Tag Archives: post partum depression

Limbo

I’m writing this from my phone, because my laptop is with the goddamn movers, so excuse any bad formatting. I won’t bore you with an entire blog bitching and moaning about our second horrible experience with a professional moving company. Instead I’ll bore you with my body issues, doesn’t that sound better?!

I saw postpartum depression/anxiety coming. I knew I’d deal with it. I am dealing with it. It’s fine.

But I kind of didn’t anticipate how much I would hate my postpartum body. More specifically, my post-pumping body, because for as long as I continued pumping, my weight was actually *under* my pre-pregnancy weight and ohh, did I feel good and smug about that.

But I only lasted 3 months pumping, because I am not built to live my entire life in 3-hour segments around the clock. That shit was brutal, so stopping when I did was the right call and I have zero regrets. I knew the weight probably would not be as easy to keep off once I stopped. It’s not even really so much about the numbers as it is about the… distribution. I’ve gained a muffin top that would make Jenna Maroney jealous. (You may or may not get that reference but I can’t link to the song from the 30 Rock episode because YouTube doesn’t have it and if there’s another way, I’m too lazy to find it.)

Clothes just don’t fit, man! If it were as simple as going up a size, I could handle it, it’s not like that’s never happened before. But even up a size (or two) nothing LOOKS quite right. Because my body isn’t right. It’s expanded in all the wrong places. I don’t recognize it. I look in the mirror and all I can think is uggghhhh.

I know, I KNOW, that it is wildly unrealistic to expect my body to look the same as it did before I incubated and birthed a human. That’s an unfair, sexist expectation borne of our massively misogynistic culture and designed to keep me in a constant loop of dieting, self-hating, weighing, falling off the wagon, and dieting some more.

It’s not actually very fashionable to say you’re “on a diet” anymore, in fact it sounds super ’90s/Kirstie Alley for Jenny Craig to my ears, but the focus on “healthy lifestyles” and “wellness” that we have now is really no different. It all means the same thing: thin. We might act like it means something more holistic, more enlightened, less rigid, but 99.9% of the time it still comes down to how good you look in a swimsuit or yoga pants or whatever. Nobody likes a mom bod. And it’s so dumb because mom bods are fucking HEROIC. If there was any justice in this world mom bods would be celebrated as the most desirable and the most impressive and the most coveted of all bods. This badass woman on Instagram said it better than I can.

Looking at my Facebook memories recently, I noticed a post I made several years ago as Kate Middleton was about to have her first baby. I was warily anticipating the usual “Check out how she lost the baby weight!” tabloid stories (“just portion control and lots of water!!!” Another 30 Rock reference for you) and I said something like new moms have 16,000 other things to worry about besides weight, how about we cut them some slack. And here I am, a new mom, worrying about at least 16,000 other things…but totally unable to cut myself even the slightest slack. I’ve always been terrible at taking my own advice.

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What I’m reading:
“Party of Two” by Jasmine Guillory. Honestly, it’s like a cool drink of water on a 100 degree day. I don’t read a lot of this genre – and what to call it? Romance? I mean, I guess, because we’re sure as shit over my dead body not calling it ~chick lit~. But it’s pretty substantive romance, and it’s exactly what I needed.

What I’m watching:
Very little, because I’m at my parents’, and I just don’t tend to watch much TV or movies there because I prefer the comfort of my own streaming service profiles + a good Chromecast. But V and I have watched the first 4 episodes of Indian Matchmaking, and lord…I don’t know if I hate Aparna or want to be her best friend. Vyasar is adorable and deserves the best partner that horoscopes and numerology and Sima aunty can find. Nadia as well. I am kind of loving seeing Indian culture get the reality TV treatment. But it exposes (and doesn’t comment on one way or the other) several of the uglier elements, like the hardcore colorism, insistence on brides being “flexible” (by which they basically mean submissive), and the insularity of certain communities/castes.

What I’m listening to:
Well, I have heard the first few songs on Taylor Swift’s new album “folklore” and I…don’t hate it, but people are talking about it like it’s Album of the Year or something which is just hilarious in a 2020 where Fetch The Bolt Cutters also exists.

What I am seething about:
As I said…the goddamn movers are late. Like really late. We still don’t know how late. And I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I AM A CANCER, and Cancers need their own homes and comfortable spaces! I am nothing if not a slave to hygge.

Update #1 from Quarantine-ville

Well this sucks, doesn’t it?

Never did I imagine that I’d be spending my son’s first weeks of post-NICU life under quarantine. Neither did I imagine that he would be born 7 weeks early. 2020 is just chock full of twists and turns and frankly I am well over it at this point.

Ashwin was discharged on March 7, 5 weeks after he was born. We had gotten into a pretty good routine with the NICU – visit him from around 11am until 5 or 6pm, go home and rest, repeat. It was very much part-time parenting, which made the transition from NICU to home quite…jarring. We’d had way more preparation for it than non-preemie parents get, which is the huge upside to being in the NICU: constant help and resources right at your fingertips, plus (in our case), you get to go home and get actual sleep!

So yeah, those first few days of full cohabitation were rough. My mom left on the 9th, and V’s mom arrived on the 10th; the 24 hours in between were REALLY rough. My MIL got here just in time, thank God, before travel from Europe was banned and before we were under quarantine.

I want to tell you a little bit about that really rough 24 hours, even though I don’t want to and I’m genuinely afraid of judgment, because I hope it will help another new mom or dad feel less alone or less like something is wrong with them.

I had anticipated postpartum depression. I saw it coming like that acquaintance you see in the grocery store that you don’t want to talk to, so you hide out and hope they won’t see you so you can continue about your day. I hoped PPD wouldn’t see me, but it did, and as hard as the NICU was, the full force of the depression didn’t hit me until we brought Ash home. I couldn’t have prepared for the crying, the screaming, the constant anxiety and uncertainty, the lack of sleep. It hit me like a ton of bricks and honestly, I had some pretty dark thoughts that night, questioning everything – why had we done this? Why did we try so hard for this? What the hell did we sign up for? How can I be expected to function under these conditions? How does anyone do this?

Please understand how embarrassing/shameful it is for me to admit that, as someone who tried for five years to get pregnant. All the blood (so much blood), sweat (eh, not so much?), and tears (you better believe it) it took to get us here and now I feel…anything less than jubilant?? Like how fucking dare I? I tell myself that this is a hard stage, some people say THE hardest stage, and it will get better, and I know that that’s true. I think if will even start getting a little better as soon as he starts interacting with us more. It boggles my mind that people volunteer for this two, three, four, five times. I never ever thought I’d want just one kid, but now it feels like a real possibility. I don’t know. And I haven’t even touched on breast milk vs. formula.

And for all this to be happening during coronavirus…it’s just…a LOT. I’m truly at levels of anxiety I have never experienced. I just want to know when it will be over. I have an appointment with a perinatal psychiatrist on Monday and I hope there is something that can be done with my medications, like hopefully introducing a new one, because the two I’m on now are already at their maximum dosages. It’s scary playing around with different anxiety and depression drugs, though, so I really really hope whatever we do is helpful on the first try.

What I’m reading: Well, not much honestly. When I’m pumping in the middle of the night I’m too exhausted to read, and during the day there just isn’t a lot of time. When I have picked up a book, it’s been Daniel Lavery’s “Something That May Shock and Discredit You“, which tbh is a disappointment! I hate saying that because I absolutely love Dear Prudence and just like Danny as a person in general, but the book has a lot of highbrow literary/antiquity references that I simply do not get and therefore have skipped. I may not finish it. I’ve also been reading “Cribsheet” by Emily Oster, which is subtitled “A data-driven guide to better, more relaxed parenting from birth to preschool”. You can probably guess which word sold me on the book.

What I’m watching: V has The Office on whenever he’s feeding Ashwin, so there’s been a whole lot of that. But I’ve also checked out “Babies” on Netflix and am rewatching some Schitt’s Creek with my MIL who seems to enjoy it.

What I’m annoyed about: oh, where to begin. Well it definitely is annoying having to learn all these dumb little things that baby requires: how to properly strap him into the car seat, how to assemble the baby carrier, which of his cries means he’s hungry vs. he’s cold vs. he’s pooped himself. My brain feels very antagonistic toward learning anything right now, for some reason.

What I’m looking forward to: obviously, more than anything, for the pandemic to subside and normalcy to resume. I don’t know if that will be in weeks or months, and as much as I want it to happen, I don’t want it to happen too soon and have even more people get infected. Specifically, I am looking forward to getting my nails done, going to the library, taking walks without fear of accidental human contact, going out to eat, getting a massage…etc.

Please be careful and stay well. Please don’t go anywhere you don’t absolutely need to. Please send me strength and resolve and peace.