I know this is a touchy subject and it is really different from one person to another. And even if it is a hard subject to talk about for me, since losing my son, i still went through postpartum and its undesirable effects. 

Right after my son was born, I didn’t feel as emotional as I would’ve thought, it all came to me after leaving the hospital. Those 3 days in the hospital, felt so out of reality, i was in my little bubble away from everything. The day we came back home, I felt this wave of happiness but also realized how hard it is to take care of a newborn and how life changing it is. Within a few minutes you go from just you and your husband to having this tiny human to take care of, and as much as you’re trying to prepare for it during pregnancy, you’re never really prepared, let’s be honest haha! 

I remember feeling happy but sad at the same time. Not sad because of my baby, but just sad because of the change and the life I was leaving behind. On another hand I was so grateful and full of joy knowing that my body had created this teeny tiny little human and that he was going to be mine forever and that there was a whole new life ahead of us with him.  Everyday after going home from the hospital was the same, I was the happiest person alive but as the day went by, I think the lack of sleep haha, I was just a mess at night. I would go shower and cry every night, because it was a lot to handle, to figure out and to get used to, and wondering if you were ready to have a baby, because it’s harder than you thought.

I was also comparing myself to all the other moms with newborns and I felt like I was the only one feeling like that, and I felt not normal, but it is. I know that a lot of women feel that way, and even if it is a disturbing feeling to feel so happy but just can’t control those “waves” of sadness taking over your body, just know that you are not alone and all these emotions and feelings are completely normal! I felt like this for about 2 weeks and then I slowly got used to having a newborn, having some kind of routine going on, understanding better my baby and his needs, and I started to slowly have less and less moments of sadness or even moments alone where I needed to cry, they were more spaced out and less intense and I felt like I was getting back to being myself, and that the hormones and myself were finally friends again.  

A few days later my son passed away. I am not going to talk about his passing, but you can already imagine the turn of event in my postpartum experience. So many new emotions mixed with the ones I had before and this immense guilt, that I still feel to this day, almost 7 months postpartum. Feeling sad and crying when coming back from the hospital, haunted me right after he passed, I kept telling myself I shouldn’t have cried or felt this way if I knew that this was going to happen. I should’ve enjoyed more my time with him. This is such a hard feeling to process when I’m still trying to process it as I’m writing this. There was no way for me to know what was going to happen, and I did my absolute best to be the best mom for him the 3 weeks he got on earth. So of course when going to my OBGYN for my checkups, on the postpartum depression chart I was completely at the absolute worst depression, but this was obviously due to my son’s passing. It got better overtime, I don’t have postpartum depression but i am grieving and so some feelings and emotions overlapped. Today, I am just dealing with my grief as much as I can and I deal with it a little better every day. 

I think this is one of the hardest feeling, having to go back to that pre baby life that you cried for a few weeks ago, and realize that you don’t want it anymore, and you’re forced back into your old self but you’re just not that person anymore. And you know now that you felt more than complete as a mom and you were indeed so ready for that life with a baby, but there’s no more baby. This is really hard to let my feelings out like this, and I might have shed a few tears writing this, but I needed to let it out and tell you guys the truth about postpartum on its own but also postpartum after losing my son. This isn’t easy to write so I guess it might not be easy to read, but sometimes life sucks and stuff happen without warning and you have to live with it, that’s the reason why I did not want to sugarcoat it or make it seem easier to go through than it seem. There is so much more to it all, but this is a little overview of how I felt and how i still feel. Postpartum sucks and losing my baby sucks even more, but I owed it myself, and to my son, to own up my feelings and share it all. He might not be here with us anymore but he is still real, and I’m still going to spend the rest of my life living for him. And I now realize how grateful I am that I was able to experience it all, what I remember of postpartum makes his life even more real than it already was, and gives me memories to cherish forever. 

PS: I’m sorry if this was long and sounded depressing, I promise my next blog post will be happier and not as serious haha, but this one was long overdue and it felt like the perfect time to do it 🙂 

Xx Charline