What I Wish I Had Known…
My whole life, I wanted to be a teacher and a parent. Throughout high school and attending the University of Victoria, I worked with children as a babysitter, nanny, camp counselor, and Sunday School teacher. I was the kind of teenager people would say, “You are going to be such a good mom,” to. After getting married, my husband and I moved to the Seattle area for his job. I eventually got a Green Card, started teaching elementary school, we bought a house, and tried to start a family.
Each month that passed without a positive pregnancy test was more disappointing than the one before it. Especially when so many of your friends have little ones. When you are trying to get pregnant, it seems like everyone around you is expecting, seemingly without any trouble. I remember stopping for coffee one day on my way to work, and the regular barista told me she was unexpectedly pregnant, and she wasn’t sure how it happened, and she wasn’t even sure who the father was. It was one of those drive-thru espresso stands. I burst into tears and drove off without my coffee. I never went there again.
My second year of teaching was great, but also incredibly difficult. September 11 changed the world as we knew it, the dot-com bubble burst, and both of us lost our jobs. We sold our house and moved back east for my husband’s “dream job”. We made peace with not having a baby- with everything going on in the world, maybe it was for the best?
I went back on the pill and- surprise!- got pregnant! We were thrilled! Becoming pregnant turned out differently than we imagined, but we couldn’t wait to welcome this little one into our family. It wasn’t an easy pregnancy- I was pregnant with twins, which we found out when I started bleeding around 9 weeks and lost one of the babies. I was on bed rest for weeks at a time.
When our daughter arrived and they put her in my arms, I couldn’t imagine loving anyone more. She was a beautiful, easy baby who loved to sleep (she still does!) My dreams had come true, but I was still sad. We chalked it up to being so far from home, living in an apartment, and missing our West Coast friends and family.
What I Wish I’d Known:
That I was dealing with postpartum depression, I would have been better prepared for experiencing it again after a miscarriage and the birth of our son.
That PPD can have a compounding effect after each pregnancy.
That I was probably dealing with undiagnosed depression while trying to conceive.
We’d been better prepared for PMADS during our childbirth class. After all, postpartum mood disorders are the most common childbirth complication.
To be gentle with myself. You can be grateful for a baby after infertility AND be depressed because your hormones have a significant impact on your mood.
