Postpartum Depression No One Warned Me About

The Darkest Sadness I've Ever Felt, and Nobody Warned Me It Could Feel Like This

What postpartum depression feels like from the inside, even for a labor and delivery nurse. If you’ve been following my journey, you know my story. The losses. The fertility treatments. The IVF and finally, our baby girl. She’s here. She’s healthy. She’s three years old and running my whole entire life. I am so grateful. But I need to share what happened after she arrived. No discharge paper, prenatal class, or well-meaning family member prepared me for what came next. And I was a labor and delivery nurse. I knew the signs. I had seen it all. Yet, I didn’t recognize it when it happened to me.

The pregnancy they don’t tell you about either

My pregnancy was mostly uneventful, until it wasn’t. The first trimester kicked my behind. If you know, you know. I was exhausted beyond belief. Food aversions. A sadness I couldn’t fully name. And a constant low hum of anxiety from past losses. You know that feeling, the hypervigilance that starts with a positive test and lasts until viability, or longer. You just wait for something to go wrong because it has before. Around 16 weeks, things settled down. I started feeling more like myself. I had energy again. The nausea eased. I exhaled. Then, at 35 to 36 weeks, my eyes tried to take me out. I have Lattice Degeneration, small holes form in the retina. I was diagnosed at 31. I’d been stable for a while, going for annual check-ups. I even thought about skipping my appointment. Waiting until after the baby came seemed easier. Thank God I didn’t. At the appointment, my doctor said I was starting to have retinal detachment in both eyes. I needed surgery, like, now. I remember asking, very calmly, even though I was unraveling inside, I’m 36 weeks pregnant. Can you do surgery? She hadn’t noticed I was pregnant. Once she did, she pivoted: extensive laser treatment instead. They would burn the edges of the holes to prevent further peeling of the retina. It was painful and changed my birth plan completely. I had wanted a vaginal delivery. But with fresh laser burns on my retinas, my doctor mentioned my baby was measuring larger. I thought, I can’t push and risk losing my sight just to say I delivered vaginally. I’ll take the C-section. It went smoothly. She was here, and we were both healthy. Then, immediately, everything went dark.

What nobody tells you about the days after

Not dark like the lights went out. Dark like the heaviest, most suffocating sadness hit me the moment my daughter arrived. She was healthy. I was okay. I loved her so much it took my breath away. Yet, I cried every day. We were still in the pandemic’s aftermath, and only one other support person was allowed in the hospital. My mom and husband. The hospital didn’t have a proper bed for my tall husband, so he folded into a chair. My daughter hated the bassinet. I was terrified to let my husband hold her while he was exhausted. I wasn’t sleeping right. When my mom left for the night, I felt waves of panic wash over me. By day three, I was telling the doctor I needed to go home. My insurance covered four days, but I didn’t care. I needed my village. We were discharged on Sunday. She was born on Friday. When we pulled up to our house, I broke down. Full, heaving, crying. Not happy tears. Pure, raw terror. I don’t know if I can do this. I kept going through the motions because I had no choice. I took care of her. I tracked feedings and stayed up through the night. But by three or four o’clock in the afternoon each day, dread settled over me like fog. I asked the women in my family if this was normal. They tried to encourage me. You’re tired, Ciara. It’s hard. You’ll find your footing. My mom was there every day. My aunt and her kids helped us settle in. We had a great village. And I was still drowning.

The doctor who saw me

Around two weeks postpartum, I went back to see my OB/GYN to check my C-section incision. I broke down in her office. I can’t. I’m just so tired. I cry all the time. Is this normal? Am I cut out for this? She was a Black woman. She looked at me, listened, and didn’t brush it off. She sat with me. She suggested I consider medication. Then she said something I’ll carry with me: You have to be okay so that your daughter can be okay. If Mom isn’t stable, you can’t raise a stable child. I knew the stigma. I had my own struggles with depression and anxiety. I managed it with therapy. But I had also watched Black women minimize their pain and leave appointments without help. Now, I was doing the same to myself. She didn’t push medication right away. She said to come back in two weeks. If I still felt this way a month postpartum, we’d have a serious talk. I went home. I kept functioning. I kept showing up for my daughter. But in those last few days before the follow-up, I had a thought I hadn’t shared: I could just leave. Not harm myself, just disappear. My daughter would be safe. My husband would be fine. Our families would step in. But I couldn’t be what any of them needed. What was the point of me being there? That’s when I knew. This wasn’t the baby blues. At the appointment, I told her, I’ll take the medication. She prescribed an antidepressant, one of the safer options for breastfeeding moms. She said it would take a few weeks to work, but to give it a chance. A few weeks later, I could think again. The fog lifted. I felt joy. I could be present. My little bestie is three now. I still take that medication. I’ll tell anyone who asks what it means for my life.

What we need to say out loud

If you’re a provider reading this, here’s what I want you to know: that doctor saved me. Not just from postpartum depression but from the silence and shame that almost kept me from getting help. She saw me as a whole person. She followed up. She created enough safety in that room that I could fall apart without being afraid. She understood the stigma Black women face, the fear of being seen as incompetent or dramatic. That is what good care looks like. Not heroics. Just someone seeing the person in front of them. I was a labor and delivery nurse. I knew postpartum depression existed. I had cared for women with it. Yet, I didn’t recognize it in myself. I couldn’t name it or reach for help until someone reached back. That’s not a flaw. It’s what happens when we tell women, especially Black women, that hard feelings are normal, that tiredness is part of motherhood, that we’ll figure it out. We must stop telling women to figure it out.

That’s my story. Four posts in, you see the full picture: where I came from, what I lost, what it took to bring my daughter here, and what happened in those first raw weeks of motherhood. This is why Her Black Wellness exists. This is why I built The Matriarchs’ Table: I needed women around me who’d been through it. I needed to know what postpartum depression really felt like before I was alone at 3 AM, wondering if my family would be better off without me.

Going forward, we’ll discuss maternal health, Black maternal health, healthcare bias, advocacy, and a bit of motherhood because my life and work are intertwined. I’ll be here one to two times a week, sharing both sides, as a nurse and a patient. I’m glad you’re here. I hope you stay.

Until next time, you are the best thing.

— Ciara Lyons, MSN, RN, PHN, Founder, Her Black Wellness | Bias Rounds | The Matriarchs’ Table