Dealing with Postpartum Nerve Damage and Depression During the Pandemic

Welcome Home

We made it home from the hospital a couple days after I gave birth. My leg was still numb, and I walked with a limp. The anesthesiologist called to check in when I got home like he promised. The doctors seemed to think the nerve damage was caused by the prolonged positioning of my leg during labor or the manual manipulation the OB needed to give my sacrum to get the baby out.

The first time I used the toilet at home, I faced the cruel realization that the hospital grab bars were what allowed me to stand up on my own while I was there. My husband had to help me off from the toilet, because my quad was not strong enough to lift me. I wasn’t able to carry my own baby because I was afraid I would fall while holding him. The first couple of nights the baby slept in a co-sleeper basinet next to my husband, because he was the one who had to carry him to change his diaper before bringing him over to me to be fed. in the middle of the night. I felt a disconnect from motherhood. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

I Get Knocked Down, but I Get Up Again

As the weeks went on, my numbness and weakness in my leg improved, and I started to be able to stand with more ease. Along with the nerve damage, I had lingering pelvic and sacral pain from the birth process. This was just one more thing that added to the struggle. The first week of having a newborn was exhausting with waking every 30 minutes to an hour during the night, cluster feeds, and the consistent crying. He would vomit everywhere after every feed. Naps weren’t any better during the day. Shawn found that doing squats and lunges, while holding him would calm him down. It would even sometimes put him to sleep. Meanwhile, I was starting to attempt to stand up from the couch holding a small dumb bell before having to stand with a live baby.

As I gained more confidence holding and walking around with him, I thought things would be easier. During one of the baby’s short naps, I went down to the basement to get the baby carrier. Maybe baby wearing would be my best option to extend his 20–30-minute naps. One my way up the stairs, I went to lead with the weak leg. It immediately buckled and down I went scraping my shin and bruising my ego. I felt so stupid being a physical therapist who had taught stair training to those with weakness so many times. How did I become a fall risk? Oh, the carrier didn’t help either. Nolan hated being worn.

Pandemic Loneliness

The first two weeks that we returned home from the hospital, we didn’t leave the house once. I had a couple coworkers drop off meals and we waved from behind the glass. Facetime and social media were the only ways our family and friends saw Nolan for the first month or two of his life. It became very lonely.

I still felt like I was getting to know my baby. He felt like a stranger, despite the love that I had for him. There was guilt and jealousy I had for other moms who felt this immediate connection at birth. I felt like something was wrong with me. My home started feeling like a trap. It was the same thing day after day after day. Eat, play, sleep. The walls of the house started to feel like they were closing in. He would feed for 30 minutes, sit in his infant lounger for 15 minutes to keep him in the upright position surrounded by burp clothes and bibs (his PPE), lay on his play mat for a little bit (usually spitting up on it), and then it was the daunting task of putting him down for a nap.

We had to start bouncing him on a ball to get him to fall to sleep. I still had so much pelvic and sacral pain from giving birth. Things would have been so much easier if I had my old body back. I had taken a newborn sleep course and read books telling me to put him down “drowsy but awake”. This did not work for my child. I had to put him down completely asleep, placing him in his bassinet like a stick of dynamite. Even then, he would wake up after 20 minutes.

Trying to go outside to escape the walls of the house seemed like a good idea. However, when taking him for a walk in the stroller, I could only go so far before the pain in my pelvis started. He also didn’t always tolerate the stroller for long before starting to cry. Back to the house we would go.

Physical Therapist Seeking Physical Therapy

After about 8 weeks with ongoing pain, I started to look into pelvic floor physical therapy. I didn’t really feel comfortable going to my coworker for this matter, so started looking into other clinics. The closest one I could find with this specialty was an hour away.

After a lot of research, I started to come up with the excuses of why this wasn’t feasible. There was no way I could bring Nolan with me without him screaming the entire time, yet I didn’t want to figure out the feeding schedule for him to stay home. He would have to be given a bottle at home and I would have to pump in the car at the clinic, which seemed overwhelming at the time. Shawn would have to take time off from work to watch Nolan, which really wasn’t a big deal. It just all seemed like a hassle to me, so I continued to just live with the pain. It had to get better eventually, right?

Seeking Help

The isolation, lack of sleep, constant pain, ongoing weakness and chronically fussy baby was starting to get to me mentally. I started to wonder what I got myself into. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a mom. Maybe I wasn’t mentally strong enough.

Crying became a constant daily occurrence. Shawn started to question if I resented my baby, because of how my birth recovery went. The suggestion gutted me. Maybe he was right. “What is wrong with me?” I asked myself every day. At my 8-week postpartum visit, the medical assistant gave me the postpartum depression screen. I was borderline, so the midwife asked if I wanted to talk to someone or if I felt like I needed to go back on antidepressants. I had been on them in the past for depression and anxiety, but I didn’t feel like it was at that point. Talking to a professional was something I thought might be helpful though.

I was scheduled with the clinical social worker that specialized in postpartum. Due to the pandemic, she was only doing phone call sessions. I hate talking on the phone, but this was my only option, and something needed to be done. The therapy sessions were helpful. She helped me to sort through the birth trauma that I experienced. She suggested books for me to understand my baby’s development. It helped to know that I wasn’t alone, despite the desolation of becoming a new mom during a pandemic.

I only had a couple of sessions with the therapist before I had to go back to work. Her schedule wasn’t conducive to my work schedule. Phone call therapy sessions would have been awkward in our shared office space, so I opted out of continuing with the counselling sessions. I was starting to feel better anyway. My bond with Nolan continued to grow to a deep love. He became my heart and soul.

Healing Through Yoga

After my 8-week appointment, I was given the green light to start exercising again. This was such a huge part of my life prior to giving birth and I was excited to get back into it. I started with a Barre workout program, followed by aerobic training and running. It felt great to workout again. The leg weakness was improving all the time, but I still had pelvic pain.

When I was about 5-6 months postpartum, I started to do more yoga and meditation. This is when further healing started to happen. The combination of core strengthening and stretching was just what my body needed. It took 6 months, but my pelvic pain was finally starting to subside. The meditation before going to work each day helped to ease my mind and my anxieties.

When Are You Going to Have Another Kid?

Often people would ask if we were going to have another kid. This immediately made me cringe. I didn’t want to even think about going through it all again. Birth podcasts that I loved listening to while pregnant were off limits for months after my birth. Listening to other birth stories were triggering and the ones that went better than mine made me jealous and angry.

Total healing and relief from the physical damage of giving birth took about 8 months, but I continue to process and heal from the emotional trauma each day. Everyone has different experiences that they find to be traumatic. It has been two years now. I’ve been starting to process it more and even have started to listen to birth podcasts again. Writing about all of this in my blog has been therapeutic for me and allows me the space to feel like MAYBE someday I can become a mom again.