Maternity Blues or Postpartum Depression??

So Postpartum Depression is defined as (taken from wikipedia and multiple other websites) moderate to severe depression in a woman after she has given birth.  It can begin any time beginning immediately after delivery through the first year.  Symptoms include:

• Agitation or irritability
• Changes in appetite
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
• Feeling withdrawn or unconnected
• Lack of pleasure or interest in most or all activities
• Loss of concentration
• Loss of energy
• Problems doing tasks at home or work
• Negative feelings toward the baby
• Significant anxiety
• Thoughts of death or suicide
• Trouble sleeping

Maternity Blues is defined as mild and transitory moodiness suffered by up to 80% of postnatal women.  Symptoms of Maternity Blues include:

Tearfulness

Irritability

hypochondriasis

sleeplessness

impairment of concentration

feelings of isolation

headache

It seems to me that they are pretty similar except Maternity Blues is not as severe, doesn’t last as long, and you don’t have negative feelings towards the baby.  That is what gave me the hint that I didn’t have PPD.  It was just so natural to take care of my baby.  While I was moping around, while I panicked, while I was anxious, I was so attached to my little man.  I remember being home by myself, while my husband was at work, and freaking out about this new little person that has entered our life.  The first few days he was home I was a wreck.  I kept thinking OMG we made a mistake.  How did this happen?  What are we going to do?  We can’t afford a baby? Etc. etc. etc….I felt nauseas.  I didn’t know how I was going to be a mom.  Please note, we planned this baby.  I mean the whole shebang.  Marking the calendar, having dutiful sex, laying motionless after the deed to optimize the “swimming” environment.  Even so, I was saying “how did this happen”.  What was worse, I looked a mess.  Probably like a deranged woman.  I was calling my friend, who is a mother of two and my own mother, every single day.  One of the recurring thoughts in my head was, I am never doing this again.  On top of that, I had tore in like 4 places with my vaginal delivery.  I had hemorrhoids that also was a result of the delivery.  Also, I tore my perineum (the space between the vagina and butt) and had to get stitches.  This amplified all of the aforementioned feelings.  I felt so lonely and miserable, like I was trapped in the Twilight Zone even though I have a wonderful, ever-present husband.  It was like an out of body experience.  It was a vicious cycle because the more I felt anxious, lonely, and I guess slightly depressed, the more I became worried, nervous, and anxious that I may have PPD.  I just kept telling myself, no, you love your baby and you have no negative feelings toward him.  The more severe stage of this was over in about a week and a half.  I slowly started to get a grip, but here is something messed up that they don’t really tell you.  By they I mean, doctors, nurses, and the ridiculous books (we’ll get to that another time) you read trying to prepare yourself.  Anyway they forget to tell you there is an insane random hormone extravaganza going on in your body after you give birth and even more so if you are breastfeeding (which I was) and anyone who knows anything about physiology knows that hormones are little messengers that make things happen in the body so imagine an overload of them in your body sending all these messages, causing all of these signals.  Of course you are going to go haywire.  Yes, some women are lucky and they don’t have big problems, but I wasn’t one of them.  It probably took me over a month to get it together.  Yet I must say have no fear ladies, today with a 12 month old, I can totally say I do not even know who that person was.  I wouldn’t recognize her if I saw her now and she wouldn’t recognize me.  This too shall pass.