The First 2 Weeks

The thing about PPD, is it hits you super hard, with no warning at all. I grew up with a knowledge and understanding of mental illnesses. I had so many people around me who were battling every single day, and half the time you really couldn’t tell. I think that’s part of what PPD so challenging. Being a new mom, everything is supposed to be so happy. You aren’t supposed to feel like dying all the time, right? I mean I just spent the last 9 months of my life creating this beautiful gift, so why should I feel like giving all of that up? It really doesn’t make any sense at all.

The first few hours after having Adalei, I thought would be my hardest. Those first moments of feeling empty, lonely, like a whole piece of myself was taken away. Don’t get me wrong, I was so excited to meet the little bean that we had watched grow inside my belly. But when I first really got to look down at this life Dakota and created, I can’t say that it was pure happiness and love that flooded over me. I honestly wasn’t even sure if this baby, that I knew had been apart of me for so long, was actually mine.

I couldn’t tell you if this was something that only I have ever felt or if it is something other moms have felt too. To be honest, it isn't something I have really even talked about. It was seriously one of the strangest feelings I think I have ever had. I wanted to cry happy tears knowing that pregnancy was over and that my dreams of being a mom had finally come true. I was so ready to take the next steps of motherhood. But the longer I looked at my baby girl, so dependant on me, the more I was waiting for that overwhelming feeling of love to wash over me. Wanting so badly to have that instant bond, the instant connection. I wanted to feel that unbreakable love for this baby. I am now 3 months postpartum, and I can’t say that I have ever felt that feeling.

I look at this beautiful child, this pretty blue-eyed little girl, and I search in her eyes for something, for anything. I just want that feeling of undeniable love to swarm over the both of us. I want so badly for her to look up at me and for us both to know that we are okay when we are together. I want to feel like I have this amazing motherly bond with my baby. But when I look into her eyes, I feel lost. Almost numb.

The first few days in the hospital were an adjustment. Nurses and doctors coming in and out, checking on us both. I honestly couldn’t tell you when Adalei ate for the first time. I tried so hard to breastfeed her, but my milk hadn’t come in and her patience was practically nonexistent, and honestly still is. It was a very emotional and touchy subject for me. That was the last thing I was hoping I could get “right” with how everything was supposed to go. I wanted so badly to at least have something go as planned. After what seemed like forever of her screaming and me crying, we finally gave her a bottle. I felt so defeated. I felt like a failure. I had kind of had time to acknowledge that my body wasn’t getting the whole pregnancy or labor things, but feeding her, I had to be able to feed my baby. It was the only thing that I knew from the beginning that I had wanted and hoped I could do. At 21 weeks when I thought everything was crashing down, I knew that most of my birth plan might not go totally right, but this too? Really?

Later that night, I was able to start getting up and walking. Dakota and I were both allowed to go to the nursery to watch our baby girl get her very first bath. After days of Adalei trying to push herself out of me, she had some head trauma, giving her an abnormally squishy cone head. The doctors did some extra tests on her and assured us that she would be okay. I finally got to take a shower super late at night on July 1st and let me tell you, that was seriously one of the best damn showers I have ever taken! After laying in a hospital bed for 4 days, going through labor, surgery, a catheter, all the sticky tape, postpartum blood, and then having a new baby to hold, a shower was just what I needed to make myself feel a bit more human again. By July 2nd, we were finally allowed to go home! I was pretty excited that I wouldn’t be celebrating my birthday where I was born, 24 years later.

Life outside of the hospital was different, nice though. Dakota and I quickly figured out what routine was best for us. We worked super well together while getting to enjoy being new parents. With COVID, no one was able to come to the hospital so we were finally able to show off our little bundle.

We kept it to our immediate family for those first few days. On Sunday, July 5th, we were blessed enough to introduce Adalei to her Great Great Grandma Zito was about to be 103 years old! We had to say hello through the screened window at the care facility she was in, but it was still such an amazing experience that I know I will cherish forever. When I think back to that day, I can still feel the excitement and love Grandma Zito had for her first great great granddaughter.

The next day, Monday the 6th, we had Adalei's first doctor's appointment to follow up with her squishy head. Thankfully, everything was still looking good and her head seemed to be firming up quite a bit. We were so glad. But when they took her weight, she was down to just 7 lbs. In just 6 day's my sweet little baby lost 13 oz. Which wasn't abnormal, but was a bit more than the doctor really felt comfortable with her loosing. We were asked to make sure she was eating every 2 to 3 hours 24 hours a day and to come back Wednesday, before we left to go back home, for another weight check.

Since leaving the hospital, my legs hadn't stopped swelling. Later that Monday night, I felt a little off during dinner. I knew that they had pumped me full of fluids so I wasn't totally sure when my feet and legs would decide to shrink back to normal so I wasn't super worried. After dinner, I decided to take my temperature. I was running a fever of 101.9°F. After all of my preeclampsia issues, I decided to check my blood pressure while I was at it. Of course, I was 165/112. I called my doctor right away. She advised me to lay down and try to stay calm with my feet raised for about 30 minutes. The hope was that whatever was going on would just calm down. But my body, being well, my body, raised my temperature to 102.6°F and my bp to 170/115. So off to the ER Dakota and I went.

After a few hours of tests and some meds, I was admitted to the hospital around 11:00 pm. While I was in the ER they tested me for COVID, but since I didn't show any signs and they were running low on instant tests, they used a 2-day test on me. Which ended up making it so Dakota and Adalei weren't allowed to come and visit me. So my baby girl became a week old without her mom around. Being treated as a COVID patient was one of the worst and loneliest experiences I have ever had. It took the nurses and extra few minutes to get all gowned up to come into my room, and then none of them wanted to stay around me for longer than they had to out of fear, which was understandable. All they knew was I was a possible COVID patient. Here I was, a brand new mother, being denied, my own baby and husband. I felt like I had absolutely no support. I think I cried for about 10 hours pretty much non-stop after being admitted. My emotions were so high and I seriously just felt so terrible.

Once I was set up in my COVID safe room in labor and delivery, the on-call OBGYN came in to talk to me. He suspected that I still had some infection in my uterus from when my water broke, along with post eclampsia and the possibility of mastitis. They put me on a magnesium drip for 24 hours and I wasn't allowed to get up and move without a nurse. I was also on a heavy dose of antibiotics to help flush out whatever infection I might still have. Basically, I got to spend 2 days in my new idea of Hell. I laid in bed, watching TV, crying, and pumping.

By Wednesday morning, I was finally told that I did NOT have COVID, so this whole time, Dakota and Adalei could have come in to visit me and I could have been treated like a normal person. I think that was probably the hardest part of it all. Finding out that all of this added pain and hurt could have been avoided. I was finally released and able to leave by noon. I was so ready to be reunited with my little family. I was told to watch the swelling and make sure it stayed pretty much gone and then I was asked to follow back up that Friday before we left to come back home since we weren't going to be near a hospital.

Dakota ran Adalei up to be reweighed before we left since her doctor was in the same building. She thankfully had gained 7 oz. over 2 days. We were making progress! I was so happy that she was starting to gain weight like she was supposed to. While I was still crushed that Adalei wouldn't latch, I knew that feeding her more formula than breastmilk was going to probably be better anyway since that was what she had mostly been eating.

As we got back to Dakota's parent's house, trying to become "mom" again was hard. After being away from her for 2 days and her still being so little, it was extremely hard for me. Not only was I trying to make sure I was getting myself better, I came back to what seemed to be a new system that filtered me out. Even though that was no one's intentions, I had felt replaceable. I had everyone telling me that Adalei was too young to realize that I wasn't there and once I got back, she would be happy to see me and it would be like I never left. But that wasn't totally true for me. Trying to come back into this new mom life was harder now then it was when we first became this new family at the hospital. I was still wanting to try to breastfeed Adalei, but each time we tried, she would refuse to latch, leaving me feeling defeated and just pumping.

Later Wednesday night, Dakota let me go to sleep pretty early. He was being such a great dad and husband. Trying to make sure both his girls were taken care of and happy. Around 2:00 am I was awoken by Dakota telling me that we needed to go to the hospital. Adalei was screaming with a bright red face. We jumped in the car and raced to the ER. I wasn't totally sure what was going on until this point when Dakota insisted that I just keep patting her back because she had made a sound like she was choking and then wasn't breathing right. Once we got to the ER, they only let Dakota go back with Adalei, so I had to start to fill out all of the paperwork. Thankfully, once they realized just how old Adalei was, they let me rush back to be with them both. When they were asking what had happened, all of the nurses and the doctor kept looking at me for the answers. But after not being around for a few days and then being asleep when everything happened, I felt useless. As Dakota told them what had happened my heart just sank as I was finally realizing just how bad it all was. She had spit up while she was asleep and as Dakota went to check on her, she was purple and not breathing. He quickly picked her up, flipped her to her belly and started patting her back until the screaming started. They ended up sucking out a ton of snot and formula out of Adalei's nose. The doctor told us that she most likely had thrown up in her sleep and since she was on her back, it made her choke and then scared her. With all of us feeling a bit better about everything, we headed back to Dakota's parent's house. But all I could think about was how I had no idea my baby was purple until what seemed like forever after it happened. Here I was, supposed to have these mom senses, and I was off sound asleep while my baby could have died.

By Friday, I had my follow up. Everything post eclampsia wise seemed to be back to normal and the OB even took my steri strips off! While I was there I asked the doctor some questions about breastfeeding. After explaining that Adaei still hadn't latched and my pumping sessions were starting to produce less and less, he confirmed my last fear. I was only 10 days postpartum and my milk was already drying up. Breastfeeding just wasn't on the table for me anymore. Once again, my body was failing me. The pain that came with everything else, and now truly not being able to breastfeed, was just terrible. I felt like such a terrible mother. My body literally was so pissed off with being pregnant that it tried to push her out at 21 weeks, and now, after everything else, I wasn't even going to get to try to breastfeed? I was already starting to dry up. My baby wasn’t even 2 weeks old and I already couldn't feed her. It was just a terrible feeling. I am pretty sure that my body was out to ruin me.

On Saturday, we ended up heading back home. I knew Dakota and I were both super nervous about coming back home and him going to work, leaving Adalei and I home alone all day. I made sure to keep my phone on me all day just in case something was to happen with me or Adalei and we had to get to the hospital. I was still only 2 weeks postpartum after my c section so driving was still not even kind of allowed. I had to make sure I was taking things very easy and only lifting things that were lighter than Adalei. This was a hard adjustment for me, I was so used to doing things for myself, by myself. I knew I shouldn't be overdoing it and that I would regret everything the next day, but I couldn't help but want to push myself further.

On the first Monday that we were back home, Dakota was back to work. I spent all day trying to catch up on dishes and laundry while taking care of Adalei. I made sure she was eating every 2 hours, had a fresh diaper, and was getting plenty of sleep. Once Dakota got home, we went to visit our neighbor across the street and let her meet Adalei. As we were getting ready to leave, I started to feel a little dizzy so I immediately handed Adalei over to Dakota. Knowing I wasn't doing super great, we started to walk back home to hopefully get me back into the cool house. I only took a few steps before I woke up on my stomach with my forehead laying against the rock and dirt. I remember Dakota picking me up and helping me back to our house. He laid me in bed with my feet up and brought me some water to start sipping on. Once I started to feel a bit better, I started to regain feeling in my body, and that's when I realized that my body let everything loose. After some water and crackers, I started to feel good enough, and gross enough, to know a shower was in order.

I spent all day making sure she was taken care of and completely forgot to take care of myself. I had gone all day without eating or really drinking, and I hadn't even noticed. I didn't even remember feeling hungry or thirsty. I only knew what Adalei needed and what household chores needed to get done. Besides taking a nap every so often with her, I completely forgot about myself.

That was the first day I realized that if I was going to take care of my daughter, I needed to take care of myself too.

Special Tribute

Thank you for waiting a bit longer than I had planned for this post. I was taking some much needed time for myself and to spend with family.

On September 22nd, my Grandma Zito became mine and Adalei’s guardian angle. After 103 years on this earth, we all thought that she was going to live on forever. Even at her funeral, I still wanted to look around for her. You would think that for someone who had lived with us all for that long, who you knew any day could be their last, would be a bit easier to lose. But it is still heartbreaking and painful. I really thought that she and Adalei would get to know each other the way I got to know her. I know that Grandma is going to be watching her grow up still, just a little farther away.

We love you so much, Grandma Zito! You will forever be missed!

Romaine Whalin Zito

7.17.1917 ~ 9.22.2020