To you who will soon feel the postpartum blues

When I gave birth to my first baby, I was expecting everything and nothing.

As people were always telling me and as the good future mama that I was, I listened to the advice. I was told to not make any plans for the days and weeks that would follow baby’s birth.

As they say, the baby will decide when they want to come into this world, how many feeds they want in a day as well as if they want to sleep at night or not.

I would qualify myself as easy going, so I was fine knowing that I would have to let go of almost everything as soon as the baby would come.

But as soon as I had delivered my baby, I hit a wall… badly.

THE FIRST TIME I GAVE BIRTH

Of everything single scenario, I could have possibly imagined, I never thought I would be impacted this hard by something this invisible. I went K.O.

By that I mean: the post-delivery hormones.

I never thought that it was going to be this tough the minute after I gave birth.

I can’t say if what I was feeling was the beginning of a postpartum depression or simply the baby blues, but I was deeply lost inside of me… deeply.

Even today, I have difficulty to explain how I was feeling.

I was out of energy. And I was not myself.

As soon as I was doing something demanding, my head would start spinning, my heart beat would accelerate, for a simple task like having people over for half an hour or doing grocery shopping.

I was still happy, I didn’t have any black or weird thoughts, but it was as if my battery has always been at 0%.

TO YOU WHO WILL SOON FEEL THE POSTPARTUM BLUES

To you who will soon feel the postpartum blues, even though everybody tells you to expect everything and nothing, I would have liked to know what was ahead of me, to know that I could possibly hit a wall.

To know that it is possible to be tired of just living your life and that it won’t be due to your baby’s sleepless night well that won’t help either.

And all that will be caused by your hormones.

I definitely don’t want to alarm you, but I want you to know that it’s possible to feel this way.

It’s possible to feel overwhelmed by small little things, like grocery shopping.

It’s possible that your world is turning just because you have to do something more than going to the bathroom or eating a meal.

And this can possibly last for many weeks.

PERSONALLY

I would’ve liked to read this post when I was feeling all weird.

I would’ve liked to know that I wasn’t the only one feeling this way. That I would go back to normal someday. That it’s important to let things be, to know that you will get back to normal sometime soon.

I would’ve liked to know that it’s totally normal, that it takes time… To understand this new world you live in and for your body to recover from this overload of hormones.

This post is from me, a girl that had it really rough go and to you, the girl that might find it rough too.

And how do we get prepared for a very bad winter storm? There isn’t much you can do other than filling up your fridge and freezer of nutritious food, to warm up your home (and your heart) with a little bit of heat knowing that it might get cold and make sure you are surrounded with people that love you and that would do anything to help you when times are hard.

You’re strong. Xx