This is completely unedited and probably a total muddled mess, but welcome to my mind.
Autism, pregnancy loss, birth trauma, and postpartum
depression.
I am a woman on the autism spectrum diagnosed with
Asperger’s Syndrome before it was incorporated into the autism spectrum. This has a large influence why my path into
motherhood was truly a traumatic time.
My husband and I had been married for 5 years
before we decided to try for a child.
Growing up, I cannot recall a time where I didn’t want to become a
mother. I also wanted to be a geologist,
chemist, teacher, etc. but MOM was always on the list. I had my geology/teaching degree and was
teaching middle school. Life was
amazing. My parents were moving away from
my “hometown” which made me cry with happiness.
Where I grew up was horrible for my whole family. Then I had 4 miscarriages in a row. My start to motherhood was entirely pain and
heartbreak. I was depressed. My favorite school administrator died and I
attended her funeral amid a miscarriage.
One of my 8th grade students fell pregnant and another one
fatally shot another student accidentally.
My body/brain/hormones were in turmoil.
While trying to save a pregnancy, I had to get off of all my mood
stabilizing medications that help me with the sensitivities I have from not
being neurotypical. Then I was able to
keep a pregnancy. It was amazing. I was happy to be so sick. The doctor, not so much because I lost almost
30 pounds because of hyperemesis. But, I
was able to stay pregnant. My students
saw me run to the sink to puke. They saw
me endlessly trying to sip at ginger ale.
I wasn’t on my medications so stress caused pre-term labor and I was
placed on bed rest right at the end of the school year. We bought a Netflix subscription that
summer.
When the time came to give birth to my daughter,
it was stress. My parents were half a
world away when we thought I would have her.
Then she didn’t come…and didn’t come.
Pre-term labor ended in an overdue baby.
My parents had to postpone their move (that they had already postponed
for a month due to my baby girl coming). I felt like I was letting everyone
down. The day finally arrived when she
would come. Transfer from a free-standing birth center to the hospital became a
necessity. She was stuck. She wouldn’t
turn. She wouldn’t descend. I had been in active labor for 24 hours. The
hospital gave me the epidural and let me rest for a couple of hours while they tried
to turn her; to no avail. After 3 hours
of constant pushing she was finally born via forceps. 9 pounds, 19 inches,
wrong position, but she was out.
Because of the relatively traumatic entrance into
this world, she was taken to the nursery for testing. She was large and I didn’t have the
healthiest of pregnancies. They wanted
to make sure that she was okay. She
spiked a fever and ended up being in the hospital for 6 days on
antibiotics. She had a spinal tap and at
least 10 IVs. I was thrust head first
into this crazy part of motherhood I never expected to go through. I had my mind prepared for something vastly
different than what was placed before me.
Through pure adrenaline I got through those first days.
When I got home, my mom stayed with us for a
week. When the adrenaline and oxytocin
crashed, I crashed. Waking up and caring
for my baby was relatively easy. I was
having great success breastfeeding. But
around 1 pm the thought of bathing, feeding and getting her ready for bed
pushed me into melt down mode. I didn’t
want to have to go to sleep. What if
something happened to her while she was sleeping and I lost her. Having lost 5
pregnancies, (1 before officially trying) this was a huge fear. I cried. A lot. My mom got my daughter into the stroller and
we took long walks in the park thinking fresh air and exercise might help. I had been cooped up in the hospital for a
week. We tried that for 2 days. When it happened again my mom asked if I
thought it was more than just stress and if it might be postpartum
depression. Having a knowledge that I am
prone to anxiety and depression through my autistic tendencies, as well as
being off my medication for a year, I knew I needed to see a doctor.
My faith in the medical system had failed me in
many ways with the birth of my daughter. But, when I called them and said the
words “for postpartum depression” They got me into a doctor within an
hour. I was literally trying to get
clothes on to get out the door as I was on the phone. They took it extremely seriously which was
wonderful. The nurse was amazing and the
doctor listened to everything and talking with her about my experiences with
past medication as well as my desire to breastfeed we settled on a medication proved
to work with me that wasn’t bad for breastfeeding.
It was NOT an instant fix. It was NOT a total fix. My parents were still moving. My poor mother
had to leave after a week at my house (2 days after starting medication). She
was fearful for me but grateful my husband would be there. That was another
depression contribution. My husband had
graduated with his PhD in Chemistry 3 days before the birth and was unemployed
and job hunting across the country. I
knew we would be moving “soon” as well. I still had a major fear of taking my daughter
to the doctor thinking they might find another thing wrong with her and we
would again be stuck in the hospital. I
still cried at 1 pm every day for a month.
There were days that the only thing I washed was my nipple for her to
eat safely.
Depression and anxiety has been my constant
companion for most of my life. Change
has never been easy. I have had full on
panic attacks because the orientation of chairs in a classroom got changed from
the way they had always been. How much
more of a change is having a child that depends on you for everything? I can’t even express the dichotomy of the
pure joy of finally fulfilling my deepest desire to have a child paired with
the complete and absolute fear of that child depending on you for everything
when you are trying to figure out how to brush your own teeth and hair. It fell onto my husband to make sure I was
taken care of while I tried to care for our child.
The postpartum depression hit a new facet when we
decided that I needed to go back to work.
My husband had always wanted to be the breadwinner. He wanted to get his PhD, get a post-doctoral
position and provide for his family. I
always wanted to be a stay at home mother for at least a few years. Our dreams were yet again shattered. He got to experience being a stay at home
dad. I got to experience what it meant
to be a working/breastfeeding mother. As
a substitute teacher, it is hard to figure out where to pump and then store
your fresh milk. I still remember crying
during a high school prep period I had while pumping in a car shop. I was teaching a shop class for a day. Our situation made the depression come back
in a vengeance. Sometimes the depression is hormonal, sometimes it is
situational. Sometimes it is a horrible
mixture of everything. As the hormones
situated themselves and the medication was in full potency situational
depression got better.
The fact that I had a job that I had to get up, get
ready, go, and do was good for me. It at
least meant my hair and teeth were brushed.
It wasn’t easy. My husband almost
got on medication himself because of the depression he fell into being
unemployed. It eventually got better. I would say the depression lasted a good 6
months after she was born.
We were able to get through a heart
defect/potential congestive heart failure/surgery/post op with our
daughter. My fears of losing her almost
happened. I got a call for a permanent teaching
position offer as I was sitting next to my 4-month-old in the ICU.
Honestly, if I had not listened to my mother to go
to the doctor 3 days after coming home, I don’t know how I would have handled
everything. My natural tendencies of
anxiety and depression in addition to situational anxiety and hormonal crashes
are a recipe for disaster. No matter
what, becoming a mother is one of the biggest changes you can go through in
your life.
I was lucky. I had my life partner by my side the
entire time. I didn’t have to be home
alone after a week or less. I had a mother that encouraged me to go to the
doctor for medications. I had the
knowledge of what medications worked for me.
I had knowledge of strategies to get through life changes with my position
on the autism spectrum. These put
together ensured my successful trek through what was my experience of
postpartum depression.
