What no one tells you is that sometimes you end up sitting on the bathroom floor at three in the afternoon because the baby has cried for twenty minutes, your breasts ache, your stitches burn, and you cannot remember whether you brushed your teeth that morning or the previous day.
No one explains that postpartum depression does not always feel like sadness. Sometimes it feels like static or rage. Like being trapped inside a body that no longer belongs to you while everyone insists you should feel grateful.
That was the hardest part.
I loved my son so much that it frightened me.
I loved him with a desperate intensity that made me check his chest while he slept because I could barely believe something so tiny and perfect had been handed to two exhausted adults and sent home with them.
But I was drowning too.
My husband, Ethan, and I had promised to be honest with each other about how difficult things became.
Before the birth, we had discussed postpartum depression because we wanted to prepare for both the good and the bad. We made plans, lists, and backup plans for those plans.
