That’s not exactly the best way to encourage people to read this post is it?  Unfortunately, this won’t be an amusing one, but I felt it was important to put in here.  I’ve always been pretty open and honest in this blog, and I also use it as a bit of a diary for myself.  It’s been pretty hard to write, and taken a few months, but here it is:

I think we all knew that I was at high risk of developing postnatal depression (PND) but I had hoped that I would somehow miraculously escape.  I had become a bit concerned when during ante-natal classes we were given an information pamphlet and I ticked most of the high risk boxes, but still I was optimistic.  I became even more relaxed after Lincoln’s birth when I felt amazingly well.  I was in high spirits, and despite feeling quite detached from him during pregnancy, I was liking the little fella.  He was red and scrawny with an overly large head.  His eyes were puffy from spending nine months growing in fluid, his little arms were comically long and gangly and his legs were folded up like a battery hen just released from its cage.  All in all, he looked like a miniature ET with hair.  But I liked him.

The problems seemed to settle in when it became too painful to continue breast feeding him.  After formula upset his tummy, I made the decision to express breast milk for a couple of days to allow my nipples to recuperate before trying again.  And for a few days this worked.  Once I got home I settled into a state of constant low level anxiety.  I shifted furniture, sterilized, dusted, and cleaned, then spent an entire day stuck to the couch in constant pain from my stitches and birth injuries.  Thankfully my mother in law was visiting, and loved looking after Lincoln.  By the next day, Lincoln was six days old and I was really starting to feel a sense of growing fear.  Of what, I don’t know, I was just feeling afraid.   I swallowed it down and decided I was ready to reintroduce Lincoln to breast feeding.  Lincoln had other ideas.  Used to the constant and easy flow of feeding from a bottle, he pulled his knees up, struck me with his tiny little fists, screwed his face up and bellowed as he fought against me with all his might.  I’m not sure what happened exactly, but at his display of rejection, something shut down in me, and I physically and emotionally pushed him away.  I couldn’t bear to look at him and handed him to Dave for a bottle feed.  Logically I knew he didn’t know what he was doing.  I knew it wasn’t personal.  But I just couldn’t change how I felt.

My mind was in a constant whirl.  I tried praying for peace, deep breathing, having a cuppa, nothing would ease the fear and anxiety pounding through my brain.  I jumped at any excuse to leave the house, and Lincoln in Dave’s care.  I told myself over and over that he was not rejecting me.  I knew I was doing the best thing by expressing breast milk for him.  There was nothing wrong with him not breast feeding.  I even tried to tell myself that I was lucky to have a baby that would accept a bottle.  But every time I saw him feeding from a bottle I felt an overwhelming resentment that my baby would bond with a piece of plastic, but refused me.  It just seemed ludicrous.  I had milk – plenty.  And he was hungry.  Why couldn’t he just breastfeed?  In hindsight I can see this was just a surface issue, and the problems lay much deeper, but the physical culmination of all of my emotions were focused on his refusal to feed.  The hardest thing of all was the complete inability to stop the jittering nerves that wracked my mind and emotions.  Suddenly a cold chill of terror ran down my spine and into the pit of my stomach as I thought “I don’t want a baby” and once I acknowleged the thought, it continued rolling about relentlessly in my mind  The overwhelming fear grew worse until I was having regular panic attacks.  I was looking up breast feeding consultants, calling the Nursing Mothers Association, and all the friends I could think of to try and relax and regain the control I was quickly losing.  I called the psychologist I’d been seeing during my pregnancy, but still felt that I was fast falling into hysteria.   I felt a deep sadness engulf me like a smothering blanket.  I made up my mind to see my doctor the next day and beg to go back onto anti-depressants, and crawled into bed.

I lay in the darkness, my husband thinking I was asleep, as damaged ideas scrambled my mind.  I didn’t want my baby.  I didn’t know what to do.  I couldn’t just put him on the street.  There was no escape.  I had no intention of hurting him, I just wanted him to not exist.  And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.  I knew Dave would never agree to give him up, so I concluded that to escape from Lincoln, I would lose my marriage and the most important person in the world to me.  I didn’t know what to do.  I needed to run.  I had nowhere to run to.  Despite my plans to find help the next day I rapidly dropped to extreme low of wanting to take my life in order to stop the pain and fear inside.  Dave thought I was asleep, and so left me to rest as I lay in bed willing my life to end.  Thoughts of how to end it all crowded my thoughts along with the anguish of the pain it would cause Dave.  I  couldn’t physically act to hurt him, so I lay in the darkness of my mind, deciding instead to just not eat, and not drink, and not move until I just stopped breathing.  Suddenly something snapped, I knew I needed help, I needed it now, and I had to make one last ditch attempt to get it. I didn’t want to hurt Dave and I wanted to love Lincoln.  I got out of bed and picked up the phone.