I'm hoping with a little love, some different cat food and the help of a spray bottle I may be able to limp my little family along until Babe is settled into a schedule and the cats are relaxed again. But if lovey cat doesn't smarten up either she will be leaving for Grandma's house or J will be leaving for a bachelor pad.

Poor kitty. For years she has been my baby, now she is my other baby.