My Story in Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative 2021

I Think I Need Help

Laura Stinnett

From day one of being pregnant with my second daughter, Taylor, I was sick as a dog until about 17 weeks. I was working full time at a very high stress job with a two-year-old at home. There weren’t many chances to nap or lie down and watch TV when I wasn’t feeling well. I started to feel a little better around the holidays and thought maybe everything would be fine and normal.

Then COVID-19 hit and that’s when the shit really hit the fan.

I was in my third trimester, way fucking bigger than I’d ever been in my life and way fucking nervous about this global pandemic. How was I going to keep my unborn child and three-year-old safe and healthy? 

I had to start working from home, because of the pandemic. So now I was about 8.5 months pregnant working from home with a toddler. I was stressed.  

Since my first was a C-section baby, I opted for another one this time around due to my ever-increasing anxiety. I needed to have some control over what was going to happen.

Well, as us moms know, most things with kids don’t go according to plan. 

I went into labor days before I was scheduled to go in for my induction. Taylor Madison was born and she was the sweetest, chubbiest thing ever. 

Because of COVID, it was just the three of us for a few days in the hospital, the baby, me and my husband. 

After days of trouble breastfeeding and of course not sleeping, I began to spiral. On the day we were supposed to go home, I started to feel a lot of anxiety, very much like I did after my first when I suffered from postpartum anxiety.

I thought to myself, crap, here we go. My husband left the hospital that morning to go home, shower and get my toddler so she could meet her baby sister for the first time. It wasn’t a meeting like I had dreamed because of stupid COVID. She couldn’t come see us in the hospital so we had to meet her in the car. She was out of sorts and tired but stared at her new little sister the entire way home.

I felt relieved to be home but six days later, after crying the whole time we were home, I hit my breaking point. I looked at my husband and muttered, I think I need help. The look on his face was a look of familiarity and terror at the same time. 

I felt like my husband and the girls would be better off without me. I was so embarrassed that those thoughts would even enter my mind and so sorry for my husbands and my sweet girls that they had this loser for a wife and mom. 

I called my aunt, someone I felt comfortable with and told her. She suggested I call my obstetrician immediately. I did but the after-hours, answering service picked up. I am a blubbering mess trying to explain to the woman on the phone that I need to speak with the on call doctor because I am having some kind of perinatal mental health episode. She then told me that she couldn’t prescribe any medication but that sometimes when you get the baby blues, going for a nice walk or taking a bath helps. 

Thankfully, I do finally get to speak with a doctor and receive a script for anti-anxiety medication.

This time around, the postpartum anxiety hit me hard and fast. It was dark. I wonder if it’s because I was way more stressed the second time, you know, being right in the middle of a global pandemic and all and trying to parent without ever getting a break. 

At my follow- up appointment with the midwife, she tells me to work on getting at least six hours of sleep a night, eat whole nutrient-rich food, drink tons of water, get outside, move my body, and start seeing a therapist. Easier said than done but I had a lot of help around me to get it all done.

I am five months postpartum now and starting to feel better. But now we’re in wave two of this never-ending raging pandemic and the anxiety is returning.

Crap, here we go again.

Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative

www.cpmhc.ca

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