I had an idea: I should publish my memoir Adventures With Postpartum Depression on my blog. So that is what I am doing. If you want to start at the beginning, start with The Prologue. If you want the actual book, it’s available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor, Borrow Box and Overdrive (whew! Try saying that three times fast).

I settled my feet on a stack of pillows and clicked on the nightstand light. “Okay, baby girl. It’s week twenty-eight. Let’s see what the third trimester has in store for us.”

I cracked open my favorite pregnancy book and started reading about Braxton Hicks contractions and delivery. I could not wait for this pregnancy to be over.

In the first trimester, I had discovered that morning sickness was not always limited to the morning and could in fact last all day. Once I got my arms around the fact that a man had probably coined the phrase “morning sickness” in order to get his wife back into the kitchen and making supper, I started counting the days to the second trimester, when the all-day sickness would end. The sickness, however, did not abate until several weeks into the second trimester. When it did, I was so relieved, Nathan and I planned a trip to Orlando to visit family and have some fun. The nausea returned with a vengeance as I was drinking a virgin strawberry daiquiri by the pool. (I’ll never drink another daiquiri.) I prayed my stomach would return to normal after the birth.

The constipation was even worse than the nausea.

Around week seven, I felt my bowels grind to a stop. I did everything I could to reboot the system. I guzzled prune juice, various pink and green potions that my obstetrician recommended, and walked around our block. The pain was so bad that if my bowels had felt inspired during one of those walks, I would have gladly squatted on a neighbor’s lawn.

Day three of the Great Constipation Ordeal, I could not pee. My bladder was ready to burst from all the prune juice I had been imbibing, but no matter how I squeezed or crouched above the toilet, only a few drops would trickle out. My obstetrician told me to go to the ER for a catheter.

A concerned doctor listened to my stomach with his stethoscope. “Well, I believe you when you say you’ve been drinking prune juice. I can hear a lot of activity in there.”

That sounded promising.

“But unfortunately, your plumbing is all blocked up and nothing is coming out until we deal with that.”

That sounded less than promising.

“Pregnancy can be so hard. I remember my wife had terrible constipation during her pregnancies. I could give you a catheter, but I think if we relieve the constipation, then your bladder will sort itself out.”

A kindly nurse arrived quickly and asked me to roll onto my side. This was my first experience with an enema, and I actually thought the nurse was going to squirt a liquid solution up my derriere. I was more than a little surprised to discover what an enema actually entailed.

The nurse patted my shoulder. “Try to lie here for ten minutes before using the bathroom.”

That would obviously not be a problem. After three days of constipation, I doubted the next ten minutes would bring any relief.

Three minutes later, I practically skidded into a wall as I made my way to the bathroom down the hall. The constipation crisis was over.

My humiliation, however, was just getting started.

By the time we left the ER, it was eleven o’clock on a Sunday night. The doctor had given me a prescription for a bladder infection (because if a pregnant lady shows up with constipation, I guess her urine needs to be tested as well). I wanted to fill the prescription immediately to keep our baby safe, but our local pharmacy was closed for the night. We had to drive to the next city to find a twenty-four-hour pharmacy and wait another hour to fill my prescription. Not only were we both exhausted, we were famished, having left for the ER before dinner.

As we waited and waited, I wandered the store. In the gastrointestinal aisle, I spotted a box of enemas. The warning on the box cautioned that pregnant women should not use the enema unless directed to do so by a physician, and my physician had told me to go to the ER, but I still blamed myself. I had been living off white bread, cheddar cheese, and more white bread to manage the nausea. I should have known that would make me constipated.

My cheeks burned. Was this all in my head? Was I being a hypochondriac? Since college, I had done my best to conceal the hypochondria, but I knew the truth. If I got a headache, I worried it was a tumor. When I got a cold, I fretted my immune system was collapsing. And though I knew in my rational brain that I was extra-sensitive to arachnids, I still suspected every spider bite was actually a flesh-eating virus.

Everyone – my husband, obstetrician, the nurses and doctor at the ER – must think I was so pathetic and weak for needing to go to the hospital for a little constipation. I should have been stronger and found a way to resolve the problem on my own. Hospitals were for severed limbs and deadly viruses. They were not for hypochondriacs who overreacted to something simple like constipation.

I resolved to do a better job of being the master of my body.

***

After the ER trip, I started eating double-fiber bread and apples to make sure my bowels stayed happy. This aggravated the nausea, but between puking and constipation, one must always, always choose vomit. A little before Thanksgiving, though, I got cocky. I was halfway through the pregnancy and sick of nausea. Surely I could mix some bland foods with the fiber.

Then again, maybe not.

This time, I ended up in my obstetrician’s office.

“I could do a catheter—”

“Last time, I just needed an enema. That relieved all the pressure and then I could urinate.”

My obstetrician winced. “I don’t have any enemas—”

“That’s okay, I brought one,” I said, pulling the box out of my purse. (I was a Girl Scout.)

My doctor inserted the enema, I waited as long as possible, and then . . .

Did you know enemas do not always work?

Enemas do not always work.

“I was afraid this might happen,” my doctor said. “I wonder if you have MS.”

“Multiple sclerosis?” I yelped.

Was I dying? Would my baby be okay? Would Nathan have to be a single dad? And for the love of all things holy and sacred, could we please do something about the constipation before we sorted through the possible neurological underpinnings?

Not to worry: that was next.

“Since the enema did not work, I’m afraid I will have to manually extract the excrement.

I turned onto my right side, and the doctor lifted my paper gown. When she put her gloved hand up my rectum, it hurt, but the humiliation was far worse than the pain.

As the room filled with the smell of my poop, the doctor said, “I’m a little concerned. You say you can’t have a bowel movement, but your feces is actually quite soft. Based on your description, it should be hard.”

To my ears, it sounded as if the doctor did not believe me. She was probably just puzzled, but in my already humiliated state, I assumed she thought the constipation was a figment of my imagination.

Tears filled my eyes. I had tried to poop. Believe me, I had tried. Pregnancy hormones do crazy things. They make women weep, drool, fart, and even eat dirt. In my case, the hormones had made the business of bowel movements a little more difficult. Still, I blamed myself.

“I’d like you to see a gastroenterologist to rule out something more serious.”

Lovely. My obstetrician seemed to share my view that I was either a hypochondriac or dying of an obscure illness.

A month later, a gastroenterologist assured me the constipation was just a pregnancy symptom. “It’s severe but still on the normal spectrum.”

“So it’s not MS?”

“No, you don’t have MS.”

Relief flooded my body.

“You will most likely experience more constipation and hemorrhoids after childbirth.”

And there went the sense of relief.

“Is there anything I can do to prevent that?”

“I’m going to give you a list of things you can do while you are pregnant, but constipation after pregnancy is inevitable.”

Oh good, I thought as I left the office. Another opportunity for me to be utterly humiliated and act like a pathetic hypochondriac.

***

I thumbed through the third-trimester pages, noting topics of interest.

“Braxton Hicks contractions, that sounds sci-fi . . . oh, vaginal discharge, lovely . . . frequent urination. Even more frequent than it already is? Well isn’t that exciting.”

There was an entire chapter devoted to breastfeeding. I had already bought several books about the lactation arts and registered for a breastfeeding class but made a note to read the chapter with a highlighter and pen. There were also several chapters devoted to labor and delivery. Those would require meticulous study.

My hand flew to my stomach. Pippa had started kicking. Even though my uterus registered every thump, it was still cool to feel the force of her foot banging against my fingers.

We had picked her name weeks before her first kick, a few days after the expensive blood test revealed we were having a girl. It was a Saturday in early September, and Nathan was watching college football while I flipped through some baby name books. After a couple hours of entertaining various names, we agreed that “Pippa” sounded right.

I frowned from my spot on the couch. “So do we have to name her ‘Philippa’?”

“Of course not. That was holding!” Nathan turned back to me. “We will just name her Pippa.”

“I like that. But since ‘Pippa’ is quirky, let’s give her a solid middle name, like Ann.”

Nathan paused the game. “You know I love the name ‘Ann.’”

“But it has to be ‘Anne’ with an E.”

We had not told anyone else, but ever since that Saturday, our baby’s name was Pippa Anne Novak. Of course, we said we were open to other names. We still had over two trimesters to discuss, but there never were any other contenders. Now, with just one trimester to go, she was most definitely Pippa Anne.

Pippa was still kicking. “Are you going to be a soccer player? Or a dancer? I’m so excited to see who you want to be.”

I spent a lot of time these days lying in bed, surrounded by pillows, and reading pregnancy books. The law firm I had been working for from home had recently hired some new attorneys. My services were no longer needed. I was going to be a stay-at-home mom and was ready to be done with the law, so the timing could not have been better.

A little before Christmas, I had finished the first draft of my novel. My sister had read it and given me a ton of ideas to make it better, and I had created an extensive checklist of revisions I wanted to make. Those, however, would have to wait until after the baby arrived. Revisions and nausea do not mix. But hey, at least newborns nap a lot. There would be time enough for writing once Pippa was here.

“Meconium? Poop that’s like tar? Gross. We’ll just let Daddy change those first diapers, okay?”

Pippa kicked. We were already coconspirators.

I flipped through the chapters about the first weeks with a newborn.

“Oh, here’s some ideas for the registry. I don’t think we need a diaper bag, do you? No, they are too frumpy. What about a baby carrier? Would you like me to carry you in a sling?”

Pippa stopped kicking. She was saving her strength for the midnight hour.

“The baby blues . . .” I skimmed a few paragraphs. “Pippa, this says 80 percent of new moms get the baby blues. Well, that is not going to happen to Mommy. You’ll see, Mommy hardly ever cries. I’ll be so happy to finally have you here in my arms, I won’t have time to be sad.”

I turned the page. A heading in bold immediately grabbed my attention: “Postpartum Depression.”

For a moment, it seemed as if someone had hit the pause button on the universe. I stopped breathing, and everything became very, very quiet. I can’t explain why or how, but it was almost as if some part of me knew what was going to happen after Pippa was born.

I started to read—“extreme sadness, low energy, crying episodes”—but quickly turned to the next page. Sitting on my bed, twenty-eight weeks pregnant and reading up on the postpartum period, I was not about to pay attention to irrational premonitions or put any silly ideas into my head. It was bad enough that I had to worry about postpartum constipation. My inner hypochondriac would have a field day if I knew the symptoms for postpartum depression.

***

“How are you doing?” The obstetrician had just arrived to check on my progress.

“The contractions just started hurting again. I need the anesthesiologist to give me another refresher.”

I was in a private labor and delivery room at the hospital. The room was larger than any room at our house and had dark wood paneling on the walls. It felt more like a nice hotel room than a room for giving birth.

Nathan and I had been in this room, sleeping and watching movies, for the past eighteen hours. My water had broken the night before, a little after 11 p.m. I had been asleep and woke up to use the bathroom. After I finished peeing, a trickle of water kept coming out of me. My due date was eleven days away, so my first thought was that I had broken my bladder. It took me a minute to realize what had happened, and when I did, excited adrenalin flooded my body.
I would have run to wake Nathan if I had been capable of anything more than a waddle. He was out of bed before I could finish the sentence, “I think my water broke.”

My contractions had not yet started, but my obstetrician told me to head straight to the hospital. This did not surprise me. At the beginning of the pregnancy, I had tested positive for Group B Strep Infection, a bacteria that tons of healthy women have in their digestive tract. The bacteria can occasionally make a newborn sick, so my doctor had warned me multiple times that I would need to take antibiotics intravenously as soon as my water broke.

On our way to the hospital, Nathan played Europe’s The Final Countdown on his phone. Our baby was coming!

Before I was admitted to the labor and delivery ward, the nurses had to confirm that I was actually in labor. I had a queasy feeling I was going to be sent home with an admonition to stop pissing myself. A nurse, though, tested the liquid coming out of me and confirmed it was amniotic fluid. She hooked me up to a machine and said I was in fact having regular contractions. Every time the machine registered a contraction, more liquid whooshed out of me. Still, I felt nothing.

I was a goddess. Contractions could not hurt me!

Ten hours later, the contractions were so bad, I wanted to die. My sister called. We had talked several times since my water broke. During the first several calls, I sounded cheerful and upbeat. About ten hours into labor, though, I sounded as if I had been possessed by a demon.

At least, so my sister says. I myself have no memory of that conversation.

All I remember from that stage of labor was the delivery nurse’s suggestion I wait a little longer for an epidural. I was only four centimeters dilated, and she thought I should wait until I was at least five centimeters. My obstetrician, however, had told me to get the epidural as soon as I wanted. I was not going to be a hero and wait for the five centimeter mark. The anesthesiologist had applauded my aversion to pain as he administered the epidural.

Now it was 9 p.m. Approximately twenty-two hours had passed since my water broke, the pain was back, and I wanted it to go away. My obstetrician, though, thought otherwise.

“You are ten centimeters dilated.” She was standing at the head of my hospital bed. “It is time to push. It will be a lot easier if you can feel the contractions.”

“But I want another epidural.”

“Honey,” the nurse said, “you will be able to push better if you can feel the contractions.”
I looked at my doctor. “So it’s better to feel the pain?”

“I think so.”

“Okay.”

And that is how I, a woman fully committed to having an epidural, entered the final stage of labor sans pain medication.

You can continue reading Chapter Six but you know, you deserve the book. Adventures With Postpartum Depression is available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor, Borrow Box and Overdrive. That’s right, Overdrive! Tell your friendly librarian to hook you up.