Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who read my first story and encouraged
me!
Some very mild cursing from Annie. This is a dark story about postpartum depression and the affect it has on family relationships. It's not really a story, even, more of a train of thought.
I didn't want them.
It's hard for me now, to look at the boys, and remember how I felt when I found out I was pregnant, not Mary. For one wild moment, I wished that my daughter actually had been the one. Unmarried teenager or not, I wished that she was the one who had to deal with the body changes and the emotions and the new person to care for.
Because I didn't want them.
Another baby. Good Lord, why me? Five children already. Five wonderful children, yes, who I loved and didn't mind giving up my life and my plans to care for.
Finally, they were all growing up. Yes, I sometimes missed the babies in my arms when I watched Matt get ready to move out, Lucy dating, Simon scheming, Ruthie bossing everyone - and of course Mary getting in trouble. But they were just impulses. I never wanted to act on them. With each one of my other babies, I had planned for them. I had decided I wanted them before Eric and I even started trying to get pregnant.
Then nature - or God, as my husband would say - took over and there I was, looking forward to nine months of physical misery followed by at least eighteen more years of total responsibility.
I felt an anger so deep it made me sick. An anger I had never faced. I felt hatred towards the child growing inside me. I did not think of it as a child. I thought of it as a parasite.
I have never admitted this feeling to anyone. Who could I tell? To whom could I admit that my first thought on learning of my pregnancy was a wish for a miscarriage? Or - even worse - a desire to take matters in to my own hands and end it before it became anything more than a small blip on the ultrasound screen.
I just didn't want them.
That feeling never really went away. I tried to tell myself that my reaction was just because I was tired - it had been a long time since I had to care for babies, I was afraid I wouldn't remember, I was afraid that my age would cause problems for them. I tried to convince myself it was just pregnancy hormones, that the feelings would go away the next trimester, when the babies were born, when they began to respond to me with smiles and coos.
But the feelings would come back.
The worst day was when the twins were about three weeks old. I had told Eric he could go out - he needed to get back to the church - and the older kids were busy. It was just me and the two boys.
David was asleep, but Sam was fussy. I rocked and nursed him for nearly two hours before he finally dropped off to sleep. But just as I laid him in his crib - David woke up.
I picked up that baby and settled back into the rocking chair, seething. I wanted a nap just as badly as the babies did, damn it. Rock, rock. David wanted to nurse, so I let him. That's all I was to those babies. A source of food, a milk cow.
Rock, rock. Fuss, fuss. Eat, eat.
David fell asleep.
Sam woke up.
I changed his diaper as he screamed. He would not quiet down. I picked him up.
Pat, pat on the back. Hum, hum. Rock, rock. Eat, eat. Fuss, fuss.
David woke up again.
Two babies, one in each arm, one on each breast. I was nodding in and out because of my exhaustion. Neither baby wanted to be put back in the crib. Neither one wanted to really nurse. One of their flailing arms hit me in the face. A three-week-old baby cannot hit very hard, but that was the last straw.
I dropped the babies into their cribs without ceremony. The shock quieted them for a moment, before both began to scream. I stared down at them and wanted to add my voice to the chorus. I felt a haze of rage, anger, depression come over me, and I wanted very badly to hit them. I wanted to hit my own children, my babies. No, that's too mild. I wanted to kill my babies. I had wanted a miscarriage before they were born; I wanted them to go away now.
I was ashamed, later. Later, when Eric came home to find the two babies finally asleep after crying all afternoon, and me, curled up in bed with the pillows over my head. We didn't talk about it. How could I admit to my husband that I had wanted to hit, hurt, maybe kill my children? How could I tell him he was living with a monster?
So I didn't. I just told him I couldn't handle nursing two babies and needed to put them on formula. I told him that I needed him to help more because my hands were full. He was so nice. He agreed to stay home, to help get the older children more involved. He knew nothing of what was going on in my head.
I tried to forget it, but I was afraid. I was afraid to be near the babies after that. Definitely afraid to be alone with them. And not just with them, but with anyone. I couldn't trust myself near my older children, because what if the feelings came over me again? I couldn't let anyone see them. I couldn't let my own evil contaminate the boys.
I didn't deserve to have them. As they grow, become so smart and sweet and loving, I marvel at how something so lovely could have come from something so twisted as me. I will not let myself become close, however. I will not run that risk. I will not ruin my children with my own sins.
Some very mild cursing from Annie. This is a dark story about postpartum depression and the affect it has on family relationships. It's not really a story, even, more of a train of thought.
I didn't want them.
It's hard for me now, to look at the boys, and remember how I felt when I found out I was pregnant, not Mary. For one wild moment, I wished that my daughter actually had been the one. Unmarried teenager or not, I wished that she was the one who had to deal with the body changes and the emotions and the new person to care for.
Because I didn't want them.
Another baby. Good Lord, why me? Five children already. Five wonderful children, yes, who I loved and didn't mind giving up my life and my plans to care for.
Finally, they were all growing up. Yes, I sometimes missed the babies in my arms when I watched Matt get ready to move out, Lucy dating, Simon scheming, Ruthie bossing everyone - and of course Mary getting in trouble. But they were just impulses. I never wanted to act on them. With each one of my other babies, I had planned for them. I had decided I wanted them before Eric and I even started trying to get pregnant.
Then nature - or God, as my husband would say - took over and there I was, looking forward to nine months of physical misery followed by at least eighteen more years of total responsibility.
I felt an anger so deep it made me sick. An anger I had never faced. I felt hatred towards the child growing inside me. I did not think of it as a child. I thought of it as a parasite.
I have never admitted this feeling to anyone. Who could I tell? To whom could I admit that my first thought on learning of my pregnancy was a wish for a miscarriage? Or - even worse - a desire to take matters in to my own hands and end it before it became anything more than a small blip on the ultrasound screen.
I just didn't want them.
That feeling never really went away. I tried to tell myself that my reaction was just because I was tired - it had been a long time since I had to care for babies, I was afraid I wouldn't remember, I was afraid that my age would cause problems for them. I tried to convince myself it was just pregnancy hormones, that the feelings would go away the next trimester, when the babies were born, when they began to respond to me with smiles and coos.
But the feelings would come back.
The worst day was when the twins were about three weeks old. I had told Eric he could go out - he needed to get back to the church - and the older kids were busy. It was just me and the two boys.
David was asleep, but Sam was fussy. I rocked and nursed him for nearly two hours before he finally dropped off to sleep. But just as I laid him in his crib - David woke up.
I picked up that baby and settled back into the rocking chair, seething. I wanted a nap just as badly as the babies did, damn it. Rock, rock. David wanted to nurse, so I let him. That's all I was to those babies. A source of food, a milk cow.
Rock, rock. Fuss, fuss. Eat, eat.
David fell asleep.
Sam woke up.
I changed his diaper as he screamed. He would not quiet down. I picked him up.
Pat, pat on the back. Hum, hum. Rock, rock. Eat, eat. Fuss, fuss.
David woke up again.
Two babies, one in each arm, one on each breast. I was nodding in and out because of my exhaustion. Neither baby wanted to be put back in the crib. Neither one wanted to really nurse. One of their flailing arms hit me in the face. A three-week-old baby cannot hit very hard, but that was the last straw.
I dropped the babies into their cribs without ceremony. The shock quieted them for a moment, before both began to scream. I stared down at them and wanted to add my voice to the chorus. I felt a haze of rage, anger, depression come over me, and I wanted very badly to hit them. I wanted to hit my own children, my babies. No, that's too mild. I wanted to kill my babies. I had wanted a miscarriage before they were born; I wanted them to go away now.
I was ashamed, later. Later, when Eric came home to find the two babies finally asleep after crying all afternoon, and me, curled up in bed with the pillows over my head. We didn't talk about it. How could I admit to my husband that I had wanted to hit, hurt, maybe kill my children? How could I tell him he was living with a monster?
So I didn't. I just told him I couldn't handle nursing two babies and needed to put them on formula. I told him that I needed him to help more because my hands were full. He was so nice. He agreed to stay home, to help get the older children more involved. He knew nothing of what was going on in my head.
I tried to forget it, but I was afraid. I was afraid to be near the babies after that. Definitely afraid to be alone with them. And not just with them, but with anyone. I couldn't trust myself near my older children, because what if the feelings came over me again? I couldn't let anyone see them. I couldn't let my own evil contaminate the boys.
I didn't deserve to have them. As they grow, become so smart and sweet and loving, I marvel at how something so lovely could have come from something so twisted as me. I will not let myself become close, however. I will not run that risk. I will not ruin my children with my own sins.