My Postpartm Psychosis Progresses, The Further Unraveling of My Dream
Postpartum Depression
Growing overwhelmed by increasing self-doubt and feelings of incompetence, I slipped into a postpartum depression. It was deep, wide and cavernous, swallowing up the joys of new motherhood--the snuggling, the precious intimacy of skin-to-skin touch between me and my baby. Then I started missing my mom who raised me, grieved her death.
Discharged from Hospital
Upon discharge, I was expected to use a complicated contraption for nursing, a syringe loaded with formula connected to thin tubing taped to my chest. The tube terminated at my nipple in order to tantalize my baby into latching onto my breast. Not only was this an awkward arrangement for a stroke survivor with limited coordination and strength, but more importantly, it never worked!
First Night at Home
Luckily the maternity nursing staff had given me the number for a laid-back lactation specialist who reassured me nursing could be gentle. She taught me to watch for the subtle swallowing movements, the rippling of my baby’s throat.
Overtired from constant feedings, I watched as my husband diapered the baby, who slept soundly the entire night.
First Day at Home
At the suggestion of the maternity ward nursing staff, I called the visiting nurse the next morning to check up on our little family. The nurse paid us a visit and yelled at me for allowing the baby to sleep all night without waking the infant every four hours for a feeding.
“No, no, NO!” She shouted. “NEVER let your newborn sleep all night!” Noting the baby’s weight loss in a special folder, she instructed me to call our pediatrician to ask for a next-day appointment.
I felt ashamed of my missing maternal instincts and for generally being inept. Raised as an only child with little babysitting experience, I admittedly knew next-to-nothing about child rearing.
By now I was mourning the loss of both my mom and the birth mother who had given me up for adoption thirty-three years earlier.
Additionally, I came to realize I was living with an unsupportive spouse; when I confessed I was nervous about taking care of the baby, he grinned malevolently and replied, “I’ll bet you are.”
Confused about preparing baby formula to my chemist husband’s exacting standards, I also struggled to get the temperature right. “Formula is a suspension,” he informed me, counting how many times he stirred in one direction before reversing direction, and instructing me to do likewise.
It was no use; my husband made me nervous, and try as I might, I couldn’t get it right. But I hadn’t given up on nursing yet, either.
Visiting the Pediatrician
To help the baby gain more weight, we followed the visiting nurse’s advice to the letter.
Noticing my lack of involvement in our newborn’s care, the pediatrician reported me to the Department of Social Services (DSS).
Postpartum Psychosis
By mid-week of week two at home, I began to fear being left alone to care for my baby while my husband was at work. I became paranoid that I would accidentally hurt the precious life we had created.
Delusional beliefs about the baby vomiting excessively--which I quietly attributed to an allergy to the wool-based lanolin in the nipple cream I had used, and which would have been consistent with her father’s allergy to wool--seemed completely rational to me at the time.
Read my memoir to find out what I said to my birth father that finally tipped the doctors off to my state of mind!
Hospital Emergency Room
Ten days after giving birth, I instinctively suspected that the baby and I needed help. So while my husband slept, I packed up our newborn in our stroller in silence and pushed the carriage up the hill to the rudimentary ER across the street from where we lived. From there, an ambulance transferred us to the hospital where our pediatrician worked.
My psychotic behaviors intensified at the second ER, where I repeated simple answers to the ER doctor’s basic questions three times in a row in the flat voice of an automaton. Left alone in a locked exam room, I let out wordless primal screams when the doctor separated my baby and me for further examination.
My memoir describes my hallucinations in the ER and how I dissociated from the trauma of being separated from my newborn.
Sedated
Under sedation, I finally fell silent, and my agitation settled as I drifted off into a deep slumber.