Perfectly Flawed Brokenness
Perfectly Flawed Brokenness
a Guest blog by April Lovelace Simmons
I have a confession to make. I am an anxious person. Some people call it being a worrier or tightly wound. This does not mean that I am a negative person or always barking orders at everyone around me (though I do that sometimes, and to my great horror, I find it invigorating). Having a predisposition to anxiety and being raised by two perfectionists really did not weight the scales in my favor. My anxiety waxed and waned through my twenties, sometimes crescendoing into a tsunami of frenzied behaviors (mostly cleaning and eating). The grand finale came as I entered the thirties and my health, personal, and professional life were such that I had to change or the misery would crush me. With several very specific goals in mind, I began therapy. One of these goals was to learn to cope better so that I would not be a neurotic, controlling horror show of a mother.
So, I sat on my therapist’s overstuffed chair once a week and talked and cried and a whole lotta stuff got worked out. I broke free from the cycles of anxiety that had ruled my life and learned to recognize and cope when things were just too hard. I had lots of work to do, and my struggle would likely never completely end, but major progress had been made. I felt ready to become a mother. And then life played a big, fat joke on me.
Getting pregnant was not hard, thank goodness. And my pregnancy was very healthy and medically uneventful. I continued my yoga practice and the mindfulness and activity helped. I wish that this were the end of the story, but it is not. I had some struggles reaching the weight that I wanted to achieve before becoming pregnant. Some of my interactions with healthcare professionals and pregnancy advice books created some stress around carrying a baby while overweight. My job was stressful and required some physical stamina, and schlepping in and out of offices all day in the summer heat of the Deep South was not my idea of fun. So, I quit my job around six months and got ready for a time of resting and nesting. And then, the next month, my husband was laid off.
So, here we are, seven months pregnant and not a job among us. Hubby found work within about six weeks… but his job was 150 miles away in Atlanta. So, we put our lovely, beloved, home-to-bring-our-baby-to on the market and he began a weekly nightmare of commuting back and forth. Yes, if you are wondering, I was alone for much of my last trimester. And showing a house… then packing our house, because of course it sold really fast. And I was alone. My mom visited for weeks on end and hubby was home as much as he could be, but I felt very deserted. And alone. And lonely. And scared. I had several wonderful baby showers and I think that most of the people in my life thought I was fine. But I was not.
At about this point, I started to worry because I didn’t feel as connected to my baby as I thought that I should. I didn’t really worry about her or anticipate her arrival with excitement. There were no negative feelings, and I certainly did everything within my power to ensure her health and safety. But, the emotional connection that I hoped to feel, the joyous butterflies of excitement that I thought would be fluttering about were absent. I stayed strong, though. I made birth plans, hired a doula, scheduled birth classes that hubby could attend even with a crazy schedule. I visited Atlanta with my husband and tried to find a home for us to move into… when that was not successful, I found an apartment. I lined up a place for us to live in Nashville for the weeks leading up to and following our birth because our house was sold and I was NOT changing hospitals and doctors in my last trimester.
I planned and schemed and worked and organized and smiled and died inside. I tamped down my anxiety and did not even acknowledge it. What could be done about it anyway? With so many things to do and people to care for and arrangements to be made, what good would it be to admit that killing the panic was also destroying the joy? It was not until much later that I realized that the stoicism that I adopted in order to stay on track hindered the beginnings of a connection with my baby. I never really thought about special clothes to bring her home in… I never thought about holding her in my arms. Opening my heart to that level of emotion would have released a flood of frustration and hurt that I could not handle. So, I marched on, strong and broken.
When I reached my 39th week, my mom joined us in our sad little third story, furnished apartment. At 40 weeks, hubby began to work from “home” so as not to miss the impending birth. At 41 weeks we all attended a late term ultrasound and a date was set for an induction, just in case. Induction day arrived, just a few days shy of 42 weeks. We arrived at the hospital in the damp heat of an early August morning. We worked all day to deliver our baby according to our birth plan. Water breaking, breathing techniques, birthing balls, aromatherapy, special lighting and music, massages and encouraging words from our doula ensued. Then drips and shots and vomiting. Yet our sweet girl refused to appear. Finally, in the small hours of the next morning, a strong, healthy, 10 lb 2.8 oz baby was carved from my body. With all the drugs and fatigue, it is hard to even recall her first minutes of life. I lost time. I was shivering so hard I thought my teeth would break. Yet, through the confusion, one thing was abundantly clear: I had failed. Failed. Failed. Utterly and miserably. And my poor sweet baby was the victim- and the reminder- of my failure.
Things got a bit better after that. My milk came in. Baby had a great latch. She was perfect and precious and beautiful. But I didn’t know what to do with her. I just felt pain and confusion and fear. I didn’t want to leave the hospital. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want her with me all the time and my shame was mighty and constant. Eventually, we emerged from the hospital. I gingerly climbed the three flights of stairs to our little refuge and settled myself on our uncomfortable bed. And then the crying. The gut wrenching sobs. So much sadness. So little sleep. Hubby and my mother did not quite know what to do with me- I am not a crier and I was not rational. I was SUPPOSED to be happy and calm. I cared for my baby. I kissed her soft cheeks and fed her from my body and filled my nose with her sweet smell. I loved her passionately… I knew I did… but I could not feel it. All the sadness crashed around me. I missed our home. No nursery for our baby. Birth went wrong. Body hurt. So uncomfortable in this place that was no one’s home. Where were we going? When would this be easier? When would life be good again? I am cheating my baby. Everything is wrong and it is all my fault. Anxiety embraced me and swallowed my world with his insatiable, persistent maw. And I could not fight him.
One week after delivery, we loaded up our cars and my mom headed home while we took off toward Atlanta. My body was tense the entire four hour trip. It was not really safe for me to take a long car ride so soon after a C-section, and who knew how baby was going to do? I nursed her in a busy rest stop after trying to feed her sitting in a pavilion outside in the scorching heat. And we finally arrived in an apartment I had never seen, stuffed to the gills with a random hodge podge of our belongings. The next week I begin the task of finding real estate agents, pediatricians, an OB to clear me to drive and trying to make a home out of the chaotic hell hole that we lived in. Hubby worked long hours. I could not drive and didn’t know where to go anyway. I was aware that postpartum depression preys on the isolated so I tried to reach out to other mothers. The rawness of my pain and the desperation in my eyes must have triggered some alarms in their minds though, because I was unable to make any connections.
Life kept going. Precious Baby kept growing healthy and strong. And my mental health continued to deteriorate. I thought I asked for help. I tried to scrabble out of the dark, deep pit that I was in. I wondered if I would have to be institutionalized to recover from this badness. I worried about Baby, but my despair was so complete at this point, that I figured that she might be better off without me for a while. Then, one day on the way home from a quick trip to Target, as she wailed in the back seat while I tried to make the two mile drive shorter, I had a thought. I thought that I didn’t want to live like this. That if this is my life from now on, I don’t want to do it. And I can’t leave Baby to bear the burden of self-blame and a motherless childhood, so I will just take her with me when I go. When I leave this impossible, miserable life. Even this did not set off alarms and galvanize me to action. My submersion in depression was too deep. I only felt a sense of unease.
After finally sharing my despair with a friend, I sought therapy. It was so hard. My anxiety was so complete and I had to find a sitter for Baby. She wouldn’t take a bottle. I had to find a therapist on my own too. It took weeks, but I struggled through it and made it happen. At my first session, the therapist sent me marching to the doctor’s office for an antidepressant. Things were still so hard. But, I started having more good days than bad. Mostly, the bad days were not as terrible as they had been. I started to eat again. We bought a house and moved into it. Christmas came. Life got better. With the support of a beloved friend, my therapist, and a little chemical boost, I moved slowly towards recovery.
More than two years later, I do not yet consider myself fully out of the woods. I still have occasional bad days and anxiety creeps up on me frequently. I struggle every single day with the havoc that pre-natal and postpartum depression wreaked in my life. My daughter just started sleeping through the night and her father was just able to put her to bed for the first time without me. She is almost three. So many precedents were set in our family from a place of anxiety and misery. And shifting those roles and expectations has been a constant struggle. Finding myself within the mess of pain and despair and anger and brokenness has been hard. And I am not and never will be the same person again.
You see, postpartum depression broke me. It broke my heart. It broke my self-identity and shattered many, many of my dreams. I am sad about it. I am angry. But, good did come of it, and I am determined to acknowledge the brokenness and embrace the good. Because I broke, I have been able to rebuild myself and my family. It has been a crazy, long journey, but I like me. I like us. Because I broke, I realized my personal limitations and gained a strong respect for them. I have also developed an abiding compassion for others and their imperfections. And because I am broken, I no longer feel the need to be always perfect. I also feel a strong resolve to identify and support other women who are dragging themselves through the dark valley of postpartum depression. Mama Thrive Village has been born from this brokenness. So, momma, sister, friend: it’s ok to break. Take your fragments and shards and remnants and build something lovely and strong. And if you are cracking and breaking now, know that there is another side to the pain, there is hope. Ask for help. Cry your tears. But don’t forget who you are- beautiful, beloved, strong- and that this too will pass.
A note from Danielle
This story was written several years ago when April and I had a blog together. It is so beautiful that I could not stand for it to be forgotten. April and her family are doing even better now. Life is not without hard days but April now has two daughters and a (mostly) happy family life in Atlanta.
I would also like to note, please ask for help more loudly and forcefully than you think you need to because, like April, you might think you are communicating a need for help but so many women look like they are doing well even when they are dying inside.