My Story

 In June of 2020, I found out I was expecting. Of course, this was also at the beginning of a worldwide pandemic where everyone was supposed to stay at home, which meant I was supposed to go to most doctor's appointments alone. My husband was allowed to come with me to ultrasound appointments and that was it.  

Everything in my pregnancy was great except the all day morning sickness. I was healthy despite not being able to eat much. My blood pressure, all blood work, everything was great.  The appointment came to check my glucose and it was Friday,November 13. My mom and my mother-in-law rode with me because after my morning appointment we were going to go finish our Christmas shopping. I go in, get blood drawn, do the urine test, and they are checking my blood pressure. Blood pressure comes back high. They check again and it's high again. I did not know this was the beginning of a wild roller coaster.

They also found protein in my urine and sent me to the hospital for 24 hr monitoring. My husband was allowed to come spend the night with me so he went home and got us clothes and him snacks and came to the hospital. I spent the whole time online shopping with my overtime money fully expecting to go home the next day. Morning comes and they get more blood work and check the 24 hr urine. The doctor comes in and says all labs are worse and they are sending me to a big hospital with specialists and a NICU. Her last words to me before transferring were "We are counting days instead of weeks now."

At that point, I was only 27 weeks and terrified by this news. They started steroid shots and magnesium drip to prevent strokes. I cried all the way to the other hospital. My husband followed behind us calling family to inform them what was going on. When we get there, they tell us they are preparing us for a C section that night!! We went from counting weeks, to counting days, to counting minutes. To say the shock and fear were there is a understatement. 

The specialist comes in and does a ultrasound, and decides since my blood pressure is coming down because of the steroids and the baby is not in distress we can wait at least 24 hrs for the second steroid shot. After that, we just monitored until blood pressure couldn't be controlled. It finally happened Tuesday evening. They tried to induce overnight and into Wednesday morning. Nothing was happening so we did a C section Wednesday afternoon and my sweet baby was brought into the world 28 weeks on the day.

He went straight to the NICU and they took me to recovery. I got to see him for five minutes on the way back to my room and didn't get to see him for another 24 hrs until I was off the magnesium drip. It was definitely touch and go the first few weeks and he spent 86 days in the NICU.

During our NICU stay, I cried everyday, had panic attacks, depression, anxiety, poor work performance, and probably other symptoms I am forgetting. I had no clue at the time I had post partum anxiety and depression. I had no idea NICU PTSD was a thing. Luckily I had good friends pushing me to get help. My doctor put me on an antidepressant and I decided to seek counseling.

The counselor I went to see was not at all experienced in post partum issues and told me I just had post partum depression and I would be fine. That comment made me so mad because I knew what that does to someone. I learned about how little information there is for any postpartum mental health there really is. 

I am currently pursuing my Master's Degree in Counseling and will specialize in Post Partum Mental Health. I also decided to use this forum to spread that knowledge around and hopefully help some poor desperate momma who is second guessing herself.