No two postpartum experiences look exactly alike. For some moms, the weeks after birth feel joyful and grounding. For others, they feel disorienting, lonely, overwhelming — or all of the above at once. And while every postpartum journey is different, hearing how other moms moved through it can make the hardest moments feel a little less isolating.
Here, three moms with different backgrounds and experiences share what postpartum depression (PPD) looked like for them, what support actually helped, and what they wish more moms knew.
Postpartum Is Hard. Full Stop.
Danielle, 37, has two kids, ages almost 5 and 15 months. Her first postpartum experience was the most intense. Her daughter arrived 11 days late and required a vacuum delivery after two and a half hours of pushing. “Everything was fine, there were no complications,” she recalls, “but I was extremely overwhelmed and sort of in shock.”
Relief came first, then something harder to name. “I did not feel immediately connected to the baby like they say you will, and I felt guilty about that. I experienced a level of anxiety I never had before. I easily cried. I was very overwhelmed by all of the conflicting advice. I felt trapped in my apartment by the summer heat and by her nap and feeding schedule.”
When she tried to articulate how she was feeling at her six-week postpartum appointment, her doctor’s response left her feeling worse, not better. “She did not make me feel like what I was feeling was normal. She did not offer any guidance that many women feel this way, that not everyone feels connected, and that doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. I left crying.”
Being the first among her friends and family to have a baby only intensified those feelings. “I felt incredibly alone and inadequate,” she says. “Why couldn’t I handle this? Why was I so weak? Everyone in the world does this — why was this so hard for me?”
Things improved around the seven- to nine-month mark, but the biggest shift came when she stopped breastfeeding. “That was the biggest noticeable change, and it made me realize how much I had been feeling probably had to do with hormones.”
Looking back, she wishes someone had normalized how hard postpartum can feel — especially when you don’t instantly bond with your baby or feel grateful every second of the experience. “I want to normalize that postpartum is just plain hard,” she says. “It’s okay not to like it, and it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you or that you shouldn’t be a mom.”
She Diagnosed PPD In Others — Then Missed It In Herself
Dr. Kibby McMahon, 40, is a clinical psychologist and mom to a three-year-old in New York City who has experienced PPD firsthand.
Before having her son, McMahon had worked as a therapist in the women’s clinic at New York Presbyterian Hospital, where she diagnosed and treated PPD. She knew the clinical criteria inside and out. And still, when it happened to her, she almost missed it. “I had no idea what feelings were normal versus not. Since it was my first child, it was so hard to tell PPD from just the experience of having a first baby all of the grief, the hormone changes, the lifestyle changes.”
Her labor was long and exhausting at 25 hours, and in the days after delivery her anxiety was through the roof. “I just felt like I was insane. I was also super euphoric, running on adrenaline — but also tweaked out.” It wasn’t until a trip to Asia disrupted everyone’s sleep that her therapist gently flagged what she was seeing. “She said, ‘You’re a lot darker and more pessimistic than usual.’ That alerted me that something was abnormal.”
With support from her therapist, couples therapist, and a psychiatrist specializing in postpartum care, McMahon gradually started feeling more like herself again. Now, she emphasizes how important it is for moms to have people around them who can recognize when they’re struggling.
“One of the best ways to protect yourself from PPD, according to research, is good social support,” she says. “Someone who can listen to you and say, ‘Hey, I think you’re struggling. You don’t sound like yourself.’”
For McMahon, part of healing also meant letting go of shame. “There is nothing to be ashamed about,” she says. “It doesn’t mean anything about your ability to be a mother or your love for your baby.”
A Little Support Went A Very Long Way
Megan, who lives in Florida, was pregnant with her second child during the second wave of Covid, with a two-year-old already at home. Her son arrived at 38 weeks after a stressful delivery involving a series of medical oversights. Then, shortly after giving birth, a hurricane warning forced her husband to leave the hospital to evacuate their home with their daughter.
“I remember just being really stressed,” she says. “Instead of having him next to me, I needed him [to be] taken care of by someone else because I was so stressed out.” Her son had colic for 16 weeks. Megan was barely sleeping and felt guilty about not being more present for her older child.
And like Danielle, she says the standard postpartum screening questions didn’t really capture what she was experiencing. “I never felt suicidal or like I was going to hurt myself or the baby. It was just more this feeling of sadness, exhaustion.”
What turned things around was moving closer to both sets of grandparents and hiring a babysitter for a few hours each day. “Even if I didn’t leave the house, it just gave me a moment to lay there in peace and feel like I could relax,” she says.
Now, she encourages moms not to wait until they’re completely overwhelmed to ask for help — whatever that help looks like. “Never be afraid of getting help — whether that’s from a babysitter, a neighbor, your family, or your partner,” she says. “Even a small amount can go a long way.”
What These Stories Reveal About Postpartum Support
Danielle needed reassurance that what she was feeling was normal. McMahon needed people who could recognize when she was struggling. Megan needed practical help just to get through the day.
Their experiences may have looked different, but one thing stayed the same: feeling supported changed everything. Whether that support came in the form of therapy, childcare, community, rest, or simply someone saying, You don’t sound like yourself, having the right kind of help made it easier to find solid ground again.
Presented by BDG Studios
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