Becoming a mother cured my depression

My first pregnancy was difficult. It was difficult physically—puking every day (not just in the first trimester), near-constant heartburn, unable to sleep in any comfortable position, culminating in a 4-week hospital stay due to dangerously high blood pressure—and it was difficult mentally. I spent the first 4 months almost completely dissociated from my body, I was extremely stressed out about money the entire time, and I was terrified of postpartum depression. So much of the conversation around people’s postpartum experiences involves a call to action: we need to raise awareness about the commonality of PPD and we need to support parents in these particularly vulnerable stages. Not to discredit people’s efforts, but I think the awareness has been raised quite enough. Maybe even too much sometimes, like when PPD is talked about as an inevitability that can only be prepared for, not avoided. 

Now, this is complicated, because under capitalism, the labor of parents (particularly mothers) is extremely undervalued, in both a monetary and a philosophical context. So, it would follow that the experience of new parenthood under capitalism would be inherently depressing. Add on top of it the last few years of heightened isolation from other humans, and I can see why some well-intentioned people would want to prepare new parents for the reality that PPD (or other postpartum mental health maladies) is likely something they’ll experience. It’s an acknowledgement that entering into parenthood in our current anthropological moment is accompanied by an influx of societal pressures and a significant reduction in access to community, that ever-vital resource. 

But it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

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This is something my husband and I said to each other so many times in our first few months as parents: “It’s not supposed to be this way.” We said it to each other sometimes in exasperation and sometimes as a reminder to both of us that if this feels almost impossibly hard, that’s because it is way harder than it should be. New parents should be able to expect that their community will support them through the tender newborn phases and beyond. It should be normal to have a rotating cast of caregivers in the home when a fresh life has been born, much like when a life is preparing to end. But we couldn’t afford to do that, not with a preemie at home and a virus in the air, nor would we ask our circles to do that for us if it would put them at greater risk. It’s the bittersweetness of compassion in the viral era: we would’ve benefitted from more home-cooked meals or friends coming by to drop off coffee and do some dishes, absolutely, but the risks were so great that it was more loving of them to not be around us at all.

You know what’s bizarre to me? Even with all of that, even with all of the context of the world my child was being brought into, even though I had $50 to my name the day he was born, even though I would’ve been totally justified in losing my marbles after spending 4 weeks in the hospital and delivering by c-section at 34 weeks, then spending 3 more weeks in the NICU, even with alllllll those factors at play… ever since the second I met my son, I haven’t experienced depression. 

And I have been literally afraid to say that, because it sounds like boasting when you consider how common it is for people to have the opposite experience. I certainly would not want to hop into some Facebook moms’ group while dealing with postpartum anxiety just to see someone posting about how lovely and easy and joyous their postpartum experience has been, but maybe that’s just me. I do tend towards bitterness. I’m not working on it.

I absolutely love being this little boy’s mom. I don’t love every single part of parenting but I love being his mom. I love moving about the world with the knowledge and the energy of motherhood in my body. I love the wild surrender my heart has to do over and over again every single day as I accept that my time on earth with this human is limited and I love them so much it feels like my body is going to fill up with helium and float away. I am powerless, now, to the fact that my life is forever tethered to this tiny life I created, and his well-being is forever inextricably linked to mine, and some days it feels like I would simply cease to exist if he was ever not okay. It is a thrill and an adventure to let a 10-pound version of yourself grab onto your heart and soul with their round little fists and fling them violently around with glee. 

Even though it seems like everything else about parenting is designed to be draining and thankless under our current paradigm, I still find all the pros to be outweighing the cons. I still wake up every day to the sound of my son’s voice and feel my heart grow a little bigger, like the Grinch. Even on my worst mental health days, there’s still at least one tickle fight or a good giggle session. Sometimes I think about how much laughing I do on a daily basis and it makes me want to cry. Sometimes I think about how stupid it is that just one goofy, drooly smile from my son instantly changes my mood for the better, and it makes me laugh, which usually leads to more crying. 

All throughout my pregnancy, I kept telling my belly, “You better be an easy baby for all the hell you’re putting me through to get you here.” And you know what? He did keep his word on that. All babies are difficult, but I have dealt with some doozies, and in comparison, this kid is so chill. Right now he’s figuring out how to talk, so sometimes I will hear him when he’s supposed to be napping and instead he’s laying in his crib, playing with his toes and babbling to himself like a true Gemini moon. He’s expressive and silly and sweet and stinky and whenever I think about the way he makes me feel, all I can think is “this is how it’s supposed to be.” I want postpartum euphoria (as I’ve been calling it) to be the thing we all talk about in our Facebook groups and ‘warn’ expecting parents about. More than that, I want every person’s experience as a new parent to come with built-in support via community. A blissful and nourished postpartum experience should not be a privilege reserved only for those who can afford to hire the doulas and buy the supplements and give birth safely at home and fly in their parents and take the year off and get regular massages and have good health insurance. 

I’m not immune to the violence of living under capitalism and neither is my experience as a new mother. But I don’t have depression anymore after having my son, and it’s okay if you don’t start to heal until after your kid is born. I am in love with the experience of being a parent, and it fills me with the most radiant sparkling joy I’ve ever felt, it’s better than any drug I’ve ever taken and I just had to get that off my chest.