My Journey Through Postpartum Mood Disorder

I became pregnant for the first time at the age of 18, less than a year out of high school, we were young but excited at the prospect of becoming parents and starting our life together. My husband (boyfriend at the time) moved into our first apartment and began to prepare for the arrival of our first blessing. On December 30,1994 at 9:55 p.m. I gave birth to a beautiful dark haired baby girl weighing in at 6lbs 7oz. We named her Rain Carey. We were discharged the following day and went home to our tiny apartment with our new addition in tow. The first 3 or 4 days postpartum were uneventful save for getting the hang of nursing and lack of sleep. Around the first week mark I began to notice something wasn't "right". I could not sleep, I felt "revved up" my mind was racing and it would not be shut down. I had insomnia for days at a time. At the time I blamed it on the "birth high" Actually I was pretty pleased with myself. I was taking care of my baby, my house, I even started to exercise again at about 3 weeks post partum. I had never been more energetic in my life.At the same time I could not eat. I had no appetite for food and no desire to sit for as long as it took to eat a meal. I spent my days cleaning, exercising and, even though it was winter, bundling the baby and walking for hours at a time trying to dispel all this pent up energy. This mania lasted some weeks, I dropped well below my prepregnancy weight and was living on little more than water and air. Eventually I began to run out of steam. My thoughts began to slow down and I wasn't thinking rationally. Actually I spent much of my time living in a fantasy world and just going through the motions of my day to day life. Within 18 months I was feeling more like myself and although I knew something was strange about my postpartum experience I didn't have a name for it nor had I ever heard of Postpartum mood disorder.