Hey there. Welcome back to Fertility cafe. I’m your host Eloise Drane. Postpartum depression is unfortunately quite common in women. However, the way society, mental health professionals and medical professionals react to postpartum depression is vastly different for surrogates than mothers who birth their own children. In this episode will normalize postpartum depression, talk about the unique challenges surrogates faced with the condition and offer ideas and resources to help surrogates through this tough chapter.
Eloise Drane
First, let’s talk about what postpartum depression is. Some women experience what’s referred to as the baby blues soon after giving birth, the depression like symptoms of the baby blues are mild and usually dissipate within two weeks after delivery. However, postpartum depression is often severe and interferes with the woman’s ability to go about her normal daily functioning. According to a meta analysis study published by the NIH with the National Institute of Health. Postpartum Depression most commonly occurs within six weeks after childbirth, and occurs in about 6.5% to 20% of women. It occurs more commonly in adolescent females, mothers who deliver premature infants and women living in urban areas, African American and Hispanic mothers reported onset of symptoms within two weeks of delivery. Unlike Caucasian mothers, who reported onset of symptoms later on, as one study reports.
Eloise Drane
With up to one in five women experiencing postpartum depression, it’s quite a common occurrence. And naturally, surrogates are included in that statistic. As the founder of Family inceptions, a third party reproduction agency, I’ve seen a handful of surrogates experience postpartum depression. Luckily for us, we take the surrogates experience holistically to heart. And because I personally have been a surrogate myself, three times, I know firsthand what she is about to experience. And so knowing that, we wanted to ensure ahead of time that anybody that decided to become a surrogate and to work with us as an agency, that we have put things in place to try to help mitigate her from experiencing postpartum depression after delivery. But that’s not to say, though, that it doesn’t happen. We had a GC, let’s call her, Hannah, for anonymity purposes. She delivered a surrogacy pregnancy, was her first pregnancy. And she delivered a full term, healthy baby, no complications, she had an amazing relationship with her intended parents, actually, they would hang out with each other often, and they just really clicked so well and became friends, not just Hannah and her intended parents, but even Hannah, her husband, the intended parents, like everybody had a wonderful relationship.
Eloise Drane
And as I mentioned, the pregnancy was great. And then after delivery, though, Hannah just started feeling off, she reached out, well, actually, we reach out to every surrogate right after delivery. And then of course, you know, we are always in touch, post delivery, of course, and in reaching out to her, found out that she just could not get over the baby blues, or so we thought. When we spoke to her, we told her you know what, maybe it’s a good idea for you to call your OB and see if you know you need to go in and speak to them. And let’s go ahead and begin having you speak with more of a mental health professional, who can kind of guide you along the way. She ended up going to her OB who actually suggested she get on medication that could help her. And then she also started visiting with a mental health professional for a bit just to kind of get over the hump. And then she was finally able to get better and return back to normal life but it took a little bit it wasn’t something that happened overnight. And it was not anything that she was expecting to occur at all, it kind of, it took her by surprise really because she wasn’t expecting that she was going to feel anything else but just you know, excitement and joy of helping somebody else to bring this and she’s been wanting to do it for so long.
Eloise Drane
So she was able though to seek out the treatment and recognize that something was off and you know, really just decided like, Okay, I need to go and get help. We had another case in which we had another surrogate, and let’s call her Mary, who ended up having a pregnancy loss at 19 weeks, the pregnancy was going great the whole time. She had a great relationship with her intended parents, and went into her regular OB visit, it was just a regular scheduled appointment, and went in and there was no heartbeat. And everybody was in complete shock. I mean, she didn’t even believe it. She actually even told the stenographer at the doctor’s office like no, there, you guys are completely wrong, you’re wrong, and somebody else needs to come in. But sure enough, there was no heartbeat. And she obviously called the agency to inform us and clearly the intended parents knew as well as they were at the appointment. And she took it very, very hard, and it was a very difficult situation. And she was definitely diagnosed with postpartum depression. And it took her a very long time to feel better. Well over a year, actually, and rightfully so. Obviously, going through a loss of a pregnancy for anybody is going to put you sometimes in a spiral, and then to know that it was also a surrogacy pregnancy on top of that, it was even more difficult.
Eloise Drane
These type of experiences have left quite an impression. And there are a number of things I would recommend keeping in mind as you go through your own assisted reproduction or surrogacy journey. When you start down the journey of surrogacy, it’s a good idea to begin thinking about how you will feel when the end comes. Surrogacy is not for everybody. And it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. You know, like any pregnancy, your body is going to go through a lot. And it will be very normal for you to experience all kinds of emotions. Now add surrogacy into the mix. And you’re also carrying pun intended the hopes and dreams of someone else. It’s an enormous responsibility. And then when you’re done and baby is delivered, you will have varied emotions. And the thing is, though, you will be able to push through all the fields or will you need to seek more help. And it’s okay to need to seek more help. That’s just the thing about it.
Eloise Drane
One thing to do if you’re just now starting on your surrogacy journey, is to ask other surrogates of their experiences and how they feel or felt. There are a lot of surrogacy Facebook groups that you can join. And it’s also a good idea to begin developing a relationship with other women who are going through this maybe a mental health professional, maybe a case manager, a friend, someone you can share what you’re experiencing that actually understands and also know that it’s normal to feel anxious about the unknown during a surrogacy journey. You don’t know, you’re hoping that everything is going to go well, you’re hoping that you can get pregnant on the first attempt and then deliver a healthy, successful baby at the end. You’re hoping all of these things, but it’s called a journey for a reason. And surrogacy is definitely a journey. It doesn’t always take on the first attempt. It doesn’t always go smoothly as far as a pregnancy is concerned. It doesn’t always have rainbows and stars and all of the things that you hope for when you decide that you want to go down this route.
Eloise Drane
Now, what if you’re a surrogate currently, and you’re already having a feeling of dread for delivery? It’s a great idea to begin seeking assistance from a mental health professional from now. They can provide you with guidance and help you to prepare for the day and for the times after. It’s okay to seek help during the surrogacy journey. Matter of fact, it actually is encouraged to seek help while you’re going through a surrogacy journey. You cannot do surrogacy on your own. You can’t, it’s just not even possible. Not just for you know the help of with someone with your kids or the help around the house or whatever. You cannot do surrogacy on your own just on the emotional side just on your own. Trust me it is not possible. Being that I’ve gone through three journeys. Those three journeys also included seven rounds of IVF. And if you’re a surrogate, and you have to take progesterone injections, that can cause you to go into depression all on its own, and taking them shots is no easy feat. I used to get aches sometimes and having to give myself the shots because even though yes, my husband was home, he would see the needles and would pass out. So I had to figure it out. And I had to give it to myself.
Eloise Drane
And for me, I didn’t necessarily have postpartum depression after the delivery. But I would definitely get anxious to when I knew that it was time to take these progesterone injections like every single day, I would get this angst knowing that I had to take the shot. So what would I advise if you’re a GC, who recently gave birth and may be experiencing postpartum depression? Not that you’re starting and you know, considering it, well, let’s get to the end. And you are now at the end and like, what possibly can you do? Well, be sure to speak to your OB, and seek out assistance from a mental health professional, that is definitely the first thing that I would say, I would reach out to your agency if you had one and see if they can provide you with help. Definitely seek help. That is the biggest thing. You don’t need to go through it alone. And no, it’s okay to feel what you feel. You just brought a life into the world. And our bodies are set up to take care of that baby immediately after, it’s truly in our DNA makeup. When that’s not possible, it’s going to go through some things. Give yourself grace, postpartum is not exactly the same for everyone. Some people may feel sadness or loss, some may be irritable, have trouble sleeping, or poor communication. Whatever it is, it’s okay to seek out treatment. If you watch any kind of TV nowadays, all you’re seeing as far as commercials is about your mental health and different places for you to go seek out treatment and so on and so forth. This is no different. Go seek out help. It is definitely okay.
Eloise Drane
I also wanted to give some guidance to intended parents who have completed their journey with their surrogate. And I would tell you that it is actually a great idea to check on your surrogate post delivery. I know you’re busy at home with a newborn, but even a quick text telling her you’re thinking about her or giving her an update on the baby goes a long way. You know often sometimes surrogates establish such a bond with the parents during the pregnancy, you’ve communicated all the time during the pregnancy. And now it’s over and sometimes it feels like a huge loss of a friendship as well. I know for me personally, I did have a sense of loss after each one of my journeys. I think mine was more upfront as far as the angst moreso than at the end. But at the end, my feeling was the loss of the relationship that I had built with my intended parents more so than the loss of a child. Because we were in constant communication with each other all the time it was texting, it was phone calls, we would meet up after they attended the appointments, we would, you know, have lunch after the appointments, my intended parents actually came to my house and would have dinners and one of my set of my intended parents, we even shared Thanksgiving together at one point.
Eloise Drane
So after the babies were born, it was a huge transition to have very little communication with them. And you know, in the beginning, it definitely was hard trying to process all of those emotions that you’re now feeling. Luckily for me, I was able to process it and got what I needed from other people that are around me and other people that cared for me and I was still in communication with the intended parents as well. Just nothing like how it was during the pregnancy. So you just need to realize that everybody is going to feel differently. Like there’s no two people alike and there’s no two exact surrogacy journeys alike. And if you are one that ends up feeling more than the baby blues, then I would definitely seek out treatment for sure. And don’t feel any kind of way because you need to seek out treatment and you shouldn’t have felt anything but excitement or whatever.
Eloise Drane
Like the surrogate Hannah is what we called her. She felt like she should be after deliver worried that she should have been fine and that she should have been excited and all of the things so it’s totally okay to feel the spectrum of emotions, we all feel spectrums of emotions, shoot, I can tell you, I feel spectrums of emotions all day long sometimes. So now add in the mix of hormones and delivering a baby. And who knows if the delivery was easy, it could have been a very difficult delivery, you could have had to have an emergency C section like I did and actually I had one vaginal and one C section within an hour of each other. So I can definitely relate to having all of those crazy emotions after a delivery. But I also know that if you seek out treatment, if you allow yourself grace, you will get past it and it will get to a point where hopefully, you will have the excitement or at least the peace of being able to have done a surrogacy journey.
Eloise Drane
So I hope you found this discussion helpful as you weigh your next steps. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this episode helpful, please rate fertility Cafe on your favorite listening platform and share this episode with anyone you think could benefit from hearing it. Join us next week for another conversation on Modern Family building. Thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time, remember, love has no limits. Neither should parenthood
