Kye and Peanut's Blog In memory of our lost ones Kye and Peanut

I’ve been following this popular blog about postpartum depression for the last several months or so. It’s called Postpartum Progress and has a ton of information on it keeping readers up to date on current research, media portrayls of postpartum, PPD from a political perspective, and basically everything and anything related to postpartum depression. What I really love about this blog is that it’s upbeat. It shows moms that there really can be a life after going through the trauma, fear and societal pressures surrounding postpartum depression. My favorite part is the “Surviving and Thriving After Postpartum Depression” that is like a photo album of moms and their kids who are doing great after suffering postpartum depression.

I’ve had PPD myself two times now with the last time being the most severe. The worst part was that I did not even get to have a live baby and still suffered from postpartum depression. During my first bout of postpartum after my daughter was born 3 years ago, I was at home on maternity leave with her. Here in Canada, we get a year maternity leave before returning to work after having a baby. Last year, I was halfway through the pregnancy when a doctor at an ultrasound clinic told me that my baby had died. Devastated is a serious understatement for what my husband and my family felt. I was about a thousand times past the feeling of devastation. I felt the familiar depression wash over me like an unending series of waves in the ocean.

My first time having postpartum was awful but my second time ended up with me being committed to the hospital for a couple of weeks. I felt horribly guilty thinking that my depression had killed our son. I had no baby in my arms and still suffered this terrible unending depression mixed with grief at the loss of our child. There was no baby to try to hold it all together for and no maternity leave to rely on to keep the financial pressures at bay. I don’t know what I would have done if my employer did not have long-term disability insurance to pay at least a portion of my wages until I could return to work. What I thought would take a few weeks to recover from ended up being a year unable to work at all.

Most of these days passed with me in tears, unable for me to care for anyone. Unable to even care for myself. This was the darkest most frightening time of my entire life. I cannot begin to explain what it is to have your mind shatter inside of you and still live. It’s been about a year and a half now since my son’s death and I’m up to 4 days a week at work. I’ve long come off of disability insurance but am more than happy to keep paying into it. I am so grateful for the small amount of peace that it was able to bring to us.

I felt, and still feel like, even miscarriage support groups do not understand me. I am not only suffering the loss of a child but also postpartum depression as well. I am doing much better now and hope to one day be like the pictures of the Surviving and Thriving Mothers on the Postpartum Progress blog. The difference will be that my arms will be empty. Empty arms do not fill an empty heart. Maybe my picture will be beside the lost babies memorial picture here that my son is a part of. Postpartum depression without a baby is the worst kind of depression, in my opinion.