It was Baby Time!!

So 2007 was the year, time to make a baby!!! Everything worked out perfect, we went on holiday and started trying after we got back. A month later I was so damn excited to take that test I was up at 5:30am and could not sleep after seeing those two little lines... That explained why I was so very tired, and funny enough I have been just as tired every since! 

The perfect pregnancy.. I finished up work 3 weeks before I was due, was even at the gym that afternoon.. Midnight the following day my waters broke! And 5.5hrs later our lil man was bought into the world. It was the most surreal moment and I can still remember that exact feeling when they popped him on my chest and he just looked up at me. I had become a mum. 

I hear so often that PND can often stem from a traumatic or long labour.. in my case it could not be further from the truth, no drugs or intervention and relatively quick for a first birth. So in my search to find answers I did not find any here. Our lil man was in the NICU for the first 5 days and it was a horrible feeling leaving the hospital with flowers but no baby. But after some much needed rest I could clearly see that was the best place for him. 

The first three weeks were pure newborn baby bliss.. Despite being exhausted as all new parents are, this little child was just so amazing and easy going. But then the devil inside awoke and my little angel disappeared. He screamed endlessly. We held, rocked, walked, fed, bathed, sang, cried.. pick a task and we tried. I even remember walking him around our court at 11pm many nights, but as soon as we approached the front door the screaming would start. Called the 'crying time' or better known to parents as the witching hour, we were told it will pass. And it did, at about midnight every night, and started again the next day. I had no idea what was going on, I was a new mum. Look on the TV and a beautiful little baby will calm down as soon as their mummy holds them.. reality will paint a different picture! So after much grief and doctors visits later we were told he had silent reflux. Something of a discomfort to an Adult, but closer to a nightmare for a baby. 

So for the next 5 or so months we jammed medication into him 4 times a day. It helped. But I think it also made him generally unsettled and cranky. I remember one night just sitting on the bed howling.. not crying, howling. My husband said he had never seen me cry this way. This may have been the start of 'something more than baby blues' but no one saw the signs and we all would like to think 'it won't happen to me'... Unfortunately as strong as I thought I was, eventually it did happen...