This is one of my stories. I got married at the age of 28 and my husband and I got pregnant nine years later. Our pregnancy was an unplanned one. During my pregnancy I was not on any kind of antidepressant. During my first trimester I was very sleepy and wanted to sleep most of the time. I did not get physically sick with vomiting throughout my whole pregnancy. I was blessed in that way. During my second and third trimester I noticed huge signs of postpartum depression. I began to get really depressed and cried a lot. My husband is now nine years sober from alcohol. He used to drink back then, and he would binge drink. Ever since I had known him, he drank. The drinking added to my postpartum depression during this time. We both didn’t know how to handle it together.

When we found out that we were having a boy I cried so much because I thought that in the future he would grow up and leave us and go be with his wife’s family and forget all about us. I had such a wide range of emotions that it was overwhelming at times and my husband didn’t know how to help me. I didn’t know how to help me.

I began nesting pretty early on in my pregnancy and wanted everything to be perfect. We changed things in the house I had my cousin come over and do a mural on my son’s wall for his baby room it was beautiful. I loved to look at everything knowing that we did all of this together.

We conceived Jason on May 18, 2014, and when the doctor told me that my due date was going to be February 9, 2015, I knew that she was wrong I knew I was going to have him on the eighteenth because technically you are pregnant for 10 months. We went into the hospital on a Monday February 16, 2015, and they had to start the process of inducing me because I was, “late” by my doctor’s date but I knew that he would come on the eighteenth. My husband and I were told beforehand that when we went into the hospital that we then couldn’t leave until the baby was born. So, I had everything packed way ahead of time to be prepared for the stay. I was in so much pain they finally gave me an epidural on the seventeenth at midnight. I didn’t know that I could ask for one I didn’t know a lot of things at the time and neither did my husband. On February 18th, 2015, at 3:40PM 7lbs. 9oz. and he was perfect. I had two complications during birth. I gave birth vaginally, but they had to cut me open more so that he could come out. I also started spiking a fever at the end of pushing and they said that if he didn’t arrive when he did that, they would have to do a C-section and I didn’t want that so I pushed as hard as I could and out, he came, healthy thank God. I had my husband with me, my sister Emily my cousin Sue and I regret everyday not having my mother there by my side. I can’t imagine how she felt knowing that I was in labor her first born and that she couldn’t see me. I am so sorry for that, and I will forever regret that.

Our hospital experience was good and bad. It was good in the sense that all the doctors and nurses were so kind and helpful. I had a doula by the name of Angel come in last minute and she helped me give birth to Jason Robert. I can remember being back in my room and I started to uncontrollably cry when I saw her come in. I gave her a huge hug and told her that I couldn’t have done it without her, and it was the truth I didn’t know what I was doing I was scared. But I also realized in that moment of uncontrollably crying that I was in for world of trouble. I realized in that moment that I had very bad postpartum depression and I was scared out of my mind about it. We had so many family members and friends come and visit it was nice but overwhelming at times. We stayed in the hospital from Monday through Friday. I let the nurses take the baby to the nursery so my husband and I could sleep at night. It was nice we got to sleep. What I didn’t realize at the time is that those last few days that I got of sleep were going to come to a screeching halt once I got home that I was never going to sleep like that again.

My milk was not coming in and I will never forget it thank God my husband was there to defend me, I gave my son a bottle when the nursing lactation came in and she said, “What are you doing? Now that you gave him a Thanksgiving meal now, he won’t want your breast!” She made me feel so uncomfortable and so belittled. My husband stepped in and told her to leave and never come back. I tried for months after to breast feed him and it wasn’t working at all. I felt like a failure as a mother. Nobody tells you these things when you are pregnant or at least not me. After finally getting the permission of my doctor he said that it was okay to give him a bottle that I didn’t need to feel badly about it anymore and so I tried for just a little bit longer after that still feeling guilty and then I gave up. I gave him the bottle. So that is how the hospital experience was bad too.

Then came the time to have our son circumcised and in my heart, I did not want it to get done but my husband wanted to get it done and I guess that was what you did when you had a boy or so I thought. I researched it afterwards after my son came back from being circumcised and I found out that the procedure was really not a necessary one that people really weren’t getting it done anymore. That is another thing that I regret I wish I told the doctors no and that my son could make that decision for himself when he got older because it was his body and not mine. I felt awful when they took him away to get the procedure done, I didn’t want to let him go, I cried. I didn’t have enough strength to say no. I do now and if I had to do it all over again, we wouldn’t get it done period. So, I would say that our experience at the hospital was fifty percent good and fifty percent bad.

When we got home five days into being home, I started a pretty high fever. I didn’t know what it was from so my husband took me to the doctor. We soon found out that my episiotomy was highly infected, so he had to resew me up and give me antibiotics. I didn’t know that I had to clean it nobody told me that, so I didn’t.

Jumping backwards a little bit I hadn’t gone to the bathroom since delivery and thank God my mom came over with an enema and gave it to me. She gave it to me right before my in laws were scheduled to come over and sleep to visit the bay for the first time. Going to the bathroom was a bad experience for me. Looking back, we should have asked them to kindly stay in a hotel because I was in so much pain it wasn’t even funny and being first time parents, we didn’t know what we were doing. I can remember my mother-in-law telling me that I should be happy that I just had a baby as I cried hysterically giving the bay to her to hold. I felt alone in that moment like nobody understood. I was essentially alone in my mind trapped.

For months and months after that I cried and had such bad anxiety that I would have these panic attacks that were so scary and awful. I developed a phobia of fearing to leave the house with my baby scared that something would happen to him, so my outings only were secluded to doctors’ visits.

I had a family member accuse me of keeping the baby from seeing them because they were too focused on themselves and their wants and needs to see that I was suffering. This person doesn’t have the capacity to see outside themselves and didn’t have compassion and the knowledge to see the anguish and suffering I was in. I will never ever forget them saying that to me for as long as I live. Can you imagine? Then they additionally said to me, “You’re going to do this to me after everything I’ve done for you!” How incredibly, incredibly selfish, unkind, mean hearted and cold that was to say to me. It’s all burned in my mind.

I can remember my physician getting mad at me for not getting over my postpartum and I had it really bad like really bad. I would have to get checked out every three weeks by him because I stayed home from work since February all the way through the summer diagnosed with severe postpartum depression. My doctor would continue to get mad every time I would go there and cry and ask for help, he would say to go outside and walk, and you will feel better, but I couldn’t I had a phobia. Plus, you are
supposed to stay home with an infant for a few months afterwards so they don’t get sick because they don’t have any of their vaccines. He scolded me for sleeping with my baby he said that I was going to roll over and kill him during the night. I was terrified to sleep and to not to sleep. Not once did he offer me anti-anxiety medication or antidepressants. Why I didn’t know I needed these things.

I wouldn’t shower and take care of myself, brush my teeth, I could barely take care of myself let alone a baby and a husband and I was failing miserably at it big time.

Things at home were getting tense, I think that my husband would work a lot of doubles just to get away from it all. He was going through his own stuff too at the time. I would be afraid to be home alone with the baby and scared when he left for work. I would feel a sense of relief when he came home like I was safe again. We fought a lot. Neither one of us knew how to help each other.

My family couldn’t help me not even my mom. My mom shared with me that she had postpartum depression really badly when she had me. I think that what I was going through at this time was too close to her own personal story of postpartum depression. She couldn’t help me even though she tried. I couldn’t help me. Its not my moms fault and I don’t fault her at all for anything she had limited helpful resources at the time when I was born. I just wished that things could of been different is all. She did help me in the ways that she knew how to though and that I will be forever grateful for. Today we have a good relationship. I love her so much I would do anything for her, and I think she knows that already even if I don’t say it that much, I do appreciate her because she does help me a lot with my son.

So, I went to stay with my in laws while my husband worked with the baby. She tried to help me but it wasn’t my mom and I know that my mom was sad that I went away for two weeks during that time. My mom’s mom died during that time, and they had to bury her, so I came back for that, left the baby with my in-laws to come back to Connecticut for the funeral. I felt alive and free while driving back to Connecticut. Then it came time to come back home to Connecticut our visit was over.


So, time passed a lot of time passed then years passed, and I went back to work eventually but I still was not on any medication to help me. My physician retired and so I went to see his APRN which I adore her we have such a close relationship that when you go to see her, she remembers you and your story, and she will do anything to help her patients. She tried her best to help put me on antidepressants, but they were just not strong enough for me

So sleepless nights continued, I couldn’t sleep even when the baby was sleeping because I was so afraid that he would stop breathing in the middle of the night and die from SIDS. So, I would stay awake and watch him sleep until he got up again to feed. I never let him sleep on his own in his own bed I would have him sleep with me and my husband in our bed. I would pile pillows on my husband’s side so that he wouldn’t accidentally roll over on the baby in the middle of the night. I would nestle him in my
arm and sleep on my side with him and I never moved I stayed in the same spot all night long awake. So, the sleep deprivation mixed in with high anxiety and depression made me hallucinate. I would see things that weren’t really there all of the time. I would have these horrible intrusive thoughts about the baby that it they wouldn’t leave my mind. This went on for what seemed like years. I would have suicidal thoughts every day that if I just wasn’t here on this Earth that everything would be better, and I would be out of this agonizing pain. If I could just do it in a way that my husband and son and family members and friends wouldn’t find me. I thought about it all the time. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to run away from my life.

My aunt would come over and help me a lot. She told me her story of her postpartum depression she had it really bad too; it runs in my mom’s side of the family pretty badly. So, she would come over and I would cry. She would listen. I know my mom was hurt by that. I know that my mom wanted to be the one there to help me but instead I to reached out to my aunt. But really what I needed was someone to just listen to me without judgement.

My sisters would come over and help, my cousins and my best friend and her mom. They would all help me the best that they knew how but none of them could truly help me in the way that I really needed to be helped which was clinically. I am forever grateful to all of them for helping me forever.

I couldn’t focus at work, all I wanted to do was be home with the baby, but I had to work we had to pay bills. I remember crying at work to my principal telling her that all I wanted to do was to stay home she listened she was sweet and tried to help but again she couldn’t help me. I couldn’t help myself. I never returned the school year of 2017. I got a job teaching special education in Danbury but that didn’t work out for me either. I thought if I was closer to home that I would feel better, but I didn’t.

So, I started looking into rehab facilities in the Danbury area when I found a place called Blue Sky’s Behavioral Health. This was the place; this was the place that was going to help me. So, I called them up and made an appointment with the director who is still my therapist to this very day. I went and met with him after I talked this over with my husband and family and told them that I was not going back to teaching for a while that I was going to work on myself and finally get the proper help that I needed with people who knew how to help. They specialized in postpartum depression I was relieved, finally. When I met with my therapist who was doing the intake I begged him to let me be accepted into the program begged him and I told him that I would do whatever it took to get better that whatever he told me to do that I would do it. So, he accepted me, and I did everything that he told me to do and then some.

I would shower and brush my teeth everyday do my hair and make sure that I was presentable. I felt better finally. I was learning how to help myself. I was beginning to heal.

So for the next seven years after my son turned two I began my journey at Blue Sky’s. For the next seven years I went to countless groups to work on myself they had all kinds of group therapy. They assigned me to a clinical doctor who prescribed me Pristiq 100mg, Kolonapin and Vyvanse. What a world of difference, I felt like myself again. I felt like a real person with real human emotions. I was getting up and bringing the baby to daycare and I would go to Blue Sky’s for 8am and stay there until 5 everyday Monday through Friday and work on myself I would have therapy sessions with my therapist twice a week. I would see my doctor there that prescribes meds once a week to make sure my meds were okay. I got a couples therapist and my husband and I would go to marriage counseling together with another therapist on Saturdays and my husband finally stopped drinking when he had a scare when my son was almost two. My husband couldn’t take it anymore between working as a Correctional Officer and the new baby and me being the way that I was he was going through his own hell. He finally said enough and he started to get better too. We were doing it together.

I owe my whole like to my therapist and to the Blue Sky’s Behavioral Health staff. I wouldn’t be living today if it wasn’t for them saving my life. That is why I feel so strongly about my blog and the reason that I named it Skies of Blue is because I have such a deep connection and appreciation to Blue Sky’s. I will tell you many more of my stories in time. I really love doing this I feel like it is very therapeutic for me in a way. I can get my stories out and tell my story and how I felt and how it affected me and others around me. I feel like I can make a difference in someone else’s life maybe help them. Postpartum is serious and it is not your fault it is something that just happens to some women. If you are going through this just know that everything that you are experiencing is real and its not your fault. You can get help there are places that you can call for Postpartum Depression and get the help that you deserve. You deserve to have a life filled with happiness and joy. If you are feeling suicidal know that this is normal too and to recognize this within yourself and place the baby in a safe space with your husband or relatives and get yourself away from the baby into safety and call for help. Here are some numbers that you can reach out to for help. You deserve a life and you are worth living for your life matters to more people than you know. Your baby needs you.
https://www.timberlineknolls.com/depression/post-partum-treatment/

When you can’t look on the bright side of things, I will sit with you in the dark. I want to
dedicate this blog to all those moms out there and dads who experience postpartum depression. I want to thank my husband and my family and friends for standing by me in my worst moments ever.

Until my next blog stay safe, stay healthy, stay knowledgeable, stay humble, stay blessed. I can’t wait to meet you back here soon.

Bye All,
Fran Martin