To all the wonderful moms who submitted stories, and to all those whose stories are reflected by those included in this eBook, thank you deeply. By telling the truth about your pain and then your recoveries, you are inspiring all those in the midst of the struggle.
Michelle’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
It never even crossed my mind that I might get postpartum depression. I’m the person my friends call for positive...
Holly’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
When I found out I was pregnant with my only child, I was twenty-four and single. I lived in a...
Marcie’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
I could practically hear the reels clicking away in my head as the film played over and over. I’d seen...
Michelle’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
I was twenty years old when I became pregnant with my first child. Although my partner Robby and I had...
Elizabeth’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
From a young age, I have suffered from anxiety and panic attacks. As a child, I merely dealt with them,...
Chandra’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
My husband Andre and I had been married six years when we decided to start a family. Already a bit...
Theresa’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
The words humble and humiliate start with the same three letters but are quite different in meaning. The overlap in...
Lauren’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
Six years ago, as we moved from South Carolina back to Georgia with our five-month-old daughter in tow, I was...
Cackie’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
The birth of my first child, Charlotte, was picture-perfect, and I was an anomaly of postpartum recovery. Less than a...
Kara’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
My cancer diagnosis began a whirlwind struggle. Word came in March, I had surgery in August, and I got the...
Katie’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
The week my son was born, I knew that something was wrong. My husband had to return to work the...
Liz’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
Giving birth was like being peeled apart from myself. The pregnancy was far from what I had imagined. High blood...
Tami’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
My husband and I waited five years to start a family. By then most of our friends were on baby...
Nadine’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
It’s been nine years since I first had postpartum depression. Today life is great and feels real again, but it...
Jennifer’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
My son was born on a Friday morning. On Saturday morning, my husband went home to feed our dogs and...
Juli’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
The events leading up to the birth of my second child set the stage for the perfect storm that occurred...
Andrea’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
My postpartum depression came as a surprise to me. Although I hadn't wanted children at all, when my husband expressed...
Elita’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
In 2008, Carla O’Reilly, Tania Bird, and I wrote and released The Smiling Mask: Truths about Postpartum Depression and Parenthood...
Carla’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
The difficulty in dealing with postpartum depression, in my experience, was that my husband and I were blindsided. We had...
Tiffany’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
In May of 2000 I had my daughter and the first month and a half was all right. Then I...
Elizabeth’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
I know all too well that hindsight is 20/20. Looking back on my pregnancy, I see that I had so...
Diane’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
My experience with postpartum depression was like the dream cruise ship Carnival Splendor: What I thought was to be the...
Tracy’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
My daughter came into the world quietly. She never cried. It’s an irony that still rattles my soul. I had...
Regina’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
There was a specific, glowing image in my mind of how the hours following my son’s birth would go. He...
Anne’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
It took two severe postpartum depressions to get me to where I am today, which is a very good place....
Kristin’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
Like many women out there, I suffered through depression during my pregnancy and after the arrival of my little boy....
Laurie’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
My husband and I got married in September of 1999. We were looking forward to spending our lives together and...
Tania’s Story
Stories of 100% Recovery
Five years ago in September, my life forever changed when I delivered my daughter by emergency cesarean section at thirty-one...