By Madeline Strong Diehl

I am fortunate to live on a street that’s close to downtown, where I can sit on my front porch and, for three seasons of the year, anyway, I can hail all my neighbors as they pass by. I can get to know their names and their dogs’ names, too. I see the same pairs of women walking or running together and talking.

Paying close attention to these things helps me in my work as a writer. I learn a lot about different kinds of people and how they live. But there is one thing that I witness every spring that inspires and amazes me the most, and that is when a neighbor woman emerges from her house with a new baby in a stroller after I haven’t seen her for several months during the long, cold winter. Sometimes there are even years when five new babies come out of five houses all in the same two blocks. Okay, so I have to admit that only happened once during the past ten years, but that is the year that I befriended Marilyn.

Marilyn doesn’t want me to use her real name because she’s still not ready to go public with her story, even though it’s about something that many, many women go through. About ten years ago, she suffered from post-partem depression (though it was never diagnosed or treated) shortly after the birth of her only child. She said that even now, despite all the years that have gone by, she sometimes still has lingering feelings that she is a terrible person who doesn’t deserve to be a mother. She’s only now beginning to understand that this false narrative is the result of the difficulty she had while trying to physically and emotionally bond with her newborn. Her baby was whisked away from her immediately after he was born and put in the Neonatal ICU for observation because he had fluid in his lungs. She didn’t get to hold him for two days, and after that, she began to feel like the nurses and doctors judged her; they didn’t think she knew anything about being a mother and they didn’t give her input in any of the very important decisions they were making about her baby and his health.

These feelings of being judged, and not having a clue about what she was doing, hung over her after the baby came home. In fact, during a recent interview on my back deck in early October, Marilyn honored me by saying that, when she was going through the worst part of her crisis, I was the first person to really support her—and we barely even knew each other’s names at the time.

“You have to understand, my baby almost died,” she said. “That’s why I needed an emergency C-section. But afterward, whenever I told people who were close to me that I was having a hard time being a mother, they just said: ‘You’re so lucky he’s alive! He’s a beautiful baby. What’s your problem?’ They just shut me down. So, I couldn’t talk to anyone—not until you came along. You just seemed to understand everything, even though I didn’t really know you at all.”

And how was I able to give her this support, you might ask? Well, almost exactly twenty-eight years ago, I thought I was the worst mother on earth, too. So, when I saw my neighbor outside her house ten years ago, trying to console a baby that was inconsolable, I knew exactly what to do. I knew I had to essentially invite myself inside her house, and not take “no” for an answer. And that is exactly what I did. And once I got Marilyn inside her home, I essentially gave her permission to tell me that she was inconsolable too. I gave her permission to fall apart right in front of me and tell me what she was thinking and feeling. And that was exactly what she needed.

The other thing she needed was someone to tell her that she didn’t have to quit breastfeeding her newborn. Once I got her inside her living room on that long-ago spring day, Marilyn said she had just returned home from the pediatrician, who had told her that her two-week-old baby had lost weight. Her baby had been given formula while he was in the ICU, and Marilyn had also been breastfeeding—there, and then at home. By the time of the visit to the pediatrician, the baby had become confused and was refusing both the bottle and the breast, and the pediatrician had just told Marilyn that she would have to stop breastfeeding and move all the way to just using formula. Because of M’s history in the hospital with male doctors, whom she felt had made too many important decisions for her, and because she also believed that breastfeeding could provide her with her last, best hope for emotionally bonding with her child, this was devastating news.

When Marilyn and I compared notes on our encounter recently, she explained how important it had been to her. “I had been telling everyone that I was having problems, and they all just told me, ‘Don’t worry. It will get better!’ And no one stopped to listen to what was wrong. But you just came inside my house and sat next to me and told me you would stay there until my baby latched on. You explained it wasn’t just about the baby—it was about me, too—it was about both of us together. You told me that the baby could sense my anxiety, so I needed to drink lots of water, relax, and just trust myself, my body, and nature. And that was the day it all turned around, and I was able to breastfeed my child for a whole year.”

During our recent visit, Marilyn asked me to tell her why and how I had seemed so calm and self-assured that day. And I told her the story of our daughter Amelia, who also almost died when she was born, twenty-eight years ago. I told Marilyn that Amelia was kept on life support in the NeoNatal ICU for her first ten days of life, and I never saw her awake in all that time because she was on a powerful barbiturate to prevent seizures. Luckily, I had successfully breastfed my son, so I knew if I could breastfeed Amelia, and that it would provide me with my best chance at bonding with her. At the time, Amelia was receiving nutrients through an IV, but I pumped my breasts in the ICU every two hours whenever I was there and stored the milk in the refrigerator. And one night while I was visiting Amelia, a nurse said to me: “Why are you bothering to do that? She’ll never take your breast.”

I was trying to visit Amelia every chance I could, and during one visit, in the wee hours of the morning, she finally took my breast, and I felt the hormones of pleasure and joy pass between us, even though Amelia’s eyes were shut, as usual. I made sure that nurse knew not to ever discourage another mother from trying to breastfeed her baby in the ICU again.

We women will never find a way to become perfect mothers, and it’s very dangerous when motherhood becomes a competition. Sometimes women compare notes on their labor and delivery: was it a “natural” birth, or did they have pain medicine, an epidural? Did you breastfeed, and for how long? But all we can do is the very best we can—and we owe it to each other and ourselves to affirm that that is enough—and so much more.

Resources for mothers and families with newborns:

According to the Mayo Clinic, “Most new moms experience postpartum “baby blues” after childbirth, which commonly include mood swings, crying spells, anxiety and difficulty sleeping. Baby blues typically begin within the first two to three days after delivery and may last for up to two weeks.” But when systems are more severe, women can “experience a more severe, long-lasting form of depression known as postpartum depression.” There are numerous places to turn for support, including Postpartum Support International, which can set women up with local support providers and support groups. Postpartum Support International can be reached at 1-800-944-4773 or postpartum.net/get-help/locations/.

There are many local resources that offer support to mothers who wish to breastfeed their babies. La Leche League International (LLLI) is probably the most well-known. Founded in Illinois in 1956, its mission is “to help mothers worldwide to breastfeed through mother-to-mother support, encouragement, information, and education, and to promote a better understanding of breastfeeding as an important element in the healthy development of the baby and mother.” While it is an international organization, it has many active local chapters including Ann Arbor. Contact them by phone at (442) 229-0327 or find the local chapter online at lllaa.weebly.com.