Celebrating and Grieving - Yes, Grieving - My Expanding Family

I never find anything in life to be as straightforward and clear-cut as I think it will be. Especially significant life events. There are rarely disappointments and sorrows that come without the gift of unforeseen joy and blessing; and, even the hoped-for events that I long for with anticipation for what feels like forever, seem to hit me with a strange and sad finality when they come to pass.

It's easy enough for me to accept blessing on the heels of grief, but forgiving myself for experiencing sadness when I have every reason to rejoice? That's rough. Those who know me well know that I am very introspective. I love thinking on the whys of me, especially the goings on of my head, heart, and soul. Gabrien's birth on the fifteenth of March and the post-partum depression that settled in the night we brought him home from the hospital have me doing that again.

And, so,

I blog.

Post-partum depression is, largely, a biological phenomenon triggered by hormones whipping a 180 after a baby is born and throwing a mother's body into general confusion and chaos. However, as with most, if not all, biological processes, there is an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual component that is uniquely "tailored" to each women's own set of fears, insecurities, and limitations. What this means, among other things, is that a woman can have very different experiences of post-partum depression with each pregnancy, even though the biological impact on her brain may be similar. (I'm not a neurologist. Just theorizing here.)

I think my bout of PPD following Gabrien hit me doubly hard and threw me off for that reason. I had already weathered PPD with Jonathan, and my particular set of fears, insecurities, and limitations after he was born centered around being a brand new mom with cerebral palsy and having ZERO confidence that I had what it took to be his mother. Over the fifteen and a half months with Jonathan before Gabrien was born, I mastered many, many different physical skills needed to care for Jonathan, and I didn't go into my pregnancy with Gabrien worried about my ability to take care of him. (At least, not in the same way that I worried with Jonathan.) Therefore, although I was expecting to encounter a certain measure of PPD this time around because of my history with chronic depression, I was almost entirely unprepared for how quickly it pulled me under and how debilitating it was. To tell you the truth, it was WORSE this time than with Jonathan despite my previous experience and the knowledge that came with it.

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why it was so much worse after Gabrien, and what I've come to realize is that I was experiencing the disconnect between Gabrien's birth (which was SO MUCH wanted and happily anticipated) and the reality of Gabrien's permanent presence in our family. Please do not misunderstand. I love Gabrien with all my heart and feel SO PRIVILEGED to be his mother and proud to have him as my youngest son, but I experienced a deluge of very real (and EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE AND GUILTY) sadness and grief over the need to graft him into our family. After we brought Gabrien home, it hit my heart very hard that this was not going to be like bringing Jonathan home from the NICU and then having the next fifteen-ish months of being just the three of us, Daddy, Mommy, and Jonathan. Gabrien was being brought home into a family that had already been started, that already had routines and structure centered around a completely different child. Part of me HATED that. As I spiraled down deeper and deeper into the PPD, I found myself battling resentment against Gabrien for taking me away from Jonathan, along with resentment against Jonathan for taking me away from Gabrien. When I realized that I was resenting my own children, the loathing for myself as a mother (because what kind of mother resents her precious children instead of rejoicing in them?) pushed my mind and heart almost to the breaking point. I felt a panicked desperation to somehow regain what was lost in our home when Gabrien was born, and knowing that things would never be quite the same made me frantic.

This frantic energy presented itself as a borderline obsession over Jonathan's adjustment to having a new baby in the house. Every emotional outburst or frustrated behavior from him felt like a punch in the stomach and, in my mind, was proof that, in wanting to having another baby, I had chosen to disregard and neglect my sweet J-Pants. As you can probably see, it would be fairly easy at this point for a depressed and anxious post-partum (i.e. flooded with chaotic hormones) mind to give in to viewing Gabrien as a threat to Jonathan. I did my best to fight thinking this way, but PPD has a way of developing a voice of its own; and every moment I spent with Gabrien felt like actively turning my back on Jonathan and pushing him away.  I will admit that, in the darkest moments of my PPD, I thought back to how my pregnancy with Gabrien had been tentatively diagnosed as a blighted ovum early in the first trimester (meaning that my uterus was empty and no baby was present), and I had flickering thoughts of how it may have been better if that had happened instead of Gabrien being born and jeopardizing my relationship with Jonathan.  The thoughts were fleeting and not indulged in, but I hated myself for thinking them.  I am now well past that horrible time, and I can hardly believe that I could ever think something that horrible; but it shows how scary and terrifying PPD can be, especially in a woman with a history of anxiety and depression.

Gabrien and Jonathan are now six months and almost twenty-two months respectively, and my worries about Jonathan successfully adjusting to Gabrien and Jason and I successfully integrating Gabrien into our family have all but vanished.  Both boys seem to have a very real affection for and attachment to each other; and, although having two sons so close in age and so young has its challenges, nothing that I tortured myself with during my PPD has materialized.

Praise God for His faithfulness in seeing me through that awful time and for forming our family as beautifully as He has!  The fundamental lesson that He has written on my heart through all of this is that it is HE who orchestrates my story and HE who is over all.  He is in control of when life comes into being.  He is in control of the planning and timing of our family.  He is in control of post-partum hormone fluctuations and imbalanced brain chemistry.  And, although I felt like Satan's personal playground in the midst of my hellish post-partum thoughts and chaotic emotions, GOD - and GOD ALONE! - was in control the entire time, fulfilling His promises to me that He would never leave me or forsake me.

The following verses are from a Psalm that has been precious to me for most of my walk with Christ these 12 years, and they speak perfectly to how low PPD brought me and how faithfully God rescued me from it.

The Lord Is My Rock and My Fortress

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, fthe servant of the Lord, gwho addressed the words of this hsong to the Lord on the day when the Lord rescued him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:

18 I love you, O Lord, my strength.

2 The Lord is my irock and my jfortress and my deliverer,

my God, my irock, in kwhom I take refuge,

my lshield, and mthe horn of my salvation, my nstronghold.

3 I call upon the Lord, who is oworthy to be praised,

and I am saved from my enemies.

4 pThe cords of death encompassed me;

qthe torrents of destruction assailed me;1

5 pthe cords of Sheol entangled me;

the snares of death confronted me.

6 rIn my distress I called upon the Lord;

to my God I cried for help.

From his stemple he heard my voice,

and my cry to him reached his ears.

7 Then the earth treeled and rocked;

the foundations also of the mountains trembled

and quaked, because he was angry.

8 Smoke went up from his nostrils,2

and devouring ufire from his mouth;

glowing coals flamed forth from him.

9 He vbowed the heavens and wcame down;

xthick darkness was under his feet.

10 He rode on a cherub and flew;

he came swiftly on zthe wings of the wind.

11 He made darkness his covering, his acanopy around him,

thick clouds bdark with water.

12 Out of the brightness before him

chailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds.

13 The Lord also dthundered in the heavens,

and the Most High uttered his evoice,

hailstones and coals of fire.

14 And he sent out his farrows and scattered them;

he flashed forth lightnings and grouted them.

15 Then hthe channels of the sea were seen,

and the foundations of the world were laid bare

at your irebuke, O Lord,

at the blast of jthe breath of your nostrils.

16 He ksent from on high, he took me;

he ldrew me out of mmany waters.

17 He rescued me from my strong enemy

and from those who hated me,

for they were ntoo mighty for me.

18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity,

but the Lord was my support.

19 He brought me out into oa broad place;

he rescued me, because he pdelighted in me.

To God be the glory.