Learning to Love My Body After PostPartum Depression – Saratoga Springs | Albany | Troy | New York – Boudoir

by | Jul 26, 2018 | Uncategorized

Let’s get down and dirty and real here today. Where are all my moms at? Any woman who has given birth can probably understand alot of what me and today’s #LRPBoudieBeauty are talking about. The post partum experience and the birthing experience as a whole is not always “The most beautiful thing ever” and “The best day of your life”

In fact, the day my daughter was born was hands down the worst day of my life. Now I will never tell her this because I don’t ever want her to think that it is her fault, but my birth experience was the opposite of beautiful. It was traumatic and abusive and scary and I was alone for so much of it because I was rushed into surgery for an emergency.

Here I spent almost 10 months planning this beautiful and serene water birth….I labored naturally for 14 hours handling the contractions 3 minutes apart then 2 minutes then 1 for just hours like a champion. Sure it hurt but I knew I had the power….and then I realized for the first time in my life that I was not in control. 14 hours in my daughter flipped inside of me into a full split with one foot by her ear and one hanging out. I was rushed into surgery, pricked over and over and over inexperience nurses on their first week of work who didn’t know what they were doing until my mother had to yell and get someone more experienced to finally get an IV in, and at the door to the surgery the midwife whom promised she wouldn’t leave my side because my husband wasn’t allowed to come in…told me her shift was over…and left me. Another midwife who I only sort of knew showed up, took me into the emergency surgery room where they then missed my spinal 3 times before getting it in on the 4th….the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my life when they hit a nerve connected to my leg. I was convulsing so bad they strapped me down arms stretched out like a cross with leather bands to the table as I was there…alone. After that I was left sitting in my own bloody bed for 12 hours and my mom had to fight for someone again to come and change the bedding and help me, as I just had surgery and couldn’t move, only to be tossed around by someone who obviously didn’t care for me and then left in pain.

My birth was not the most beautiful day of my life…neither were the 3 months that followed where I got infection after infection on my incision and mastitis, couldn’t go to the bathroom alone because I couldn’t get up or down for almost 6 weeks, my milk never came in and I was judged by moms who wouldn’t believe me when I would say that and would make me feel like I was hurting my child by having to give her formula to keep her alive….

I felt like failure….to be honest I am not shocked, looking back, that I had some pretty severe post partum depression.

I was lucky enough to know people who have been through this and who knew about postpartum depression so I immediately got myself in with a mental health specialist who helped me work through these feelings and hormones.

This is not an uncommon story.

I hear traumatic birth stories from women all of the time…hell I even hear normal birth stories from women where they suffer from postpartum depression. We don’t talk about this enough…today we are going to have a conversation and we are going to start it with the story of an incredibly strong, brave and beautiful woman who finally made the decision to have a Self Love Experience to begin the journey to reconnecting with her body for its feminine power and not its “betrayal” (as I felt my body did to me)

Read what she has to say below and show her love for her incredible courage <3

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“I used to be the most confident person in the world until a few years ago. I would never have put myself down, not done stuff or have avoided pictures with my kids because I wasn’t confident. In the last few years I’ve definitely had some Self esteem issues especially after having the kids. I never “bounced back” like I thought I was or should have, I had a lot of complications after giving birth. I had serious body issues post partum. I had three kids in 23 months, both were terrible pregnancies and even worse deliveries. Giving birth to my twins was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me especially since I tried to get pregnant for 5 years and went through endless amounts of fertility attempts. However, it left me with a droopy stomach because I had several main stomach muscles that were cut because my 1 son wasn’t breathing and he was stuck. Then I got pregnant 4 months later after the boys by the grace of god on my own. My incision never healed properly and I have a nasty incisional hernia to match my now saggy stomach. I wouldn’t trade it for the world because my kids are my life but Nonetheless it left me feeling gross, uncomfortable and definitely NOT sexy. It didn’t bother my husband but it bothered me, like really bothered me. It put me into a depression, I couldn’t work out, I had three kids under 1 years old at home alone while my husband worked and the doctor said my stomach will always look like this unless I had surgery. Post Partum depression is NO JOKE. I feel like I “appear” to be a a pretty confident woman but I’ve been acting or at least I was until my shoot. I realized that being skinny like I was before or having a perfect stomach doesn’t make me a beautiful person. My kids and my husband love me just how I am. I don’t need to be skinny to be a good person or for my husband to be attracted to me. What am I teaching Everly if all I care about is a number on a scale and looks ? My baby is going to grow up loving herself, her body and being a fucking boss. And if you know her she is well on her way ! She actually loves my stomach and kisses it. It’s hard enough with everything else I have going on in my life to put the extra pressure on myself to be a certain size to be happy, how ridiculous does that sound ? I was worried that people would look at my pictures and say “she’s not as skinny as she used to be” or “ Who does she think she is ?” I was paranoid about them going up and I hadn’t even taken them yet ! After doing my shoot with Lindsay and Erin I was like this is how I should feel about myself everyday ! If I’m in scrubs, gym clothes or all dressed up. I should be proud of my body, it made three little amazing perfect humans. There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like me or criticizing me, so why should I add to that ? No, not anymore, I’m done doing that. Lindsay even after the shoot is always giving me constant reminders to be nice to myself and has helped me find my old confidence that’s been hiding ! To say that this was an amazing experience is an understatement, anyone out there feeling insecure about themselves and is on the fence should JUST Do it ! You’ll be so glad you did!” ~ Mrs. V.

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