Ashley Healy
“The wind can blow, and I can experience a chill. Then it goes away quickly, and it doesn't affect the rest of my day, and doesn't affect my family, and it doesn’t affect anything else. But when you live through something, it’s a lived experience that continues over time, and you overcome it. I do think that the “survivor” word encapsulates that.”
Ashley is a New Jersey native who lives in the Boston suburbs with her husband and three children. She is a trial lawyer by training and now serves as the Coordinator of the Ellen Story Commission on Postpartum Depression.
This blog is made possible by a sponsorship from Sage Therapeutics. All content on this page has been curated by the Mass. PPD Fund without input from Sage Therapeutics, Inc.
January 2022 | Interviewed and edited by Jessie Colbert, Executive Director, Mass PPD Fund
Did you have expectations about bringing home a new baby? What did you think it would be like? What were your hopes and fears?
I always knew that I wanted kids, my whole life. My husband and I actually struggled a little bit to conceive our first child. We had had a loss, and it took us another year to get pregnant again. [When we did] we were extremely excited. I loved being pregnant. I felt really connected to the baby. So, I honestly had no real fears. I guess I stressed about making sure the nursery was ready, making sure I got everything on my registry, and all that stuff. I knew that for a little while I would not be sleeping much. But that was the most I really thought about it.
I didn't expect to have any emotional or mental health struggles because I had no history of [that], and because I did feel so good during the pregnancy. In my mind, that meant I wouldn't have any problems when the baby was born. I didn't consider myself at risk.
I’d heard of postpartum depression but I didn’t really understand what it was. I thought it meant that you wanted to harm your baby. And I didn’t think that would ever be me, because I wanted to be a mom so badly. And I knew I would love my baby. It felt very straightforward to me – that feeling I had throughout the pregnancy would just continue once I had my baby at home.
Oftentimes when a baby is born, parents have plenty of support for the baby, but not a lot of support for themselves. Did you feel like you had people looking out for you?
No. And frankly, in hindsight, I’m a little surprised thinking back on how there was really very little guidance in my prenatal care [about it]. I didn’t feel that I needed to do anything other than what I was doing, which was preparing to take care of the baby – making sure you have a safe place for the baby to sleep, you know, and whatever diapers and clothes you need. I guess I didn't think about it as much as I probably should have.
Tell me about your journey with mental health challenges around your new baby. When did you realize something was “not right”? What turned things around for you?
I think it really started [at the birth]. At my 40-week appointment, my blood pressure was slightly elevated. In hindsight I feel the OB was really kind of pushing me to have an induction. He was like, “You’re full term. You’re 40 weeks. You could wait a little longer, but you’re going to have to come in every day to get your blood pressure checked. You don’t really want to do that.” And I was trying to get a sense of whether it was really medically necessary, and he wouldn’t say. I wish I had pushed back. But I really didn’t know, as a first-time mom. And he kind of made is sound like, “Let’s have a baby!” So, I was like, yeah, let’s have my baby.
That was on a Tuesday, and my son wasn’t born until Thursday morning. They started with Cervidil overnight, and Wednesday morning I started Pitocin. They wouldn’t let me eat or drink because I think they thought I was going to have a C-section. They were kind of anticipating it. So, by the time my son was born I basically hadn’t slept or eaten for about three days. I was just very, very, very exhausted. I ended up pushing for about five hours. I felt pressured to push – I didn’t feel any urge to push. He was born at 8:16 in the morning with the vacuum. It was very, very long and very difficult.
After he was born, I was completely in a daze and I [only] sort of remember it. I remember people coming in, and everybody's sort of crowding around the baby and I'm just laying there. I took my son and we took a picture, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. But I didn’t feel anything. I thought I’d be really joyful, but I was just exhausted. When my husband’s parents came and they [went to the nursery] to meet our son, the nurses came to check on me. I think there must have been a lot of blood because all of a sudden everybody rushed in. My poor husband heard me screaming from down the hall and ran into the room. We had no idea what was happening. I guess I was hemorrhaging. They were able to stop it.
But then they were like, you have to stay in bed, and you still can’t eat because you might need surgery. And then they brought in the hospital-grade pump, saying, your body has been through so much that your milk’s going to be delayed coming in. I really, really wanted to breastfeed, so I started pumping that day. My baby couldn’t latch and I felt so deflated. [Later] I went [to the bathroom with the nurse] and ended up losing really big blood clots. I was safe by then, but my body was not okay.
Friday night, I was crying, asking my husband, “How can we go home tomorrow?” [The nurses have done everything] so I don't even know how to take care of myself. We got home on Saturday. I couldn't even sit down, I was in so much pain. My little guy would not be put down, which is normal. But to me, it was like, oh my God, I can't. I’m not going to be able to sleep. It was so scary. My husband went back to work on Tuesday, literally three days after we got home from the hospital. Every day when he left I would start to feel this crippling fear and panic. This was January and it was so dark and cold. And it was that year that we had, like, 100 inches of snow. I couldn't even go outside, I couldn’t even walk down the street [because of the snow and the recovery]. It was one of the darkest times in my life.
And I had no idea that it was postpartum depression. I thought it was just baby blues – that’s something I had been told about. But it was despair and fear. And it was just really awful. And I never really understood what it was.
I started feeling better when my son was about seven weeks old, right around the time he started smiling. Honestly, before that I felt no connection to him at all. I resented my husband [and everyone who came to see the baby] because they seemed so enamored with him, and I was the one who had to take care of him. I felt like my son didn’t like me. I remember saying that to one of my friends.
Ashley found out a year-and-a-half later from reading her medical chart that her OB had diagnosed her with postpartum depression at her six-week check-up, but had not told her.
She also shared the story of her second birth, with her daughter. The pregnancy was easy, she felt more empowered during the birth, and her husband got a month of parental leave. She went back to the new moms’ group she attended after her first birth. She did not experience postpartum depression.
Ashley’s third birth involved a rare medical issue and surgery at 30 weeks. She did experience postpartum depression, but it came later, lasted longer, and presented differently, as postpartum rage. She was only diagnosed after advocating with her OB, and felt she should have been flagged because of the difficult pregnancy and previous experience of postpartum depression. She got better with the help of the moms’ group and an SSRI.
Looking back, what do you wish you had known? What do you wish had gone differently? How can we do better in general to prevent experiences like yours?
We know that in the U.S. there’s a really high rate of inductions and C-Sections. I wish that I had been able to make a more informed medical choice [about mine]. I wish I had let my body be ready to have the baby. I wish I had known to stand up for myself a little more. It's not good for mothers or babies to be pressuring people [to give birth when] it’s not medically necessary.
I also wish more communities had new moms’ groups like the one I had. It’s called First Connections and its absolutely incredible. I met some of my closet friends in my life through that. We talk every day, and we can talk to each other about things we don’t talk to anybody else about – just because when you’ve been through something so deep and personal it’s a different kind of friendship. [The group is] just another line of defense. It’s people that really know their stuff and can offer that social support. And for me, that was the biggest thing – making friends and being like, okay, actually it isn't just me.
Also, just generally, there should be a more prenatal preparation for birthing people and their partners. The people that are going to be supporting the baby and the new mom need to be aware of what to look for. And moms need to know and not feel ashamed. Prenatal providers could have a lot to do with that. They’re doctors, they can keep their role, but they can connect you [and] they’re perfectly positioned to do that. I’m also a strong believer that there should be someone to come to the home to check on the mother and the baby. And the pediatrician should screen because it can affect kids’ development and, you know, it can affect the family, and then that affects the community and it all spills over. It is really important.
Do you identify as a “survivor”?
Yeah, for me that’s the best way to describe it. I think just saying, “Oh, I’ve experienced it,” doesn’t quite capture the depth of the experience. The wind can blow, and I can experience a chill. Then it goes away quickly, and it doesn't affect the rest of my day, and doesn't affect my family, and it doesn’t affect anything else. But when you live through something, it’s a lived experience that continues over time, and you overcome it. I do think that the “survivor” word encapsulates that.