My second baby is due Oct 22 2011 and it has taken years of patiently waiting to arrive at this point. My first beautiful daughter was born 5 years ago in November, by January I was locked in a world of my own - pyschotic, delusional, paranoid and panicked with senses heightened beyond anything imaginable - the TV colours had all fragmented and my hearing was so sensitive I could listen to the radio with all the doors shut. I had stopped eating and sleeping before New Year, my milk went green (I was trying so hard to breastfeed) my eyes looked strange to me in the mirror, I thought my daughter was a robot. I have big memory blanks from those days.....my partner nearly lost his job as he became my 24 hour carer and fought tooth and nail to keep our family unit together at home eventually under the eye of a crisis team and a few pysychiatrists and doctors...... there really were a lot of strangers in the house (and I really didn't trust them!) My mum and my sister came to stay for weeks and weeks in our two bedroomed flat - they took over the daily care of the baby whilst my partner hardly left my side - somedays spending two or three hours just to get me to the loo and back. They tried giving me Diazapam with horrific consequences - it induced dark dreams; primeaval - my partners eyes looked like those of a crocodile and I saw things in my mind's eye that nobody should have to experience. Finally - after what must have been weeks somebody prescribed Olanzapine - the melt on your tongue variety as I would spit everything else out and I slowly perked up - coming round in the early hours of the morning and having lucid conversations with my partner (or seemingly sane anyway I don't recall) only for him to be confronted by the same comatosed catatonic me the next morning with left leg in spasm.
A top psychiatrist who happened to visit one day suggested I should have a thyroid test..........symptoms can be very similar and are often mis diagnosed as post natal depression and not picked up. By the time I allowed a needle anywhere near my arm my thyroid levels had plumeted and I was placed on Thyroxine for life. Last week, I spoke with an Obstetrician who divulged that one of the few tell tale signs of a thyroid disorder after giving birth is a frozen ankle joint and very low body temperature in the morning - this news is encouraging as I expereiced both..
I am therefore, only slightly terrified that I might have a relapse. Perhaps nobody can tell me for sure if it was Puerperal psychosis or thyroid disfunction. The latter is far more hopeful as I am treated and monitored regularly for thyroid levels. I certainly experienced a psychotic episode - at no point did I wish to harm myself or my baby; I was just utterly petrified. Whether this was PP and therfore likely to happen again remains an unknown and I have no idea who to talk to for support with this.
I recovered in super quick time being stubbornly determined that this thing was not going to set me back. I eventually went back to uni (to prove to myself that I had not lost any brain cells as it sapped my confidence), came top of my class and gained a really good job in child development as an early years adviser. My partner, on the other hand, suffered long term depression and is only just regaining his balance....it affected him deeply and I am indebted.
I have always been very positive about the mountain we've been climbing but tonight after a breast feeding antenatal class I had a wobble. I have moved in with my mum and stepdad so my daughter has a support network should things go wrong again. She has just started school up here. We have friends where we were living but it's only family who can care for your children day and night for weeks if necessary. We are 300 miles away from my partner who cannot find work up north. He will be able to come up to support me and the baby if I need it and at least our big girl will be safe from well meaning social workers. I think my speedy recovery was helped along by me being able to recover at home and not being sectioned or admitted to a mother and baby unit. This time around we have our first daughter's emotional needs to consider and that leaves me with a dilemma as to what would be the best move should things go wrong. I just hope that we'll be able to spot symptoms early enough to prevent any more trauma.
I'm trying to put an action plan into place and trying to speak to the right professionals but am scared of alarming the 'wrong' people and being monitored by those who do not have an understanding of my background and my needs. I'm also scared that a new doctor will put me on the wrong medication and make things worse. I'm mostly fearful of being admitted to hospital, being cut off from my daughter, leaving my partner in limbo and being separated from my baby.
I am, however, confident that whatever happens it will be transient, that the sun will come up every morning and that love (and olanzapine) is always the world's best healer .
Any thoughts or suggestions would be gratefully received as I am mostly alone with it all.
many thanks for reading, Sophie
