This blog is just not my memories pouring out but a cry coming straight out of the depths of my soul and to share my hellish experience with other women who are going through a harrowing time due to PPD.
Almost 20% women are affected by postpartum depression and it is an illness just like a common cold is! But the sad news is most people educated or uneducated, rich or poor are not aware that it can be treated. I wish I knew how to increase awareness about it and help those women who are suffering from it .And the good news is that it is temporary and does have a cure.
I grew up in a fairy-tale world I had created in my mind and thought that life would be just like Hans Christian Andersen describes in his books. Marriage at 19 was a rude shock to handle and becoming a mom in the same year had mixed feelings of excitement and nervousness about having a baby at that point of time.
There is one thing that rankles me most … as to how motherhood is depicted in books and in adverts everywhere….all rosy and picture perfect with the baby gurgling away happily and the mom smiling and prim and proper in her new avatar of a mom. I feel that the media should not be showing just the white, as the grey and black too have a significant role to play. Every mom to be should be prepared for a major and I again stress …on MAJOR change in your routine and your whole life is going to become topsy turvy and the sleepless nights and a colicky baby to boot alongwith the 24/7 being on call. Yes, I know motherhood is THE perfect and bestest part of my life and my baby was no less loved than any other but I wish I was prepared and aware of all this. Now one has Google, books and the electronic media to bank on for any kind of info on pregnancy and how to deal with being a mom.
I was looking forward to the birth of my first child and all my thoughts were of the perfect mother that I would be with a chubby and cutest baby in the world in my arms. I was scrawny when I was married weighing just 84 pounds and was teased by one and all that I would give birth to a wet rat!! Maybe I was too weak to have a baby and being an inverted pelvis I had to go for a C section which took its toll.
But then I have always proved people wrong about everything I did! I gave birth to a rather heavy baby of 8.5 pounds baby who came into this world on a very rainy day and by a very primitive and painful C-section. Sadly my gynaec could not do the surgery as she was suffering from a heart condition and I came to know much later that the doc who actually did the surgery was not even a surgeon!
My son was chubby and cutest bundle of joy and I wanted to hold him close but the pain of the sutures and the bilaady 10 saline bottles in 2 days were an obstruction. I was helped to sit up on the third day when I first took him in my arms and held him close. The eight days in the hospital were a real torture…the smell of disinfectants and the gloomy ambiance ( I was in a single AC room but still) added to my misery.
When we went home my baby whom I named Kunvar (which means prince, my own little prince)) was the object of attention for the whole family. But it was a rude awakening for me when much loved baby turned out to colicky who cried all evening till late in the night and slept only when the first rays of dawn was breaking. I used to sit up and rock him all night while my husband, tired from his work took solace in blissful sleep. Other than this all was fine until a month after he was born and then came the holocaust.
Suddenly from a bubbly young mom I became a bundle of nerves, weepy, scared and complete contradictory of what I actually was. It was like I was playing the roles of a female Dr.Jekyl and Mr.Hyde. My poor husband and my family had no clued what was wrong with me. Either I was going mad or it was some kind of witchcraft I was under. I suffered like this for almost six whole months before I was normal again. Thirty years ago there was no Google to type in the symptoms and know what the illness was and the remedy for it.I went into a cocoon filled of fear and misery not knowing that what I needed was medical help.
But when I was fine I forgot the trauma thinking it was a bad dream and got into the most lovable role of a mom and reveled on seeing my son crawling on his knees and taking his first wobbly steps into the world. Five years went by like a dream and everything seemed rosy like I thought it would but the wicked monster of depression again reared its ugly head ……..to be contd.
