How a placenta made me normal again

I've written on here before about the postpartum depression I was struggling with. Depression is a lonely horrible thing to go through. Even though I had so much love and support from friends and family and especially Sean I still felt alone. I felt stupid, like a burden and like no one knew what I was going through. It was hard to say the least. There were nights I would just cry and cry. Sometimes I would go take a shower just so I could cry and not have Sean worry about me. I hated feeling like I couldn't control the way I was feeling. That being said I am thrilled (and slightly nervous it's not real) to say that I think I'm finally, after over 7 months of all that yuck I was going through, am myself again. I still have anxiety but I had that before I had babies but the depression intensified and made the anxiety more frequent. I can be around friends and not feel like I need to go back to bed so I wouldn't have to try so hard to not break down. Its a good feeling to be yourself. I owe it all to a women I don't even know and a midwife. 

Confused? Well here is the story. 

I have been going to a mom group for a couple months now. It is hosted by a midwife at her office. She has different topics relating to childbirth, pregnancy and parenting choices every other week and we get together and discuss and learn from each other and enjoy the input and stories. It's really amazing. Any who. My sister Amanda goes with me. We both would love to have a home birth day someday. But that's not the point of this post. I will get to that in another post. So we went to a meeting a month ago and the topic was breastfeeding. As you know I had to stop nursing Bekah because of the depression. I was ok with that and knew she was getting good food still and growing and happy. But for some reason hearing these women talking about breastfeeding and their stories it really hit me hard. I started crying and went to another room. Two women followed me and we talked and it was helpful but I felt stupid for crying like that.  I think I was most upset not that I am not nursing but that I felt like it was taken away from me with out my control. Stephiane the midwife came and talked to me after the meeting and we talked about my PPD. She told me that she had some placentas that were donated from women who were her clients that didn't want to do the pills. And that an encapsulation business donated their time and lab to dry and encapsulate them. This way she could give them to women who might need them. The placentas were tested for any diseases or anything that would make it harmful to use. So that was comforting. I have never been someone who was for eating a placenta. But after talking to Stephiane I was convinced to at least try it. She explained how the placenta has hormones and endorphins that will help regulate and balance my body out. The cause of my depression was that I was all out of wack with those things. I would rather take something natural that will help me than a pharmaceutical pill that I could get addicted to. I started taking the pills and with in the first week I had more energy. That helped with me actually getting up and doing things rather than being incapable to make myself get up. I can't really say when I felt normal. It kind of just happened over the next few weeks. So I stopped taking the pills. I was worried about it coming back but I am happy to say it hasn't! Obviously I still have bad days but that's just normal human emotions. I don't have the same bad thoughts or start crying for no reason during the day. I'm so grateful for it to be over. I am glad that I can use my experience to connect with others though and I think I have more compassion to those with mental illness or other trials they can't control.