Rachel Murray
Moms Like Me Presenter 2020
It was my first Mother’s Day as a mother myself. The sky was vibrant blue, and the air was crisp yet warm, the way only Montana spring can feel. The smell of fresh cut grass infused the calm air. Yet there was a tornado inside me. My husband, Colin, was about to start testing the sprinkler system. I remember the sprinklers. Sometimes that is all I can remember from that day. As they tested each zone, I froze in panic, thinking the pipes must have broken and they were flooding the crawlspace. My rational mind knew they were not. But my built-up postpartum anxiety had to find a way out, and obsessing about the sprinklers was its chosen outlet. I screamed for them to be turned off because the crawlspace was flooding. Colin reported they were fine and there was no water in the crawlspace. I began sobbing hysterically and yelled again for them to be turned off. Neighbors stared as I descended into my first-ever panic attack.
My husband and I were never really 100% certain we wanted kids. Our mentality was “if it happens it happens.” After four years of marriage, two established careers, owning our first home, and very little debt, we were as well-prepared and stable as a couple could be before starting a family. I had always been a responsible, in-control person and equated this to being a future successful mother. After finding out I was pregnant, I envisioned what a radiant, lovely pregnant woman I would be. I would be amazing at this. I couldn’t wait for the “baby stage” and just knew I would rock that part.
The nausea set in at 5 weeks. No vomiting, no feeling of relief, just a constant, overwhelming nausea, which, unbeknownst to me, would not subside until I pushed my daughter out ten months later. Nonetheless, I still dreamt of later in my pregnancy, when undoubtedly this would pass and I would get to that glowing-pregnant-lady stage everyone describes. It never happened. I didn’t understand. This wasn’t what I had expected.
The 20-week ultrasound may have been the start of my postpartum struggles. I had never struggled with any anxiety, depression or mental health issues prior to this. We went into the ultrasound with high hopes, despite the disappointment of already knowing it was a girl. My “American dream” involved having 3 boys. Most women fantasize about having a little baby girl. When I envisioned myself with a baby girl, I was petrified that I would continue the pattern of destructive mother-daughter relationships that was infused throughout the generations of my family. I wanted no part of that damaging path. At the end of the ultrasound, the radiologist came in and told us she had a two-vessel cord. Normal anatomy of an umbilical cord is one vein and two arteries (three total vessels). It was after 6 p.m. when we left the ultrasound, and my OB/GYN’s office was closed, so I couldn’t call to talk with them. So, I googled it.
Words like “birth defects,” “miscarriage,” and “stillbirth” leapt off the computer screen. I was up all night sobbing.
After finding out her 2-vessel cord was likely benign, my OB/GYN recommended a 30-week ultrasound to be sure everything was okay. At 30 weeks our lives would change forever. I went to the ultrasound alone, thinking, knowing, that everything was normal and I didn’t need anyone else there. I can do this. I can control this. When the ultrasound tech came back in the room and notified me, “Your OB/GYN would like you to head to her office right now,” I knew it wasn’t good. I waddled there with a racing heart. She sat down next to me and solemnly reported, “There’s something wrong with her heart.” Tears flowed as those loaded words sank in. “Is she going to die?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she replied.
The months that followed were saturated with apprehension due to the concerns about her heart.
I worried incessantly when I didn’t feel her move, but at the same time felt oddly unattached from the little being living inside me.
I continued to feel terribly ill. There are no pictures from my pregnancy. No social media posts of my pregnant belly, no maternity photo shoots. I didn’t want to remember it, and I didn’t want to remember myself this way. I didn’t know this sad person who couldn’t control anything in her life anymore. She was a stranger.
At 40 weeks, I got induced due to low amniotic fluid. Twenty-four hours, five boxes of Kleenex, and an epidural later, Harper Grace entered the world on a rainy spring evening. She looked nothing like I had pictured my daughter looking. She looked nothing like the dreams I had. She looked like an Asian man! As she cuddled onto my chest, I felt separated from the entire situation. Was I supposed to love her now? Or in a few days? The doctors and nurses went through her newborn checks, we were relieved to hear that her heart sounded normal and we could simply monitor everything going forward.
The first week was filled with family and friends, dinners dropped off by friends, non-stop movie marathons on TV, and my splendid 4 p.m. glass of white wine while watching Ellen. It felt like an adult spring break. Then Colin went back to work. I was alone. Breastfeeding was such a challenge. Harper wouldn’t latch due to a benign breast tumor I had had previously removed because of a strong family history of breast cancer. Within three weeks I had switched solely to pumping. I found this incredible and the time I saved felt freeing. Then came my first case of mastitis. Enter round one of antibiotics.
My husband started sleeping in the guest room so he could get enough sleep to be able to function at work, and Harper slept with me. Ever since working the night shift in the ER, I had developed significant trouble sleeping. I had never been able to nap well. The readily-given advice of “sleep when the baby sleeps” was foreign to me. I began to dread the nights. As the sun neared the western horizon and dusk settled in, I felt a growing anxiety like nothing I had ever known. Would I sleep at all tonight? Would she sleep more than a 30-minute stretch? I can’t fall asleep in 30 minutes. How is this a survivable world?
It had been 7 weeks. I got mastitis again. Round 2 of antibiotics. I had not left the house except to go on stroller walks with Harper. Weren’t newborns supposed to sleep all the time? I was confused. Harper would be awake daily from 5 a.m. – 1 p.m. without a single nap. Crying the whole time. Always crying. Never happy like other babies. I wondered, “Where are these moms getting these sleeping, smiling babies and how can I get one!?” My more important concern was that I didn’t really like her. I didn’t feel love towards her. More like an obligation. I wished I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant in the first place. This mom life was not for me. I hated it. I wished I could return her. I gazed at my other mom-friends and saw them gushing over their new lives, listening to them chat about how they had never experienced a love like this and couldn’t wait to have more kids. I felt shameful and guilt overtook me.
At 12 weeks, I still wasn’t feeling better. Mastitis had found its way back a 3rd and 4th time. I was given the option of staying on a daily antibiotic for the remainder of my time breastfeeding. After a long discussion with Colin, I decided to quit breastfeeding.
It was the first decision I made for my own health since Harper was born, and I felt a small part of myself return.
I didn’t have to be this miserable anymore! I didn’t have to be tied to this machine, constantly fearing mastitis would return. I could hopefully sleep more than one hour a night. A glimmer of hope surfaced. However, this relief was met with an equally strong backlash from others who couldn’t believe I was giving up on breastfeeding. How could I live with myself if I put Harper on formula?! God forbid! Rachel, you clearly haven’t tried hard enough. My elation with weaning was destroyed by others’ judgments.
A friend suggested we try a sleep schedule which proved to be an incredible benefit. Harper still cried the entire time she was awake, but at least she would nap now. Things were looking up. I was going back to work soon. I had days that were my own again and felt hopeful. I looked forward to going to work and time away from this life which I felt imprisoned by.
I started “talking” to a counselor. She was one of my best friends from junior high. I told her I would come into her office as long as it wasn’t a real appointment because I definitely didn’t need that kind of help. We could talk as friends. I was afraid of being labeled as having postpartum depression (PPD). Afraid of the stigma. I told myself that it was just baby blues, nothing more, but for some reason mine was lasting longer. She introduced me to the term “adjustment disorder,” which is feeling sad or hopeless when you experience a stressful life event. I felt much better having “adjustment disorder” rather than PPD. She compared my trouble coping to “grieving the loss of my old self” and I have never related to anything more. “It’s sort of like having a funeral for the person you were.” Funerals are sad. They are hard. I felt heard. Validated.
But as late summer arrived, I found myself crying every time Colin would leave for work. Sobbing. Not knowing if I could make it through another day. I am fairly certain I scored poorly on every one of my Edinburgh Postpartum Depression screenings, although I never remember anyone saying more than a sentence about how “it can be hard but you look like you’re doing great.” In all honesty, I probably would not have accepted help if they would have offered it, out of pure shame. When I would bring PPD up around family and friends, I continually heard sentences like “We don’t have that in OUR family.” Or “You are being selfish. These are the best days of your life and you need to choose to be happy. You need to be more positive and enjoy every second with her.”
My former support system became an unsafe place for me. A hurricane of sadness, inadequacy and isolation overtook me.
I shamefully walked into my doctor’s office and told her that I thought I may have PPD. I was prescribed an antidepressant and a sleeping pill. I was desperate to feel “normal” again. Lying in bed frantically trying to fall asleep that night, I remember feeling unsafe. An overwhelming chill of unease came over me and I immediately thought about the handgun Colin kept in the bedside drawer. It was locked, but I felt that if it stayed in the room with me, I was going to use it on myself. This petrified me to my soul. I have never before or since felt anything like that, and I do not know if it was a side effect of the medication or a culmination of postpartum life thus far. I left our bedroom, went to get Colin and told him what was happening. I hope to never see that look of utter terror in his eyes as long as I live.
When Harper was six months old, her pediatrician heard a heart murmur at her well-check. After her first echocardiogram, we were told she had three atrial septal defects (holes) in her heart. If she did not develop pediatric heart failure, we could wait and hope that her body would heal the holes on her own, because most ASDs do heal on their own. If she started exhibiting signs of heart failure, we would need surgery. I cried to my husband. How would we get through this? This was so unfair for an infant to go through, and so exceedingly difficult for new parents to process. We sat down and discussed the future and also the incredibly overwhelming thoughts of having to have more children and go through all of this again. Colin was quiet, then stated, “Who says we have to do it again?” As he voiced those words, I vividly remember the proverbial ‘weight of the world’ lift off my body.
I was drowning and had finally been thrown a life preserver. We don’t have to have more kids. In that moment, our decision to have an only child was solidified.
At nine months I noticed Harper began to demonstrate what I would refer to as seizure activity without the postictal period. I recorded a few episodes of this and showed them to her pediatrician. A solemn look came over her face as she said, “That is not normal.” We were referred to pediatric neurology. The doctor stated he hadn’t seen anything like this abnormal activity before, but we were just told to keep an eye on her and return if it did not improve. After she began walking, the doctors were increasingly concerned with her legs. We were referred to pediatric orthopedics and she was diagnosed with tibial torsion. We were told this would hopefully correct itself but if not, she would need surgery.
In addition to the multiple medical issues that had developed, she continued to cry constantly. Strangers would comment, “That baby has a healthy set of lungs!” and chuckle as they passed in the grocery store. I would smile back, but in reality feel like screaming at them. They didn’t understand what I was going through and their comments did not help. Unbeknownst to me at the time, she would continue to cry like this until 18 months old, when she could finally feed herself, walk, get toys herself, and go potty by herself. Harper was still sick every three weeks from the ages of one to four. She had significant trouble gaining weight, a struggle that continues to this day (also one of the signs of pediatric heart failure, which brought its own set of worries throughout the years). But we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and knew our little family of three would be ok.
Fast forward to Mother’s Day 2019. I have been up all night with Harper who has croup and a GI bug. As my now four-year-old daughter snuggles her sweaty, feverish head into my chest to rest, I cannot fathom living life without her. She is our incredible little girl with a newly fixed heart, thanks to her heart surgery at Seattle Children’s in June 2018.
Her strength blows my mind. Her compassion astounds me. I cannot love anything on this Earth more.
I recently found a prayer journal entry from 3/13/13, nearly two years to the day before Harper was born, reading, “God please let Colin and I know if we are meant to have children or if we have a different purpose.”
I hope my purpose is to inspire women to open up and be honest about real life.
I am here today to tell you that being a mother is hard. It is raw and messy. But it is real life. You do not have to suffer alone, and you do not have to suffer in silence. It’s okay to fall apart. Speaking truth takes a lot of courage, but it is profoundly powerful and freeing. Be gentle with other mothers, for despite their incredible strength, they too have just been re-born. Postpartum struggles are real, and it’s time we gave them a voice.