Journey Part 2

Let's see, where were we? Oh, yes, about 3 weeks postpartum. As I was saying, Ladybug was crying constantly and I was spending hours rocking her.

I began to tell everyone that something was wrong with her. On this point I was correct, but nobody believed me. I would tell my mother, my husband, and our pediatrician that something was wrong. She was not acting normally. A baby shouldn't cry as much as this. My mother thought it was just me reacting to the differences between Ladybug and Sweet Pea, who was a relatively calm baby. The pediatrician didn't understand the extent of her crying and told me it was just newborn behavior. Friends would tell me it was colic and I'd have to wait it out. It would be 4 more months until we finally figured out the root of her problems. It was lesson to me in mother's intuition. Always trust it.

It was at this point that I became obsessed with keeping notes on Ladybug's eating and sleeping habits. I had already read every baby book I could, trying to figure out a way to get her to stop crying. One of the books suggested keeping a log of eating and sleeping habits to try to discern a pattern. I kept a journal on the bookcase in the hall next to her room. I would record the times she ate, when she fell asleep and when she woke. I made my husband follow along and I became very angry when he forgot. I would worry about it throughout the day and check and recheck my notes. This type of obsessive attention to detail is one of the symptoms of postpartum psychosis.


I started feeling very guilty about the lack of time and attention I was able to give my two year old. Sweet Pea was upset from the beginning. When my mother-in-law brought him to the hospital to see us, he wouldn't look at me and refused to let me hold him or sit on my lap. When we got home, he continued to ignore me. It was very obvious to all of us that he was mad at me, which was understandable. He went from being an only child who spent every day with his mother to having to share me with a screaming, needy baby.

Before I had Ladybug, Sweet Pea and I did all kinds of things together. I'm a member of a local chapter of the MOMS Club and we went to playgroups, play dates, The Little Gym, Kindermusik, etc. We were very active. I did it as much for myself as for him. I was bored stiff just staying at home and I tried to fill our days with activities just to get us out of the house.

Because Ladybug refused to sleep anywhere other than her crib, we were housebound. I was also terrified to take her anywhere because of the constant crying. I didn't want to subject others to her noisiness. When we were home, the majority of the time I was rocking her trying to get her calmed down. I would put Sweet Pea in the playroom next to Ladybug's bedroom and tell him to play quietly while I rocked her. What two year old plays quietly? He would make all kinds of noise and come running in and out of the bedroom, inevitably waking up Ladybug just when I had gotten her to sleep.


I began to feel very guilty about not being able to play with Sweet Pea and not being able to provide him with his usual activities. This quickly turned to resentment. I began to deeply resent Ladybug. I resented her for disrupting our lives and stealing time from Sweet Pea and I. I resented the loss of sleep I was suffering. I resented her constant crying, which often upset Sweet Pea. I resented the loss of my free time. I resented her for being born. This was the first very serious sign of PPD.

I would sit, rocking her, and think of all the things I could be doing. I would think of all the things my son was missing out on because of this baby. I would think about the friends we weren't seeing much of. I would think about the story times we were missing and how much Sweet Pea loved to go to the library. I would think about the lack of exercise I was getting. How would I every lose the baby weight if I couldn't exercise? I would think about the books I could be reading. I would think about how I was never able to make dinner anymore and we were never able to sit down together as a family and eat. I would think about how miserable I was and how I was going to have to endure this for months to come. I could barely see how I was going to make it to tomorrow, let alone months from now. I began to feel that my life had become hopeless and there was nothing I could do about it.

The resentment festered inside me and grew. Within days, the resentment changed form and blossomed into hate. What a horrible and horrifying emotion for a mother to have. I cringe to think of it now. But I began to hate Ladybug. I started to try to avoid having to touch her. If my husband was home, I wanted him to deal with her. If relatives were over, I would happily hand her over. I did not want to have to see her, hear her, or touch her. I didn't want her, period.

I began to tell my husband I wished she had never been born. I thought we had made the biggest mistake of our lives in having her. I would suggest to him that we try to give her away, laughing as I said it, but meaning it deep down. I started to fantasize about taking her to the hospital and leaving her there. I thought we could look into putting her up for adoption. Intellectually I knew I should not be feeling this way but I chalked it up to all the difficulties we had with her and her constant crying.

The hatred fueled rage inside me. Not only did I hate her, but I began to get furious with her. I would yell and scream and rant at her for not going to sleep. I would rage at my husband for not doing what I thought he should when he was caring for her. One day, as I was trying to get her to bed, dead tired myself, I lay her on the floor and screamed at the top of my lungs. I told her I hated her and I wished she had never been born. I yelled at her to just shut up and go to sleep. I cursed at her. I continued to rage at her until my husband had to remove me from the room. This was the first of several such episodes. I can only imagine how it must have terrified her. Her mother's ugly, hate-filled face looming over her screaming obscenities.

I also began to cry. I cried everyday, often for hours. I felt on the verge of tears all the time. I would sit in the rocker and look out the window crying. I cried in the middle of the night and in the morning. I cried every time I had to care for Ladybug. My husband would come home at lunch to help me. I don't think I ever actually asked him to stay, but inside I begged him to just stay home with me and give me some relief. I would sob as his truck pulled away to go back to work and I would count down the hours until he returned.

I began to have what intrusive thoughts, another sign of PPD. I would picture ways Ladybug could get injured or die. I would have visions of her strangling in the crib or suffocating. I would picture her flying out the window. I would imagine myself smothering her with a pillow. I would imagine cutting her with a kitchen knife or her accidentally impaling herself. All these thoughts came unbidden. They just popped in my head periodically and proceeded like a slide show.

Together with the hate, they planted in me a tiny and secret desire. Alone, in the darkest corner of my mind, I almost wished she would die. I remember actually thinking to myself that if she died of SIDS, I wouldn't really care. I didn't think I'd even cry. I thought to myself, well, it would mean an end to all this. It would mean relief. Maybe we'd all be better off. Yes, maybe she'll die, accidentally of course, but maybe she'll die. I began to welcome the thought and even wish for it.

Another night, in the middle of the night after a feeding, she would not go back to sleep. I began to cry, sobbing at the frustration of it all. I felt the anger build up in me and I seethed inside. I roughly grabbed her by her arms, squeezed and shook her for just a second. I stopped myself before doing anything else. This experience terrified me. I realized how close I had come to crossing that line and doing the unthinkable.