Depression or PTSD?

September 5, 2011

Now that things are slowing down and Wyatt is stable, it's all catching up to me. It’s been three months of nonstop high stress and I’ve done my share of busy work. I’ve done research, filled out endless paperwork, fought with doctors, played phone tag, etc. And now there’s nothing left for me to do. Wyatt is stable enough to come home but all we can do is wait for the private home nursing approval. It is torture and I think I’m losing my mind. Wyatt was supposed to be discharged last week but that didn’t happen. So now we’re on to another week. With today being a holiday, it’s questionable whether it will happen this week either though. It’s like a nightmare in which you keep running toward that exit sign but for some reason you’re just running in place, getting more and more tired, and you’ll never reach that exit.

When last Friday finished with yet another disappointment of not hearing anything back, something inside me snapped. I broke down. I couldn’t take it anymore. I went into our bathroom at home and lost it. Wyatt was born at home, a perfect water birth in our bath tub - until he just couldn’t breathe and was rushed to the hospital. He was supposed to finally come back home this week. Instead I had to go get our forth monthly parking pass for the hospital. Getting yet another parking pass put me over the edge.  I literally climbed into our bath tub fully dressed, curled up in the fetal position and couldn’t stop crying. It must have scared the crap out of my husband when he came home from work and found me like that. I had no explanation as to why I was in the tub, except that’s where Wyatt was born and then he was taken away from me. Despite my husband trying his best to get me to calm down, I couldn’t even look at him, much less talk to him. I wanted to scream but couldn’t. I just wanted to be left alone and disappear. I actually held my ears closed so I couldn’t hear my husband trying to talk to me. In my head I blamed myself for being selfish for wanting a fourth child and therefore it’s my fault that everyone in this family now has to go through this hell. The pain was so overwhelming and I was desperately looking for a way to let it all out. I couldn’t stand being around myself… It’s Monday now and I can’t explain what happened to me that day. It scares me to even think about it. I know it’s normal to have good days and bad days but my bad days seem to happen more frequently. I get depressed more often now and it's hard to come out of it. My mind is always in the hospital. I can't even enjoy spending time with my other kids. Ironically, I don’t even want to go to the hospital anymore though to see Wyatt but I feel guilty when I’m not at the hospital. When I do finally convince myself to go, I get more depressed every time I see Wyatt because he’s not home yet and someone else is taking care of him.  At this point, I’m just the daily pumping station and milk delivery and even that is not going so well anymore. I’m not sure how much good I’m doing anyone by now. My body is exhausted. I’ve been getting dizzy and nauseous every day for the last week or so and no matter how much I sleep, I can't catch up because I keep waking up several times a night dreaming about things at the hospital. I have a headache every day, all my muscles and joints hurt, and eating has become just a necessity and often gets skipped altogether. To get my mind of things, my husband took me away to an amusement park yesterday (just the two of us) and I was miserable. Half the time I felt like I was going to pass out. I really tried to have a good time but I’m just so mentally and physically drained, my whole body hurts. I really feel like I’m going insane. I can't get out of my own head. Most days I just want to hide from the world, from myself. Just let me disappear. What good can I do anyone if I’m a basket case? I keep being told that I’m grieving the loss of a normal child. The thing is though, I don’t even feel like I had a child. More often now than ever before I look at Wyatt and he sometimes just seems like someone else’s baby in the NICU. Social work keeps saying to spend as much time with Wyatt as possible and do all his hands on care to reinforce that bond. And I do see him every day and do all his care when I’m there but that’s still only a couple hours a day when you have three other kids at home and it’s an hour car ride each way. It has not helped in forming a bond. I get frustrated trying to calm Wyatt down when he’s tired or cranky because I can’t find the words to just talk to him. I don’t know what to say to him. This feeling of detachment is supposed to get better when he comes home. But when is that going to be? How much will I have missed out on by then? Every day that passes is a day we can’t get back. He’s already three months old and his primary nurse knows him better than I do.