Waiting for Wings: A Woman's Metamorphosis Through Cancer Book

I checked this book out of the library like six weeks ago, when we first brought ramona home from the hospital & i was really struggling with how i felt about everything. i thought i might be sinking into partpartum depression, & the fact that i knew about it & had the wherewithal to go to the library & look for resources that could help me before things got out of hand is a testament to how much things have changed since the women in this book struggled with their post-baby depression experiences. a lot of them say things like, "we do well baby checks. well, they should do well mommy checks where women are screened for PPD symptoms before they leave the hospital & every appointment after that. there should be posters on the walls of OB offices listing depression warning symptoms."

i was screened like crazy for post-partum depression, though things were complicated by the difficult circumstances of my delivery & the fact that my baby was in the NICU. one of the red flags for PPD is, "are you unreasonably concerned about your baby's health?" when your baby is in the NICU, it's kind of hard to know what kind of concern is "unreasonable," you know? i was asked if i cried a lot. of course is did...but again, my baby was in the hospital. how much of the crying was in response to out of control hormones & a spiral into depression, & how much of it was a perfectly logical response to a really shitty situation?

anyway, my point is that obviously awareness of post-partum depression has changed pretty rapidly, thanks in part to books like this, i am sure. by the time i finally scrounged up the time to read it, i was pretty over my issues, but it was still interesting & useful to read it. poulin breaks the interviees experiences down into 18 categories, including moms of multiples, women who are angry at their husbands, women with breastfeeding problems, women who had PPD with every baby, & women who experiences postpartum psychosis. some of the stuff in the book could potentially be scary to a woman experiencing these symptoms, & there are far more references to god, the bible, jeses, etc than i was prepared for. i get that spirituality can help people through their worst moments, but there were no references to, say, allah or buddhist teachings. hmmm. but i did like that poulin made an effort to keep chapters short & easily digestible for moms without a lot of time for reading.