Everyone says that. They say things like, « The first few weeks are a blur, » and, « Sleep when the baby sleeps, » and, « It gets better. »
Nobody tells you that sometimes you sit on the bathroom floor at three in the afternoon because the baby cried for 20 minutes, your breasts hurt, your stitches burn, and you cannot remember whether you brushed your teeth that morning or the day before.
Nobody tells you that postpartum depression does not always feel like sadness. Sometimes it feels like static, like rage. Like being trapped inside a body that has stopped belonging to you while the whole world keeps insisting you should be grateful.
I was grateful.
That was the worst part. I loved my son so much it scared me.
I loved him in this desperate, breathless way that made me check his chest while he slept because I could not quite believe something so tiny and perfect had been handed to two exhausted adults and sent home.
But I was also drowning.
My husband, Ethan, and I had promised each other we would be honest about how hard it got.
