My baby was born by c-section a week ago and ever since coming out of hospital I've been crying in the evenings/ afternoons. I feel exhausted physically and emotionally. But I have been depressed before and if I compare that with this, I would say this isn't depression because I have pleasure in lots of other parts of life.
He's a lovely baby but I can't get my head round the fact that I'm his mother. The section was a totally weird experience. I feel as if I went in for major surgery and came out with a baby. I can't honestly say I love him. I look after him and empathise with him but I don't feel I want to spend every waking minute with him and am relieved when other people take him off my hands. Haven't got any kind of 'falling in love' feeling for him. My own mother is acting more like the stereotypical blissed out mum than I am - can't stop cuddling the baby, talking baby talk at him etc. etc. I feel guilty that I am not behaving like her and frightened that I will never love the baby and I will go our whole lives looking after him but deep inside thinking 'this was a horrible mistake'.
BF-ing has been really difficult and this is the thing that often starts me crying - he flails around and screams when he can't latch on and I just cry and feel hopeless and exhausted.
I am fairly old for a first time mother and I am not someone who's ever enjoyed spending time with children much, in fact I never wanted kids in general, I was always really scared of being a mum, all the responsibility and pressure, and said I would never have kids - but then I found a wonderful husband who I love so much that it seems/ seemed terrible to miss the chance of having children together. I feel closest to the baby when I notice how like my husband he is.
I don't know, is this a normal way to feel?
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Antenatal/postnatal depression
Is this PND? Or just baby blues?
5 replies
musicalrabbit · 12/06/2012 19:33
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