No-one can prepare you for how you will feel, but I want to try. I also want to write this all down, for the same reasons I made a blog about my miscarriages in the first place.
Calling it the 'baby blues' makes it sound quaint and twee, like a minor 'whoopsie', a trivial matter. Well, it's not. It's fucking horrible, and I'm in the depths of it.
I don't know about anyone else, but like about 20% of the population, I've been depressed enough in the past to be medicated. Not hospitalised, mind, but enough to be familiar with neurochemistry. If you have, too, you'll know just how
*bad* that feels.
Well imagine nearly your worst point of depression. The nadir of your self-worth and experience of life, and just to the left or right of that. (ok, to be frank, just short of suicidal). Now, imagine that developing, literally, overnight. In 12 hours I went from "yeah, I need some food and I have a headache, but otherwise, wow, I just had my baby" to "I am the most incompetent woman unlucky enough to conceive".
Themes that repeat themselves at 2am
- there was a reason I had all those miscarriages- someone *was* trying to tell me something: I'm not
meant to be a mother.
- I'm so useless I can't even breastfeed properly. What would I do in the third world?
- I'm not worthy of this baby. Some other subfertile/infertile should have been blessed with my luck. I don't deserve him.
- my idiot, freak-show, cartoon-sized boobs are so ridiculous. I am so huge. And they're so enormous, I can't feed him (the big boob paradox) [God knows what size they are now- my E-cup bra is at least 3 sizes too small]
and, at the worst (it makes me cry to even think that I think this)
- I wish I
had miscarried at 15 weeks
- I resent P for even existing
(but at the same time I'd like to stress I would NEVER, EVER harm him)
And immediately I have these thoughts I hate myself even more for having had them, deepening my feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy.
I find myself just wanting to disappear, to drive off into the night. But I also want to make sure P is ok. Deep down I know this is completely irrational, but last night I found myself wondering if there was anyone actually living at the convent around the corner: "foundling" has such a wistful sound.
I know from other episodes of depression that "it
will get better, it always does" (if that sounds like a mantra, well, there's a reason for that). But right now, I don't ...feel... that. Intellectually, I know it, but you know,
*knowing* it is different.
I can write all this now, though, and just the process is making me feel better. Or can I write because I feel better? In the end it's immaterial.