Let the journey begin…..
Its a long, long road, from which there is no return………..
You know how the song goes. But this PND Journey is a very, very long road and I wholeheartedly believe you are not the same person at the end of it, that you are when you first start it. Well I am hoping and praying there is an end to it.
Out of all the people I know, I was the last person I thought who would get PND. We had been through so much during our other pregnancies and not even a hint of baby blues. But with Dwight’s pregnancy, everything about it was hard, and that period of time was full of external stressors as well.
At 22 weeks gestation my morning sickness had gotten so bad that I was admitted to hospital, because I could no long keep water down. So I ended up in hospital for the remainder of the pregnancy, on a drip and with a nasigastric feeding tube in for the remainder of the pregnancy, which saw Dwight induced at 35 weeks. He was 5lb 3oz and he was beautiful and all the problems I had endured just flew straight out the window when I held him in my arms and looked down at him.
A little while later when we tried to latch him it didn’t seem to be working. The Paediatrician arrived about the same time, so checked him out and said he had a tongue tie (no worries we thought – the girls had them, they are simple to fix) and that he was little and had a tiny mouth. So I was told to try to latch him each feed and then express and tube/finger feed him and once he is a bit bigger he will be able to latch by himself much easier. So we took that at face value and just thought we had a few weeks till that would all be sorted.
At 10 days old Dwight went back in to hospital and had his tongue tie cut in theatre because it was all the way to the tip of his tongue and the Dr wanted to have everything available to him in case it didn’t prove so easy to do. But it was fine and 30 minutes later he was out of surgery, and about 20 minutes after that the nurse got me to try and latch him. No joy still, the Paediatrician again said he had a small mouth and he probably just needed to grow a bit more then would be fine.
I think at around the time Dwight was three weeks old, the constant, trying to latch, then tube feeding, expressing, burping, put bub to bed and then sterilising everything was starting to get a bit much for me. Looking back now I think that is when the PND really set in.
When Dwight was about 10 weeks old, I couldn’t/wouldn’t leave the house, I was crying all the time and I just felt like I had been swallowed whole by a gigantic black hole, and I no longer wanted to live because I felt that I was a burden to my husband and children. I wanted it all to be over, what had I done so wrong?? I was sure it would be for the best if I just walked out in front of a truck and ended it all.
At this point, hubby took me straight in to see our Doctor.