Are You Suffering from Postpartum Depression? How Would You Know?

Postpartum depression is an interesting thing. I have up days and down days. And I have ups and downs and ups and downs mixed into one day. Sometimes I can't tell if I am down because of PPD or because of the stress of Wee Nut's Heart Defect. I have come to believe that I would have gotten to a point when things settled down after Owee's second surgery, that I would have ended up depressed anyways. And that my pregnancy with She Nut just postponed the inevitable. There are things that trigger low feelings, like on days when Owee's hands and feet are bluer than his normal, or when I come across something that I got when he was in the hospital. It is a different type of feeling low than the up and down wave of postpartum depression.

I don't know if I would say for sure any of these things are a sure sign of postpartum depression, but I know that I have found them to be true for me.

• Feelings of anger or irritability when I know that I have no reason to feel that way.
• Lack of focus or drifting in and out of thought, loosing time. Suddenly 3 hours will have passed and I am not sure what I just did.
• I have days where both eating all day long or not having any appetite at all tell me I am having a hard time.
• Weepiness is a sure sign for me.
• Sometimes I feel great when I got to bed, get a good nights sleep, but when I wake up, I just don't want to move. I really have to talk myself into getting up.
• When I am feeling low I have a terrible time sleeping.

I know that Zoloft is the type of medicine that takes time to work, that it builds up over weeks, but the very first few days I took it, I noticed a difference right away. Just enough for me to see how depressed I was, clear enough for me to relax and help get control of my emotions. I can also tell if I have forgotten to take it. I have my weekly pill box, and if it was not for that, I would never know if I actually took it. I can take it, walk out of the room and a minute later have to ask my husband if I actually took it. I have days that go by and I start feeling great, I think that is when I forget to take it, and within a few days my ups and downs start blending together.

I have gotten much better at remembering to take it. I try to take it first thing in the morning when I am passing out vitamins. And that seems to work. I am working on it, trying not to forget that I am depressed and that I need to remember to take Zoloft everyday. I just though a PPD update was due, and thought I would share a few more things to look out for.

You can also read about how I discovered I suffering from Postpartum Depression in this post, Postpartum Depression: Mama's Losin' It. If you think you might have PPD, please talk to someone about it.