Beating anxiety, postpartum depression

THE PARENTS: Hilary Van Wyk, 29, and Eric Van Wyk, 32, of Aston, Pa.

THE CHILD: Jude Daniel, born Sept. 19, 2021

ON PARENTHOOD AND TEACHING: “It’s not that my students weren’t humans to me before, but now I’m a little more sensitive to them,” Eric says. Hilary agrees: “Understanding those bad days with kids is a lot easier … it’s a whole other level of empathy.”

Hilary couldn’t stop counting: How long was the baby sleeping? How often was he nursing, and for how many minutes? Was he gaining weight? How many ounces since the last check?

She’d experienced anxiety throughout her life, but the unpredictability of new parenthood undid her. Even the good days somehow felt grim. “I was aware that this wasn’t who I wanted to be,” she says. “I had a healthy baby; I had a supportive husband and family. On days that were great, I was still feeling out of control.”

Friends and relatives tried to help. “It’s the hormones,” they suggested. “It’s just baby blues. You’ll get through it. Motherhood is hard for everyone.”

Hilary and Chris agreed: It shouldn’t be this hard. Hilary stopped breastfeeding and began seeing a therapist. She started taking antidepressants. She joined a moms’ group. Chris supported any change that helped her feel steadier.

“Pregnancy and birth and motherhood is really about lack of control,” Hilary says. “I was so excited to be a mom. I knew how to take care of a child. To feel the way I did was shocking. I struggled with postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression.”

It wasn’t that she hadn’t prepared for this chapter. Both Hilary and Eric knew they wanted to be parents; it was a shared love for kids and education that drew them together back in 2015, when Eric was a seventh-grade social studies teacher and Hilary was hired as a long-term sub in a different seventh-grade classroom.

On her first day of work, she went home and told her parents, “I think I met my husband today.”

They kept the romance under wraps at first; their first date came near the end of the school year, at Jack’s Firehouse in Fairmount. “I could have a conversation with her about anything,” Eric remembers. “And she was passionate about being a good teacher.”

They moved in together — an apartment in West Chester, walking distance from the borough’s downtown area — in May 2017. Except for one notorious meltdown at IKEA — when Hilary couldn’t find a sofa that would fit through their door — cohabitation went smoothly.

The following fall, Eric proposed at Chadds Ford Winery, dropping to one knee in front of a historic house. “I don’t remember anything I said,” he said with a laugh. “I think I blacked out.”

They began planning a wedding, set for June 26, 2020, that would include more than 200 friends and relatives. Then COVID-19 came. One by one, they canceled their pre-wedding events: a shower, bachelor and bachelorette parties.

“I remember the day we made the decision we were going to shut down the wedding,” Eric says. “There were a lot of tears from both of us.” They’d lost money on deposits, but with the amount they would have spent on wedding festivities, they made an offer on a house and made settlement on June 25 of that year.

The next day, they did marry — a 12-person wedding in Hilary’s parents’ backyard. They invited their siblings to share stories or poems as part of the ceremony. They danced, played bocce and cornhole, and, at the end of the night, found themselves in an impromptu sharing circle, each guest telling about a favorite moment with the couple.

“We never would have gotten to experience little things like that if we’d had the 230-person wedding we’d been planning,” Eric says.

They wanted to start a family, sooner rather than later. They’d been trying for about six months when, on a day trip to Sea Isle City, they stopped at a random CVS for a pregnancy test. At home, later, Hilary came downstairs, crying.

“I was taking the trash out,” Eric remembers. “I dropped the trash I had in my hand and went up and hugged her. It was a crazy feeling. Surreal.”

The baby was healthy, the pregnancy a smooth ride. Hilary, characteristically diligent, signed up for online classes in labor and delivery, breastfeeding, and sleep training.

But nothing went according to the curriculum. The week after her due date, Hilary and Chris were trying to schedule an induction at Riddle Hospital; each time they called, they were told there was an overflow of deliveries and that they should try back in 48 hours. “That was very anxiety-inducing for someone who is very much a planner,” Hilary says.

When they finally went in for an induction on Sept. 18, Hilary spiked a fever and needed IV antibiotics; the baby, they were told, would need to go to the NICU after delivery for antibiotic infusions of his own. There was meconium in the amniotic fluid. Jude arrived with the umbilical coiled twice around his neck. Hilary lost enough blood that she needed two transfusions.

She held the baby for a mere 30 seconds after birth; then he was whisked away so doctors could suction his lungs. “I was very out of it, super-pale, and not sure what was happening,” Hilary says.

As for Eric, “The main thing I remember is how strong Hilary was during it. And when I went to the NICU, I put my finger out, [Jude] wrapped his hand around it and I knew everything was going to be OK.”

It took several days for Hilary to regain strength after the delivery. But Jude was a solid sleeper, they had help from friends and family, and breastfeeding, at least at the start, went well. Until, suddenly, it didn’t.

“I’m very scheduled, very type-A,” Hilary says. “The uncertainty of how much milk he was getting and how often he was going to eat really played into my postpartum anxiety.”

She’s candid and proud of the decision to use bottles and to care for herself with therapy and medication. “This experience has taught me that life is not linear,” she says. “We’re on Jude’s trajectory now.”