Delivered: My Postpartum Battle

So for starters, Cecilia was born with a low birth weight of 5 lb, 13oz. We amazingly did not have to transfer to the NICU, which to this day I’m eternally grateful for. Cecilia lost weight in the hospital and continued losing until her 3 day old appointment. At that time, the pediatrician and I discussed my need for a lactation consultant (LC). Now here’s another blessing, my dear friend Lauren’s mom Anne is an LC!! So I called Lauren right away and she put me in touch with her. I’m convinced that Ms. Anne was a heaven sent angel to me. She was patient, kind, extremely thorough, and didn’t get frustrated with my 749264 questions. The negative thing about our training together was that it was all virtual, due to COVID. So figuring out the latch and the proper position of the baby, by myself, was very frustrating and disheartening to me. However, with Ms Anne’s help we set up a thorough, yet extremely lengthy routine. My desire was to continue breast feeding and in order for me to do that, I had to allow Cecilia to eat. She was a very slow eater!!! We did not have any lip or tongue ties, and for that I am also grateful.

Per Anne’s recommendation, I fed Cecilia from one breast 20 mins, then the other breast 20 mins, then did a 20 min pump. At that point, I would pass Cecilia off to my mom, who was visiting from Ohio, to do the burping and napping part. During that time, I would clean my pump and all its parts, chart everything, then track all of Cecilia’s poop or pee diapers. It was EXHAUSTING!!! BUT, I was absolutely determined to continue breast feeding and to successfully help our baby gain the weight, so nevertheless she persisted!! It took about 3 months, and at her 4 month old appointment she was in the 10-12%. I credit Ms. Anne’s expertise for my growth as a mom during that time and for the success that we FINALLY had with Cecilia gaining weight.

At the baby’s four month appointment, Dr. Kevin was very pleased with her weight gains and her current status. However, he did mention a flat spot to me…I’m sorry what!?! In my brain, it was thinking “oh great, another thing that you’re failing at Athena”. It felt like the negative things kept piling up higher & higher. Dr. Kevin went on to tell us that her flat spot was moderate, however we should get her to physical therapy. My husband and I are actually both physical therapists, however neither of us specialize in the baby or children populations. My husband specializes in manual (hands-on) therapy and sports therapy in the children to adult populations. I specialize in orthopedic and stroke therapy in the adult and geriatric (elderly) populations. This was yet another hit to my mental health. How in the world did two PT parents not notice a flat spot? Now in my defense, maybe it’s because I was fighting with everything I had, to keep her fed and gaining weight? Or maybe it was the exhaustion? Or maybe the lack of insight, being she was our first child? I do not know why, but it started to chip away at me.

We took Cecilia to PT and she was diagnosed with torticollis. Torticollis is a medical condition, most commonly found in babies and children, where the Sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle (on the outside of the neck, next to the carotid artery) is so tightened that is draws the ear down towards the shoulder and it causes an anterior (forward) or posterior (backward) rotation of the ear. My husband & I were taught all the stretches and exercises. We became ultra diligent with performing them all throughout the day. We did a weigh in, when she was 5 months old, and Dr Kevin mentioned she might need a helmet. It was like my brain did an out of body thing and it felt like I was falling out of the current moment into a hole where everything else Dr Kevin said after that didn’t even compute in my brain. Almost like the Peanuts teacher in those old school clips. Anyways, Dr Kevin showed us photos of what pediatric helmets look like and we discussed their purpose.

Again, this was yet another thing to add into my mental health vault of “things that I’m failing at”.

We left that office and for the next month, I worried about that helmet. We were religious about the neck stretches and exercises, and I was praying for the best! Praying for a miracle!

At her 6 month appointment, Dr Kevin highly recommended we get her into a helmet ASAP. I somewhat knew that was coming, yet I was so hopeful. But as they say, “it was the straw that broke the camels back”…my back was officially broken. We left the office and I cried the rest of the day. So for me, it has nothing to do with the asthetics of the helmets. I treat patients with all sort of braces and devices on a daily basis. It was a huge issue for me because it was “another thing I failed at” as a new mom.

I went on to get 3 opinions from different prosthetists in town. In the meantime, I was calling the insurance. I found out that, at the time in 2021, with our insurance the degrees of differentiation in her skull had to be greater than 11 degrees to be covered by insurance. So I think as most people, I wanted it to be 11 degrees so it would be covered by insurance!! At my first two appointments, they were both unanimous that it was an angle of 8 degrees and it’s a pretty fool-proof test.

The exam machine looks like a baby sized MRI machine with the tube instead as a black box at the top of the scanner. You lay the baby down on the scanner and the prosthetist straps their head in with a little Velcro piece. There’s a laser at that top black box and the prosthetist hits a button and it slowly moves the baby to the light. It then scans their skull and then moves them out of the box. Poof! Done in 1-2 minutes!!! This prosthetist was a super, nice man and I started to get very anxious before the results were up on the monitor. He said to me, “are you okay ma’am?” To which I replied, “no sir, I’m very anxious about these results and it’s been stressing me out. I need it to be 11 degrees”. I told him that I truly wanted it to be 11 degrees but that my first two opinions were 8 degrees. He said “it is an accurate exam and we will see what it says”. Then as the images appeared on the monitor, he said “oh honey, we both know it’s 8 degrees”. He did not say it in a malicious or demeaning way. But he knew. And I knew. I immediately began balling, the large Kim K tears. It was a sight to see. He comforted me and we chatted about options then I was on my not-so-merry way.

I cried the remainder of that day. My husband got home from work and we discussed that third opinion. After a little deliberation, we chose to proceed with the helmet. I felt like the world’s biggest failure. I realize there are MANY things MUCH worse than a baby having to get a helmet, but this is my story and how it affected me.

About a week later on January 5, 2021 everything changed. January 5 was the first night I remember not sleeping at all. I was staring at the ceiling, tossing and turning, watching Chris sleep, and staring at the monitor watching Cecilia sleep. I was so angry. Beyond angry. Here is my beautiful little 6 month old baby sleeping through the night, yet I’m awake and cannot even calm down. When Chris woke up I told him that I didn’t sleep and he was encouraging me to take a nap after work.

January 6 after work I cannot nap, so I dive into cooking dinner then a family walk after dinner and our normal nighttime routine. Again, zero sleep. This night I got out of bed and went to our loft. I rocked in my rocker and read scripture, looked at my photo books, worshipped, read my book, and did what I thought was deep breathing. Nothing helped. Yet another sleepless night. I had that happen until January 8 when I called the OB. I told her “I feel like I’m losing it. This is not me!” She did her assessment and prescribed a low dose Zoloft & Ambien for sleep. The Ambien knocked me OUT! But it was almost like an anesthesia knock out. I felt like I blinked one second and was out and then the next, my eyes were sprung open and I was awake the rest of the morning. It didn’t help one bit, but I kept trying. I called back after 3 days of that and the OB recommended I find a psychiatrist.

We began our search to find a psychiatrist at the height of COVID in 2021, after COVID numbers skyrocketed. Stay tuned to find out all the details of our psychiatry search & how the next turn affected me forever.

The best is yet to come,

XX

Athena