My Severe Case Of Postpartum Depression

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The twins 3rd birthday came and went. I don't know what other mothers anticipate when it nears their child's 3rd birthday, but for me the anticipation mounted each day closer we came. I knew in my head that a child will not magically become severely mentally delayed over night, but my heart dreaded it each day until the dawn of April 3....

Let me back up a bit if the before mentioned leaves you bewildered. I have to warn you though....I am going to be bluntly honest. Why? Because if one mother has felt or is feeling the way I have felt over the past 3 years and I can help her, it is worth my embarrassment.

Being pregnant with a baby is hard on your body. Especially if it is in your first year of marriage and you are teaching 5 lecture classes at the high school level. When the boys were born it was definitely culture shock. I was very scared to become a mother.

Over the next nine months of the boys life my husband switched jobs, we celebrated our 1st year of marriage, I started a home based business, we moved, I quit a job, we took a trip to Florida with my entire family, and I nursed the boys full-time being very diligent to watch everything I ate.

By the twins 9 month check-up I felt as though it was going ok as a mom. The boys seemed to be doing well and I seemed to be handling it all well too.

Then the bomb dropped.

My husband was gone. He had taken another job, and although better, it took him out of the state for conventions and training all but 6 days of the month of January. The 3rd day of January was the boys 9 month check-up at which they were diagnosed failure to thrive, with ear infections, anemic and prescribed steroids for eczema.

If you have ever been alone with such a diagnosis you could imagine how my world stopped. My husband was scheduled to be gone for most of the rest of the month and I couldn't bear to put my 9 month old babies on all the medicines prescribed! Although I love my friend who was my doctor, it was too much to handle. Failure to thrive = failure to mother right?

Over the course of the next nine months my husband struggled to really get a handle on this new sales job and the traveling and all the conventions and the learning curve, my in laws moved in, we moved again, I began to cook from scratch adding oil, fat and greens to each meal. I began teaching one high school class and became pregnant with my daughter; we celebrated our 2nd year of marriage.

In October we had the boys 18 month check-up with a pediatrician and a gastroenterologist who in the nurses words, "had taken more blood, poop, and urine out of any kids she had seen." At this check up, the gastroenterologist declared that, "if I continued to feed my kids the special diet I insisted on, they would be on the growth chart by age 3 but severely mentally delayed."

Now remember, my special diet consisted of a legume, a green, a root vegetable and different grains as well as a variety of good fats, red meat, lamb, chicken and turkey for every meal everyday. We did only a little dairy, as too much gave the boys diarrhea and no soy as it made then lay on their stomachs and cry until they passed gas. He also said that we had 30 days to get 30 oz each on the boys or they would admit them into the hospital and put feeding tubes down their throats.

This was also around the same time as the mother in southern MN tried to treat her son's cancer with home-remedies and was taken to court for child abuse. I asked the doctor about how much power they had and she said, "more than you know."

She sent the county nurse to my house to check-in with me and I had to email daily meal charts to a dietitian. So thus began the days of measuring, feeding, force feeding, juicing, measuring what wasn't eaten, getting the boys weighed and checking in with a dietitian......all while being 8 months pregnant.

Throughout this whole process and after my daughter's birth I asked my OB several times if she thought I needed depression medication. She said that from what she gathered about me, it was stress in life more than depression and did not prescribe me pills. I was thankful for that because I didn't want to be on pills, and as a Christian, I wanted to get by without needing to rely on a drug.

We found a new doctor for the boys. She has been a pediatrician for 12 years and also is a naturopathic doctor. I also asked her about my "depression" and she as well told me that from what she observed that I did not need medication. She recommended exercise and time to myself, which was rare. These activities did help some, but I was still feeling like was walking around with a rain cloud over my head.

The hardest thing about this time was the looks, the books and tapes on depression and comments about my "deep depression" people would give me. I realize that they had good intentions, but it felt so demeaning.

SO.......

I decided to get help from a lady who specializes in Chinese and European alternative medicine. She used a bio-meridian machine and the reflexology points to test the stress or weakness on my organs. She is not a doctor and did not diagnose me with a condition, but she did notice that my adrenals seemed very weak.

Your adrenals do a lot of things, but one is that they control the "fight or flight" in a person. You actually can be seriously hospitalized with adrenal fatigue and after such a stressful few years and pregnancies, it makes sense that my adrenals were fatigued!

I remember sitting on the couch listening to all the kids cry and feeling "dead" inside. This may shock you. How can a Christian who has the Holy Spirit living in her say that she feels "dead?" I believe that the Lord is the creator of my body and at any moment He could've helped me. But I also believe that He gave us minds to understand how our bodies work and take care of them.

I started ADHS a homeopathic that supports the adrenal system. I also would apply Frankincense oil.

Without being sacrilegious, I felt like I was given a second chance at life. I felt alive again. I went from no feeling to lots of feelings.

Then those feelings began to escalate. I remember yelling at my twins, then putting all the kids in their cribs and walking down the driveway crying. How could this tiny person make me so angry?

I went into the local health food store. I told the lady, who has proven herself amazingly knowledgeable, about how I was feeling. She asked if I felt rage? I was embarrassed, isn't rage sinful? I choked out a "yes." I used to be a happy person, the glass was always half full and now all I do is complain and hate the circumstances of my life.

She suggested I try a homeopathic called DIM. I guess it is supposed to help your liver process all the estrogen so when stressful moments happen and all the cortisol is rising you can handle it instead of wanting to break something.

Tears are welling up in my eyes as I write this....

My husband had been gone for 6 days and when he got home that Saturday afternoon I greeted him with a smile! I told him how wonderful the day was! He was shell-shocked!

Many times before I had told him how it would be more pleasurable for me to bash my head against the wall or pull my hair out and run down the driveway then to be in this situation. He always thought I was joking. I always felt so guilty and beat myself up in the spiritual and emotional sense daily.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I was earnestly seeking the Lord in prayer, and posting verses all over my house, listening to good music, reading the Word, going to church, asking others to tell me about their devos.....yet I felt so out of control!

That next weekend I went to hear a doctor speak. This man has been a doctor for a very long time. He has so many credentials in the medical world I cant even remember. He and a team of many types of doctors have written a book called Proactive Preventative Medicine.

He did a talk on Young Living Progessence Plus, he had a part in formulating it. He talked about progesterone. He said that most women understand they have estrogen and some testosterone, but many woman and doctors don't realize the benefits and need for progesterone.

He tested 700 woman at a natural health convention. 5, yes 5 had normal levels of progesterone! (2 were pregnant!) 300 of the woman tested 0, yes 0!

I used it Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.....

Sunday night my husband left for another trip. I decided to start potty training the twins and my daughter was sick.....it had been a rough day, I cleaned up a lot of pee and poop and my husband wasn't going to be home for 3 more days, yet at 8:30pm as I rocked the last baby before bed, I caught myself smiling....I also recalled earlier that day when all three kids and I laid on the floor giggling. I started to cry, as I am now.....

I hadn't done that in.......years?

When I shared this with my mom she teared up, she and my sister's had feared for my life many times throughout the last few years.

If you are a man reading this I want to tell you. I asked my husband, in tears, many times "please, you are the only one who can save me! Please help me!" To which he responded "You have to do this or that to help yourself.."..or "I don't know what to do!" Please do not give up on your wife!!

Hormones are CRAZY! But there is help out there!!!

ADHS and Frankincense brought my adrenals back and gave me life and feeling. DIM gave me the ability to think and take back control of my life.

Progessence Plus allowed me to remember what is feels like to be happy again.

I just wanted to share my story with you. Am I embarrassed that I felt this way? Horribly, but you don't have to be disappointed, I am enough for all of us.

I am just so glad that the time for craziness has past! When the Bible says,"He gave us all things for life and godliness" I believe it is true! And it includes those things for LIFE as well!

Blessing to you all!

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Additional keyword(s) assigned by the editor: anxiety, baby blues, bioidentical, depressed, estradiol, female, hormonal, imbalance, lonely, mood, moods, pregnancy, stressors.