Have you ever gone through postpartum depression? Did you ever get over it and how?

I now believe I did. I didn't recognize it as postpartum depression, I thought it was just "regular" depression, but when my psychiatrist suggested it nearly two years after I'd had my third child, it all made sense. 

I'd suffered from a terrible sinus infection for the last couple of months of my pregnancy, which turned into the worst ear infection of my life as we were preparing to go home from labor and delivery. It was truly excruciating and since I also couldn't seem to shake the sinus infection, the doctors recommended I have limited contact with my baby. I'm not sure that was good advice, but I reluctantly followed it for fear of inadvertently harming my precious little one. The infections didn't clear up for over a month after my daughter's birth.

To make matters worse, not taking my narcolepsy medication was simply not an option for me, so that meant I couldn't breastfeed. The guilt alone was tremendous. It also made me feel like less of a mother. I felt my baby didn't need anything from me she couldn't get from someone else. So, of course, I worried she wouldn't properly bond with me. It didn't help that the hospital staff had been so well trained to support breastfeeding that they didn't seem to realize they were making me feel like a second class mother when I couldn't. I felt judged.

I didn't think I needed medication, I just needed my problems to go away. I really believed it was more situational depression than clinical depression, and I didn't harbor any secret resentments towards my baby girl so postpartum depression never entered my mind.