Jennifer Chalklin Needs To Be Applauded For Sharing Her Story

Hopefully her sharing will reach another woman and that will reach another woman, and on and on and on...... Too often people get the feeling that there problems are insurmountable so they give up and we have these parental/child suicides.

One mother's story saved another's life
When it's more than baby blues
March 12, 2007

Back in 2000, when my little boy was only a few months old, I was suffering from insomnia and sleeping a mere two hours a day in total. Often at 3 a.m., I would be standing on my balcony in Toronto wondering why I was so miserable with my perfect life and new family, why I couldn't sleep, and trying to figure out a way to end my own agony without hurting those I would be leaving behind. Then it happened.

The young physician jumped in front of a TTC subway train with her son in her arms. I was entranced by the story, likely because I had contemplated a similar scenario.

I read the story in the newspaper word for word and read about her history and symptoms. As I put down the paper, my thought was, "Oh, my God. That's me." I booked an appointment with my doctor when their office opened on the Monday morning and was treated for postpartum depression.

With my second pregnancy five years later, I was scared that my PPD would be more severe (it was). When I communicated this to my new doctor, he promised me he would stay on top of it. Before being discharged from the hospital, he gave me a prescription for a week's worth of medication and pleaded with me that if at any point I was afraid I was experiencing symptoms, that I would go to a pharmacy day or night and fill the prescription, begin it and immediately call his office and demand to see him the same day.

Sure enough, five weeks after the birth, symptoms began surfacing and I did as he asked. This time my recovery has been a great deal longer. I'm now at two years postpartum and am maintaining a very low dose of an anti-anxiety medication.

The three critical things I have learned from my experience: PPD can last 18 months or more, which is often how long it takes for a woman's hormones to return to pre-pregnancy levels; while breast-feeding and dealing with PPD, the more milk your baby demands, the higher the hormones, so medications for PPD need to be adjusted throughout the time you're nursing; and if you aren't yet, or are afraid of, being treated for PPD but suspect it is a problem, tell anyone who will listen.

The mother and her son who died in 2000 did not die in vain. They saved me and my son and allowed my husband and I to produce a beautiful little girl as well. I thank the media for putting the complete story about PPD out there, sometimes in gruesome, harsh detail.

Seeing myself in that story saved me.

Jennifer Chalklin, Brampton