Baby Blues

While on the topic of piano and Tchaikovsky,I would also like to mention that I think the inexplicable(not exactly inexplicable!) revulsion I felt towards classical piano music is almost gone thanks to that healthy dose of Tchaikovsky via Van Cliburn-he is still working his magic from beyond the grave!!
Post-partum depression is something that is never discussed back in India -I think most people have a very mild version of it and it passes swiftly.I would not have believed there was such a thing unless I  really experienced it and boy did I have a ball with it!
Since any woman after childbirth has a drop in hormones and a return to a normal  post-partum body with its attendant routines,I am guessing PPD is common and unavoidable if you have given birth.The intensity is what varies and the environment contributes to the severity and duration.Which is why,I think people back home have it slightly easier-the environment.You have a ton of people at your beck and call and people take such good care of you and the baby and feed you and wait on you hand and foot and basically mollycoddle you so much that when the hormones drop and mess with your mood,you are actually propped up by the goodwill around you and that counteracts any mood issues you might run into.
Okay, I am not a doctor and I am only basing this on my experience and I might be really wrong.
But my experience was real.The funny thing was how some things which happened during those tough days became tied to my mood and therefore was somehow tainted by it.My son was extremely colicky when he was a newborn and the first six weeks of his life were a real strain on me and my parents .My husband took his fair share of sleepless nights for the first couple of weeks and then we compelled him to ignore the crying baby and just go to work and not worry.
Emmy was healthy, ate well and gained weight and thrived, but he would cry for hours on end ,and I remember his voice becoming hoarse with all the crying.He wouldn't sleep at all and would stay awake and cry for hours .There would be good days and bad days and the bad days far outnumbered the good ones.My Mom and Dad were a great help,but all of us were clueless and felt extremely helpless and I still remember the three of us sitting in a darkened room with the baby on one of our laps waiting for him to start wailing.So when my hormones went back to the pre-childbirth days,the mood nose dived and I had trouble sleeping and I even had the doctor suggest medication to help!I remember my Mom bringing God into the picture(she includes him in everything!!).She said God wouldn't test us like that by giving me depression and that I should not even consider any medical intervention!
Well,my depression was real and I remember walking to the mail box to pick up the day's mail and not wanting to walk back home to the crying baby.
I was so mean to my Dad during those days.For reasons unknown, he became the focus of my anger and frustration and I took it out on him.I nitpicked everything he did and I still remember my Dad gingerly holding his hands out like a tray and one of us placing the wailing baby in his outstretched hands and his gentle swaying from side to side to get the baby to sleep.Not much success there,but he would walk up and down trying to shush the little thing.My dad was very particular about his sleep and to see him forgo that for his grandson did not amaze me then,but  now,I am amused and gratified!
And into this bubbling cauldron was introduced Chopin and Rachmaninoff-want to take a guess as to who the culprit is?!
Baby Einstein be damned!!The notion that playing classical music somehow makes for a smarter baby was a theory that held sway those days and I am hoping has been disabused by now.So there I was trying to keep myself together and in my sleep deprived,sad,feeling blue days, and what did I get to hear all the time?Piano concertos!And I remember hearing that darned music playing in my head over and over again even when it really wasn't.When my son eventually decided to shape up-which was around the six week mark,my husband gave up on the classical music for a genius route and that was a good thing.But  twelve years and counting,I still cannot listen to certain pieces by Chopin and Rachmaninoff without feeling blue and hopeless.
When Emmy wanted to learn to play the piano,I was okay with it and he has only graduated to small classical selections and nothing from Chopin or Rachmaninoff yet.Listening to Van Cliburn has changed my outlook and repeatedly listening to the third movement has paid off. Now, like before, I am hearing music played over and over again in my head, but I relish hearing it, I sway to the music, my fingers are tapping away and I am humming in tune-and it feels liberating!!My spirits are lifted and  want to hear it again and again.
Hopefully I will be able to listen to the other two composers with this interest-I don't know.
With Noel, I had the "been there done that" attitude and he wasn't colicky at all and my husband did not play any classical music-so I do not have any ill feelings towards any composer!!
If it ain't broken,don't fix it, right?