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Overwhelm.
If I had one word to describe becoming a new mother, it would be “overwhelm.”
For the most part, I had an easy pregnancy – despite the morning (evening?) sickness and first trimester exhaustion that I thought would never allow me to feel like myself again.
Six hours of labor (and then three hours of pushing - yikes) under the sweet relief of the epidural and a healthy baby girl.
When they handed my sweet girl to me, I couldn’t stop crying. But they were not tears of joy. They were tears of fear. Of overwhelm.
I didn’t know she would be so tiny.
I didn’t know she would already make cooing sounds that would painfully pierce my heart.
I didn’t know she would want to nurse all night.
At thirty years old, I didn’t even know how to change a diaper, let alone a full outfit and swaddle blanket.
I didn’t know. And it overwhelmed me to the point of tears.
We stayed an extra night because it snowed heavily the day after Lil was born. I dreaded the night because I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Someone might come into my room and take my baby if I dared even to close my eyes.
And so, for two nights, I stayed awake and watched her sleep.
On the third morning, as we were preparing to leave, the pediatrician told us that Lily was DAT positive and that we would be moving to the main hospital, into special care, until she could be discharged. Cue waves of tears on my part. Tears of fear, but also tears of confusion, because what did DAT positive even mean?
They wheeled me through the underground tunnel, holding my screaming baby. I remember putting my face close to hers, shushing her as we wheeled along a white and empty corridor to the elevators, my tears falling down onto her belly.
As they opened the door to our new room, my heart sank. It was small and cold and hospital pink, a far cry from the beautiful birth care room we had been in for the past two nights. I hadn’t taken the chance to shower in our previous room, and our new shower reminded me of several I had showered in along Highway 54 on my way to El Paso.
By this time, likely due to a mix of hormones and the beginnings of what I thought was postpartum depression, I was crying so hard I could barely breathe. They took Lily from me and laid her in the warming bed, letting us know they would be starting an IV and that they usually put the IV into the baby’s head – that we were welcome to step out if needed.
Andrew and I walked to the waiting room, where, still sobbing, I collapsed into a leather chair in my bathrobe and the gown I had worn since giving birth (my hygiene at the time, for some reason, was not a red flag when it should have been).
My doctor stopped by, which meant so much to me, because I don’t think she had to. She explained that Lily would be fine and that, although it seemed serious, it wasn’t, and that we would leave eventually.
Someone must have come and got us – I don’t remember. But when we came back to the room, I cried quietly as I watched my new precious baby girl lying in her warming bed, her IV in place, and wires connected to her little body. Even though I knew it wasn’t serious, it just wasn’t what I had ever pictured in my perfect “plan.” I remember the counselor in me wondering so many things: would she be traumatized by this? Even though she wouldn’t remember it? Would the hundreds of foot pokes to draw blood every six hours mean she would recoil at anyone touching her little feet? Would she really be okay?
That evening (or maybe the next – I don’t remember), I finally stepped into the shower, where I do a lot of my praying. I didn’t care that it was small and, honestly, not super clean. The water felt glorious and I let it wash over me as I cried. I remember specifically praying, “Lord, what if she’s not okay? What will I do if you take her from me?”
And, in the way that he sometimes does, he very gently brought one of my favorite sections of scripture to mind. Daniel chapter 3. King Nebuchadnezzar has set up a statue and demanded that everyone in the land bow down in worship to it when the music is played. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not, and they were found out. So the king has a furnace prepared for them, and, before having them thrown into the fire, gives them another chance to change their minds. He asks them, “Who is the god who can rescue you from my power?” To which they reply, “We don’t need to give you an answer to this question. If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if he does not, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up” (3:15-18).
Even if he does not.
Even if, someday, my precious baby goes to be with Jesus before I do, He is still good. And I stood in that shower and repeated that over and over to myself until I believed it to be true. Because in that moment, when so much seemed so uncertain to me and my mental health was unraveling as quickly as the water swirling around my feet and down the drain, I knew my only hope was to trust that He is and always will be good.
Becoming a mother has been one of the most joyous, but heaviest things I have ever experienced. In what I thought was the beginning of postpartum depression, God dug painfully deep into my heart in just our week and a half stay in the hospital, and began to root out idols I didn’t even know I had. And it was so painful, but so necessary.
Becoming a mom has worn me thin and built me up, beat me down and made me stronger, broken me and healed me. It has shown me the ugliest parts of myself, my deep need for a Savior.
I understand a sliver of what it must have been like for the Father, allowing his precious Son to die on the cross. Giving him up. Allowing him to endure torture.
On our fifth night in the hospital, I still hadn’t slept more than twenty minute stretches since the night before I had Lily. I would fall asleep and think I had heard her crying, only to wake up and realize she was sleeping quietly in her bed next to me. I would wake up and see her lying in the bed next to me, frantically remember they had told me not to fall asleep with her in the bed, and tear apart the sheets looking for her, only to realize she wasn’t there. She was in her bed. I would attach the pump to me, immediately fall asleep sitting up, and wake up to everything I had pumped spilled into my lap. And so, on that final evening, I called the on-call nurse, crying (again) and desperately asking her what I could do to get some sleep (this honestly makes me laugh now – this woman was a saint!). “Go home,” she told me.
And so, at around midnight on that fifth night, I left Andrew with Lily and I wandered, hysterical, down to the main floor of the hospital, where a kind night custodian stopped me to ask if I was okay. Her own baby had stayed in the hospital for quite some time, and, although I don’t remember what she said to me, I remember being greatly comforted by her words. My mom pulled up to the main entrance, and I climbed as gingerly as I could into the passenger seat. (Climbing into an SUV is quite the feat when you have just given birth).
When I got home, I took my painkillers and sank deeply into my first real sleep in almost a week. I awoke about ten hours later, showered, and hit Starbucks (some things never change) before heading back to the hospital feeling like an (almost) new person, where I traded Andrew off so he could come home and sleep.
We went on like this for four or five more days, until finally we were discharged to go home, which was a lot more uneventful than I imagined it being. A teenager came up and helped me load all of my things and Lily’s onto the cart she had brought, and then drove us down to the main entrance where Andrew picked us up.
After we were discharged, I checked myself into therapy for the first time in over a year.
Since about 2010, I have questioned whether or not I have bipolar disorder. There are, essentially, three types of bipolar: bipolar 1, bipolar 2, and cyclothymia. Bipolar 1 is what most people normally think of when they think “bipolar.” It includes at least one bout of mania, in which the person spends their life savings, engages in life-threatening or life-altering behavior, or experiences bouts of psychosis. Bipolar 2 is somewhat less severe, with at least one bout of hypomania, in which the person experiences excessive amounts of energy, begins several new projects, or has trouble sleeping. Cyclothymia is the least severe of the three. The other side of bipolar, of course, is depression. Bipolar depression looks different from major depressive disorder (unipolar depression) in that someone with bipolar depression usually eats more and sleeps super deeply, while someone with MDD may stop eating and struggle with insomnia, sleeping during the day. After studying bipolar for years in my counseling program, I determined it was highly possible I had bipolar 2.
Did you know that new mothers with bipolar are seven times more likely to be admitted to the psychiatric hospital after giving birth, especially when unmedicated?
The first year after Lily’s birth was and still is a blur for me. The exhaustion coupled with the lack of medication meant long days and nights for both me and my husband. I struggled greatly with severe anger, suicidal thoughts, and thoughts of getting in my car and never coming home.
About a year after Lil’s birth, I finally came to my OB with the suspicion that I was dealing with bipolar, not postpartum depression, and that I needed help. She quickly agreed and prescribed me a new medication specifically for bipolar disorder. I then got in with a psych NP who confirmed the bipolar 2 diagnosis and added two more meds. I was wary to take three different medications, but a month into these new meds, I could breathe. I could see clearly. My bouts of anger lessened and my dark thoughts almost vanished, or at least became manageable. And even better, I had almost no side effects.
When I look back on the ten years it took for me to get help, I regret the times that I lost. I don’t remember Lily’s first year of life. I don’t remember the months I spent in bed during a particularly deep bout with depression in summer 2015. I regret the outbursts of anger (typical with either type of bipolar and in cases of severe depression), the words I fired at my husband, our tumultuous first years of marriage.
In Joel chapter 2, the Lord gives us a great promise. He reminds us, “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten...my great army, which I sent among you” (v. 25).
I believe in His sovereignty, the Lord allowed bipolar disorder to consume my life for the better part of a decade. Not as part of some diabolical plan to burden and destroy me, but that “the works of God might be displayed in [me]” (John 9:3).
And you know what’s beautiful? Someday, likely on the other side of death, He will restore the years I lost.
My daughter is now almost 3. She is one of the greatest gifts the Lord has given me, not only because she in herself is precious, but the lessons the Lord has worked in me because of her are more precious than life to me.
For the first time in over a decade, I am healthy. I still worry. I understand that bipolar can cause damage to the brain and worsen with time. I worry about what following Jesus will look like if my mind deteriorates. I have bad days, days where I apologize to my husband and my daughter for my anger, days where without medication I know I wouldn’t get out of bed, the depression rumbling below the surface like a storm on the horizon, held at bay by the medication. But I am healthy and the Lord is working out His salvation in me.
His scripture is so full of promises. He has promised my salvation, even if one day my mind is gone. He has promised that even on my worst days, nothing can pluck me from his hand.
One day, I'll step into heaven and (I envision) he will lay his hands on my head, forever healing my mind.
If you or someone you know needs help, ask your primary care provider or seek out a counselor. You can find a counselor who fits your needs by going to psychologytoday.com. You can also text with a crisis counselor by texting the number 741741.
“But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” - Phil. 3:14
