Episode 60: Fighting for Joy in Postpartum

Today’s episode is with Brooke Kyes, a local teacher and a new mom who said YES to coming on the podcast to have a vulnerable but very important conversation about her postpartum experience. I’ve known Brooke for many years because she and her husband Nathan were longtime, and very good friends of our son Jackson, who passed away almost 10 years ago in June of 2013. They did all kinds of things together growing up and when we went to watch Jackson compete or perform in sports, choir, or band, Brooke and Nathan were usually involved in it too - and our families have been intertwined for many years. It’s been special to watch Jackson’s friends fight for joy like Nathan and Brooke have this past year. I’m excited to share a little bit of their story today through my conversation with Brooke.

You’ll hear early on in our conversation that I assumed we were going to be talking mostly about postpartum depression, but, although anxiety and depression CAN be linked in some ways, Brooke’s struggle since welcoming their sweet boy Oakley into the world has been with postpartum anxiety. I learned a lot by listening to her share and realized there are nuances to what women can experience in postpartum. Motherhood is such a steep learning curve and it's no surprise that becoming a new mom would lend itself to either, or both, depression and anxiety! But for Brooke, her natural wiring and history of anxiety led to panic attacks and a darker time of wondering if she could do this "motherhood thing" right and if she would ever be “herself” again. I’m thankful for her openness and I could tell as soon as we got started chatting that this would be an important conversation to get out to all of you.

Also, I was planning on releasing this episode in another month or so, but with all of the feedback we are continuing to get from the two perfectionism episodes that Eric and I did a few weeks back, I thought that it would be good to release this one next as there CAN oftentimes be a link between perfectionism and anxiety. I also love that this will follow my episode with Liz Gnagy, another young mom fighting for joy! Similar to that episode, I think ALL of you will find some takeaways in this episode, no matter what season of life you are in. Anxiety affects people of all ages and in all seasons of life. And, the important themes that Brooke and I discuss at the end of our time together are applicable to ALL difficulties in life and are great tools in the fight for joy that I want to keep hitting on in each episode. So I’m glad you are tuning in and would love to hear your thoughts after you listen.