want to die

[solow]

I am a fairly regular poster on here but have changed my name as I just want to get this off my chest in private as i know my problem canot really be solved.
I have a beautiful 6 week old daughter who was v wanted but since she has arrived I have felt totally out of my depth and in despair. She is a clingy little thing bless her who cries when I try to put her down to sleep esp during the day altough she sleeps in my arms happily - the result being I seriously cannot get anything - I mean anything done during the day. I have now ordered a ring sling in great hope it will help somewhat. But even if it means writing an email or cleaning the bathroom she wakes up and if I am to settle her in her crib it will take a herculean effort so I just end up sitting on the sofa staring into space wishing I were on another planet away from her and all this - this is how i pass the majority my days now I had a wonderful job I am meant to go back to in 5 months and I am about ready for the scrap heap.
I have not slept for 6 weeks for more that 3 hours a night - my mum arrives and relieves me in the morning so I can get my head down and even she says that DD is a very demanding baby who she can't put down but she says we must be postive and thank god she is healthy etc which i agree with and I adore her but I still feel my life is ruined.
I am constantly picking her up for cuddles thoughout the night to settle her and feed her every 3-4 hours but she fidgets and whines in her sleep so even when she snoozes i can't get any rest because i want to give her the best care in the world and monitor her well. DH has ben in the other room for 6 weeks as he has a maga demanding job so i am totally lonely in the early hours just crying in despair, when she cries my heart just tears apart and i feel I was too sensitive to have had a baby. All the expectations I had were totally unrealstic. I have cried every day since she was born and I don't want people to know I am still the same as I was a week after the birth, what am I going to say at the post natal meet-up? That my life is over? that I don't like being a Mum afetr all? One friend I can tell is already backing off from meeting me as she can pick up on how negative I am.
Thanks for listening anyway I just feel liek I want to die on days like this - then someone more capable can step in and take care of my DD whom I love with all my heart.

Dear girl! You have PND! Get yourself to the GP Stat and get help. You do not have to feel like this. Honest. And even if you don't want anti-ds, trust that it WILL get better. But PLEASE Please get help. You do not have to suffer through this.

yes..please get some help...ASAP..if you are feeling so low you could call teh GP now....

i had PND ..it is terrible, but it can be treated and you absolutely will feel better..first step is asking for help

i;m afraid i am on my way out now, but i know there are many other mums here who have been or are where you are now

you are not alone
x

yes yes - must tell HV and doctor you have PND.

And 6 weeks is a very very short time to recover from the major trauma and upheaval that having a baby represents. Trust that all your antenatal mums will be in exactly the same boat but you will ALL be braving it out. Have a bloody good moan, and remember that oneupmanship replaces solidarity when people are tired and stressed out. They will appear to be coping better than you, because they will ALL put on a brave face. Please see your HV and fill in the Edinburgh scale truthfully *(but god, don't we all lie on it? and why?)

Take vitamins, especially Bs and Omegas 3 and 6.

Hang in there, and moan at whomever will listen to you. It's the only thing that really helps in those early days.

Oh love, please get some help! You sound like you have probably got PND.

Your DD sounds exactly like DS1. He was very demanding, and I spent a large part of his first year feeling suicidal and as low as I have ever been. Looking back now, I really wish that I had got help sooner, as I really felt it blighted my fisrt year with DS1 needlessly when I could hav felt better a lot sooner.

Practically, it's great that your mum takes over in the mornings. Is there anything else you could do during the day to relieve that boredom that goes with having a newborn? I used to go for long walks and go and get the paper, so I could read something that engaged my brain a little as I felt like I was really losing the plot. Is there any sort of group for mums near you? If you live near Bath, I'd be happy to meet you, and if you don;t, why not start a thread on Meet ups to see if there are any other MNers near you who might be able to give you a bit of company.

It does get better, I promise. In fact, it got so much better for me that I had another baby!

What is your GP or HV like?

email me if you want : [email protected]

You poor, poor thing. I so know how you feel. As the others have said GO TO THE GP!! Don't be like me. I felt like you and did nothing. Although I eventually told the HV I was so far down the PND route that I lied and said things were not too bad because I didn't want people to know that I wasn't coping. DH bless him seemed to put his fingers in his ears and pretend his wife was totally fine. I lost about 18 months of my life- GO to your doctor tomorrow. Also keep posting, I wish I had known about MN as I suspect it may have been the support I needed to get help

you poor thing,you sound so depressed and you need to see someone about it.Tell your mother exactly how you feel,let her read this thread,make an appointment with you gp or hv.You are being a wonderful mother,it is not your fault that you feel like this,it is a chemical imbalance and can be fixed,but you need to ask for help.For you daughters sake as much as yours.
take care xx

Is DH with you now, or is there anyone that can come over and be with you?
Exhaustion from lack of sleep makes everything very difficult, and you do need to get support from your GP or Health Visitor.
Keep posting on here too - explaining how you are feeling will help.

You poor love. I do remember feeling like you after having dd1. You aren't alone.

I wish someone had told me these things though when I was going through it. You may not find them useful and if I sound interfering please ignore them!

1. Housework is really, really not important.
2. You are going through a stage in your life where physically professionally and emotionally you are having to deal with MASSIVE changes. Your feelings are utterly human and natural.
3. Your natural emotions are a sure sign that you love your dd so much that nobody else could possibly take your place.
4. You are sleep deprived and therefore everything you are feeling is magnified 300%.
5. PND is not a waste of doctor's time. Go and speak to him/her about it. If you need to, simply TELL him you have PND.
6. This will not - and I mean NOT go on indefinitely. The first six weeks are often the worst.

Prayers and thoughts with you xx

Another get some help cry.

Also, you are probably on an MN postnatal group... TALK TO THEM. They can be sooo much support.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

solow, apart from having a ds instead of a dd, I could have written your post word for word, almost 10 years ago when my ds1 was born. I thought I had made the most terrible mistake of my life and at times I just wanted to be dead.

Just because you don't like being a Mum now doesn't mean you will always not like it - I promise. It gets better. It is so hard to cope when you are so tired - and, hard as it is, you have to accept that you won't get anything done...but it isn't for ever - slowly and steadily it gets easier. Not all at once...but a little bit at a time.

I think it's very perceptive of you to say that your expectations were unrealistic - it took me a lot longer than you to figure that out about myself It is such a steep learning curve - maybe some people are instantly 'maternal' - I wasn't, and I felt terrified and completely out of my depth; I hated it when he cried; and was just knocked for six by the lack of sleep.

Have you spoken to anyone about how you feel? My midwife picked up on my depression quite quickly after the birth - I think ds1 was about 10 days old: so it was a bit easier for me as I didn't have to 'out' myself - they knew already. If you haven't spoken to anyone then please make an emergency appointment with your GP and tell him/her excatly how you are feeling. Anti-depressants helped me enormously and while they are not a 'miracle cure' and do take a while to kick in, they really did help me cope with the day to day stuff and sheer, overwhelming despair I was feeling.

The friends who are backing off? They are friends you don't need. Someone I thought I was close to just didn't want to hear when I tried to tell her how I was feeling - she told me to "pull myself together." The good friends will stick with you - and you will make more. It doesn't matter what you say at the post-natal meet-up: I would put money on not all of the other Mums finding motherhood an eternal joy.

Oh, I really feel for you...your post reminded me so much as me. Please get some help - it will get better and there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even though I know you don't believe it right now.

Honey,

Can I please help you?

If you are who I think you are, then I am sure I can at least hug you.

You know my e-mail address.

You are not a bad mum.

I can come round tonight and make you a cuppa.

I will keep my e-mail up and keep checking it.

and will send you my number

Thanks so much everyone for your quick responses i Really need your reassurance. Maybe I do have PND but surely no one or any medication can magically make me better - surely I have to get myself out of this ultimately?
What i mean to say is this is my life now; I have made my bed as it were so what can be done to really help me? I have family support up to a point - DH says it's been 6 weeks now and I shouldn't still be crying i can tell everyone knows I am on shaky ground.
I also want to know if my baby is normal and why she is so insecure..i am currently typing this with my left hand as she has woken up again and fallen to sleep in my arms...what srt of a life is this?

IGW I am in kent but i would have loved to have met up with you you sound lovely x

Oh sweetheart

I utterly sympathise with what you are going through. You really must go to the GP/HV and speak to them. I know you probably feel like you are fussing over nothing, but you really arent (and deep down, you know it too).

Lack of sleep can be absolutely dreadful to deal with. I speak from experience. Your DD sounds like she is similar to how DS was. He rarely slept for more than 45 minutes without stirring. He was such a light sleeper the slightest noise would wake him. At night, it was barely a few hours. He wasnt a great feeder. I often felt like he had 'forgotten' how to latch on. He refused a bottle pointblank. He cried. Alot. I felt I couldnt get anything done. DD started to feel left out. It all snowballed until eventually, I realised there was something not right about my having to call DP home every time DS threw up, or something. But, it was still a few months later before I actually got help, because I felt I was just a bad mum.

Please talk to your DH, and your Mum, and get yourself off to the GP asap, or call the HV and she should come visit you at home.

It WILL get better though love. The first few weeks are truly shite, especially if you have a baby that cries all day and all night.

Very soon, your DD will seem like the happiest smiliest baby in the whole world and you'll love every minute.

(And mybe Kent is a bit far Do email me if you want. I have been where you are now, and come out the other side )

yes margo you do know me i think x i will be in touch

And as for the sleep thing, solow, DS1 was a terribel sleeper. He's 2 now, and sleeps like a log. You'd never believe that he was the Baby That Never Slept

solow - all babies have different characteristics. Not much you can do about that. But, it will get better. DS is now such a happy, gregarious, funny littly boy, who smiles and attracts the attention of everyone. (He even taps people as we are wandering around the supermarket or a shop to get their attention ). He is 21 months now.

It did take time though, that is true. I was prescribed Sertraline. Within 2 weeks I started to feel better. The dose was upped 3 months later because I was still suffering a little insomnia. From that point on, I can say with all honesty, I havent had a bad day since. This is not somethign you have to deal with on your own. Your DH needs a reality check. He needs to know you are unwell, because you are unwell.

Whatever has caused this is irrelevant. Depression causes a chemical imbalance in the brain, and, once its altered, it can take a while to re-adjust again. AD's can help to do this.

I dont think you need counselling or anything. Sounds like you just need some help, some rest, and some assistance from the GP.

solow, if I had one wish for you, it would be that you could see your life in 6 months time because it really won't be as hard as you are experiencing now, believe me. In 6 months' time your baby will be sitting, playing, gurgling, laughing, beginning to feed herself, hopefully sleeping the night though no promises there! Really, believe me, I have had 4 babies, it gets much much easier, so this - what you are experiencing now - is not what you have saddled yourslef with for the rest of your life.

I heard once that it takes 9 months to make a baby and 9 months for your body to recover from making the baby, so even if you did not feel sad and your baby was not so demanding, you would still be in the very early stages of recovery. Please take the advice of others here and go to see your GP or HV for a chat to see how they can help you.

you are all so kind - youyr words mean a lot and I think I will contact my HV tomorrow. It will be difficult for me t o do that but maybe it is time to get help now after all I thought i could do the "mind over matter" thats why i have kept hanging on

Margo I will contact you v shortly I am in bits tonight but i really do want to meet up with you next week - just didn't want to depress you before x

even tonight, i can get my mum to look after girls.

There's no shame in how you feel.

Honestly, when you have contacted your HV, that's the hard bit over. It can only go upwards from there. I'm not saying you'll feel better immediately (although I did feel a bit "lighter" after admitting it to my HV)but it's the first bit on the road to recovery, iyswim (How many liches did I fit in there )

Good luck with speaking to the HV, and keep talking. There's always someone here to listen. x

Hi Solow,I am sorry you are going through a tough time.I can only reiterate what other posters have said.

Please please see your GP/HV and explain how you are feeling.It is quite possible that you have PND,and if you seek help things can become a lot more manageable with support

Additionally,remember you have only recently gone through the biggest lifechange ever and this added to the really awful experience that is sleep deprivation can really be totally exhausting physically and emotionally

Your baby sounds normal to me!!You are not doing anything wrong at all.Some babies are just more "High maintainence" than others.My first was a really placid easygoing baby,my second sounds like your dd in the early weeks,needing to be carried,and screaming if put down,not sleeping unless on me,so I hardly got any rest as I was scared I would fall asleep,roll over and squash her!!.It is so so tiring when you have a baby like this.I think on reflection I did have some PND symptoms with my second child but struggled on in denial,therefore missing all the lovely early stages of dds life,it felt more of a trial than a joy.

You sound like a lovely mum :
"I can't get any rest because I want to give her the best care in the world and monitor her well"

It DOES get easier as the baby gets older.I know at the moment that is probably not much comfort(If someone had said that to me with no 2 when I had had a max of 3 hours sleep for several weeks with dd I would have cheerfully murdered them!!).My dd is now 13 months and her and her brother are the biggest joys of my life.

I would suggest a sling so you can carry her and she is close to you.I also found a seat that rocked to be fairly useful.

Forget all the extraneous stuff,housework and the like.It doesn't matter for a few weeks,or if you can afford it hire a cleaner.I became a bit obsessive about stuff being tidy but wish I had ignored it all.

Finally make sure you look after YOURSELF and rest when you can.Keep posting on here it is a good support network.

Many hugs, Wrinkly.