“Perinatal Mood Disorders Don’t Discriminate”
Episode 29: “Perinatal Mood Disorders Don’t Discriminate” with Jasmine @pearlsofjasmine
This week, Rachael and guest Jasmine discuss a very important and often stigmatized topic, postpartum mental health and perinatal mood disorders. Dr. Jasmine is a clinical pharmacist who is incredibly vulnerable and open in talking about her own experiences with postpartum anxiety, depression, and insomnia after the birth of her daughter and how that experience led to her decision to be “one and done”.
Jasmine shares her expert knowledge as a pharmacist and discusses the stigma of medications, the pros and cons of the "new" postpartum depression medication, and discusses her own decision to start medication after the birth of her daughter.
Find out some common misconceptions or stereotypes about perinatal mental health or treatments, how being an Asian-American woman influenced her during her postpartum experience, and how culture and representation is so incredibly important for women on this journey to not feel so alone.
Jasmine is a clinical pharmacist and mom of one. She became very passionate about maternal mental health after she suffered severe postpartum depression, insomnia and anxiety shortly after having her child. As a healthcare provider, she never thought she would be affected by PPD because she assumed she’d recognize the signs and know how to ward it off. Writing about her journey on her blog and then sharing some of these moments on Instagram have been a way for her to heal and try to normalize mental health for other moms. Just a few months ago, she completed her perinatal mental health certification (PMH-C) to continue to educate herself further on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.
Jasmine’s IG page: https://www.instagram.com/pearlsofjasmine/
Healing the Tigress podcast IG Page: https://www.instagram.com/healingthetigress/
Referenced in this Episode:
Jasmine’s Newsletter about new treatment option
Podcast Episode on Fatherhood in Postpartum
Rachael is a mom of 3, founder of Hey, Sleepy Baby, and the host of this podcast.
Listen to the full episode
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Welcome back to the podcast. No one told us. I am your host, Rachael. And here today with me is Dr. Jasmine of Pearls of Jasmine, who is a clinical pharmacist and a mom of one. She became very passionate about maternal mental health after she suffered severe postpartum depression and anxiety shortly after the birth of her child. And as a healthcare provider herself, she never thought she would be affected because she assumed she'd recognized some of the signs and how to ward it off. Writing about her journey on her blog and then sharing some of these moments on Instagram have been a way to try and heal and normalize the stigma of mental health for other moms. Just a few months ago, she completed her perinatal mental health certification to continue to educate herself further on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. Thank you so much, Dr. Jasmine, for being here with us.
I think this episode is going to resonate with a lot of our listeners, so I'm so glad that you are willing to join us. be such an open book and to talk about this. Welcome.
Thank you, Rachel, so much. And you can just call me Jasmine. I put the doctor because people don't know pharmacists have like doctorate degrees, but like most pharmacists don't like being called, or not that they don't like this, it's just weird to them.
Oh my gosh, well you're being very humble.
I'm so excited to be here.
The way that you write about your experience is so relatable to so many of us who have - also struggled with mental health postpartum. So I really just appreciate you so much for, like I said, just putting yourself out there and being really open and honest about this because I think it really helps so many people.
Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm happy to share and honestly, I feel like the more stories we hear, the more people open up about it, becomes less stigmatized and it becomes more normal to just you know Not feel so alone when you're going through it.
bsolutely. So could you share just a little bit about kind of your personal experience with your perinatal mood disorders or your Perinatal mental health and and how you kind of knew that that's what you were dealing with or did you not know until it was a Little bit too late. How did that all go down?
Yeah, so I share pretty extensively like on my blog and but I'll just do like a quick sort of recap, but shortly after I had my daughter and I also leading up to it, we had had a hard time conceiving. So infertility played a little bit of a picture in the background, but so I was very, I would say I was a little bit anxious during the pregnancy to make sure because we finally got pregnant that I wanted to keep the pregnancy, obviously everybody is like that. Um, so I had hired a doula and I had a really great pregnancy, a really great childbirth, but I think I was so focused on the childbirth part being the scariest part of this whole experience that I really neglected and kind of dropped the ball on postpartum. And being a new mom, I figured, "Oh, I have a really supportive husband. I have a great family." I felt like I had everything set up, quote, unquote, and so I didn't really understand. what it felt like to be in postpartum and have that village.
And so shortly after I had my daughter, we suddenly realized there were a lot of issues that were coming up. I was having a lot of issues with breastfeeding. I had a lot of pressure to feel like, you know, I had to do it all. And then over time, I, because I was trying so hard to be the sole person breastfeeding her. And then we also had latching issues. So we were pumping. We were, you know, doing the syringe feedings, we were just trying like everything and floundering. I developed mastitis like two weeks into my postpartum. And on top of like, all of that going on, we had so many visits to the doctor to like try to fix the whole breastfeeding issues. So I wasn't sleeping very much. And, and I think it's a lot of it's like chicken and the egg. What came first?
I started noticing that I was constantly googling about the breastfeeding, constantly googling about is this normal for my kid to be waking up after 20 minutes or how do I make this work? And so there was kind of an anxiety component. And then I started developing insomnia. I couldn't sleep very well. Even when she was sleeping, people would say, "Oh, she's sleeping. You should rest. You should rest." And I just could not fall asleep. Like my brain could not shut off, and it turned into this sort of crippling insomnia anxiety where every time I needed to go to sleep, I would worry like, "Oh my God, am I going to fall asleep before she wakes up the next cycle?"
So that was very new for me because I thought I could survive off little sleep,
being like going through pharmacy school and all that stuff. I was like, "Yeah." I've survived off like four hours of sleep a night on average. This'll be nothing." But no, I didn't survive off like
No, it's not the same. Yeah.
It's not the same when it's like one hour, 30 minute chunks, right? Right, right.
So I didn't understand that. And I think the fact that like I couldn't sleep maybe started driving into depression where I was wondering like, "What is my life now? Like, what did I - What did I do?" to myself? And I think the infertility portion played a little bit of a role in, like, you know, we tried so hard for this, but what if I made a mistake? Like, why did I want this on the other side of everything? Like, this is what was gonna happen or show up. It just felt, and I saw, I think that drove, like, sort of a guilty feeling and a sort of work.
Yeah, 'cause you're probably thinking, oh, we should just be so grateful, we should just be so happy.
Yes, and that's what, you know, the worst thing to say, people's like, "Oh, at least you have a healthy baby," right? Or, you know, "At least you can try again," you know, when people get miscarriages. So it's this whole new world that like I really didn't understand till I was in it. And so as a, you know, mental health, not mental health, as a healthcare provider, I realized I was starting to get depressed. I could tell. The problem was, I think, I was trying to, I was trying to course correct. So I said, you know what, I think breastfeeding is the biggest contributor at this point. If I just cut off the breastfeeding early,
then I'll be able to sleep and then everything will go back to normal and we'll be fine. So I did. I stopped breastfeeding. I didn't love having that option, but we were already having so much issues and difficulties doing it. I would sit at the pump even just to say, "Oh, maybe I'll exclusive pump," but I would sit there for half an hour at a time and nothing would come out, and that would actually drive up my anxiety even more because I felt full.
It wasn't like a supply issue. Then I'm thinking and spiraling like, "Oh my gosh, am I going to have to have surgery, or are they going to have to drain my boobs," or like you know. So, that's when it started getting bad and I cut off breastfeeding. But it didn't get better. And I I think a thing we kind of forget about is the the hormone drop when you stop breastfeeding and I I cut it off very suddenly. I was very cold turkey about it because I said I can't even like pump. I can't even get rid of it. So I just need to stop like now and And and it didn't get better after that that. It actually got worse. To the point, you know, my OB at my six -week visit was like, "I think you need to be on antidepressants." Like she flat -out said, "You know how they want to give you,
send you home on birth control pills?" She's like, "I think you need antidepressants."
And I wasn't willing to accept that at that point. Even as a pharmacist, I thought, "You know, I just need to, like, ride it out. We just stopped breastfeeding, give it a few more weeks, and I know anti depressants take four to six weeks to work." And I just thought, "I don't have that time. I needed to be better yesterday, and I don't have time to wait for this medication to work. I don't know if the side effects are going to make my insomnia worse. I just need to sleep. I think that was... That's kind of the story of like how that progressed. So it was a lot of severe anxiety and depression all mixed into one and insomnia.
Yeah. And the insomnia piece is so hard too, because like you said, it's like a chicken and egg and the more depressed and anxious you are, the harder it is to sleep. But you really do need sleep for your mental health to be well. So it's like this vicious cycle. So did you end up seeking any professional help or support in managing that? Or did you just like white knuckle it and get through it? Or how did that all go?
Yeah, so I thought I would just skip the medicine and see what would happen. And my doctor said, I really think at least you should see a therapist. And up until this point, I'd never seen a therapist in my life. I'm Asian -American and my background or family is very like, "Ah, you know, therapists, "why pay to, you know, complain?" to someone, just talk to your family members, just, you know, think positive, you know, you can think your way through this, think, you know, think happy." And so I was a little, I think like growing up, like I already sort of had like a, "Ooh, I don't need that," or like, "That's not going to be helpful," like, "How is that going to help me through this?
What I need is someone to help me get to sleep. I need someone to tell me what it means when my baby cries, you know." I need to know why is my baby doing this weird sleep cycle thing. And I didn't think a therapist was going to be helpful. But with my husband encouraging me, I think you should at least see somebody. And that's big for him because he also doesn't really like medical, like seeing doctors and medications and stuff. So I had attempted to see a few people. It didn't didn't pan out too well. When it started getting really bad, I was having really bad, intrusive thoughts.
And I would tell my husband and I think the tipping point was actually on his birthday, he, I was having this awful day. I couldn't sleep. I think I hadn't slept for like over a day. And it was just really getting to me. So, I spent the whole day kind of moping around, just... trying to sleep. And the thing is like it wasn't like I didn't have chances to sleep. He would say, hey, you know, just why don't you try to rest and I'll take care of the baby and stuff. But I think that made me feel even more guilty and anxious that I was given all this time and I could not fall asleep. I asked doctors for like sleeping medications and like just felt like everyone seemed to have some sort of side effect where I was just so anxious that I couldn't accept it to let it work.
And so finally like on his birthday, you know, he kind of begged me like, "Will you please like, will you please try like the medication like an antidepressant or something?" And I said, and that was actually the first time I ever saw him cry in my life. And I've known him since high school. So like I've known him a really long time, and he doesn't break. And I think when I saw him break over this, I was like, "Okay, I have to try. I have to get started."
So that's when I started the medication, and it didn't work instantly. I knew it wasn't going to, so it was still very rough for a while until he said, "We need to see someone like a specialist and we finally found a psychiatrist that worked with me and I Finally felt heard like she I like for me the big thing like the big elephant in the room was kind of like this sleep piece for Myself. I couldn't sleep and nobody was really like addressing that or Understanding how big of a problem that was that I could not sleep…. like my daughter was getting better sleep than I was. And so finally she said, she said Jasmine, I'm going to get you to sleep. Like she didn't like say, you know, you're depressed, you're anxious. She said, I'm going to get you to sleep. She's like, I know it's going to take a while and we're going to figure things out together. But it felt like somebody finally saw me and wanted to hold my hand through this. And that's, she was really the key to me getting better.
I love that. And I actually love that you talked to you about, you know, the first few therapists maybe weren't a fit. And you eventually found this person that really seemed to get it and wanted to help you with what you felt like you really needed the most help with. I think sometimes people go to therapy and maybe they don't mesh well with the therapist. And so they say, "Oh, therapy is not for me. It's not going to help me." And sometimes you really do need to, like, push through and work with a couple different people before you find someone that you feel like really gets you, right?
Completely, yeah. And also they, you know, the psychiatrist is somebody who prescribes medication. She doesn't necessarily offer therapy, but even just like a medical professional working in this field who was able to like validate that,
like that was important.
Yeah, and to understand that like, if that's your first light of defense… like that was your biggest presenting problem at the time was your insomnia. And so, yeah, that's so huge. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to talk about some of the other options for medication for people who are dealing with perinatal mental health issues. We'll be right back.
Okay, so you mentioned that you had started on some medication and antidepressant. I know that recently there has been a new medication that has come out. One of the first oral medications for postpartum depression was approved, I believe over the summer. What can you tell us about that? And who might be a good candidate for that? Or what are your general thoughts on medications versus, you know, more holistic approaches, therapy? How does somebody know like when a medication might be the right fit for them or not?
Yeah, and, you know, that's a really great question. I think also, like you mentioned, like some of my writing started speaking to people. And one of the first things that I think people really connected with was the fact that I talked about how it's really ironic that as a pharmacist, like I should understand like, you know, this is what medications do. And yet, I was so hesitant to take it. Like I did all the other things around it that I could until I fell back to it. And now having gone through it, I really understand that like, first of all, it's not an easy choice because you don't know what it's going to do to you. And maybe medication is not for everybody, but there is a certain role it can play. And I think understanding that like you take this pill, you're not going to feel magically better the next day. It's not going to make you happier. There are still circumstantial things that are contributing to your depression or your anxiety that you have to work on. And so you can't expect a medication to just fix you. It's really going to be a lot of self -work. So it's medication in combination with therapy and your own steps that you take to work around the circumstances that you're dealing with.
What medication can offer, and I think for me at that point in time, because some of postpartum depression can be hormonal, can be neurochemical, and I think where it can help is that if you're so, if it's affecting you so much that you're day to day -day functioning is just not there, I think what the medication really does for you is to help you stabilize and reset to the point that some of that fog kind of lifts, 'cause when you're so depressed and you don't have any energy to really do anything, even dragging yourself from like upstairs to downstairs, you can't really do anything.
And so I think the medicine, what it does for you, is it brings back that energy. It lifts up that fog so that you can actually see where you want to go, so that the therapy can actually help. You can actually let the therapy sink in. And so I think that's kind of a way to think about how medications can help you and maybe just sort of changing your expectation about like, "Hey, if I take this medication, if I take this medication, if I take this medication, pill tomorrow, I'm going to be better. Or even like a month from now, I'm going to be better. But you're not going to be better if you don't put in the work too. So it's hard. It is a lot of hard work.
And so to your question about the new medication, typical antidepressants or a lot of traditional antidepressants, work to keep serotonin, which is like a neurochemical that becomes makes people's moods go up. They keep that around for a little bit longer, but in order to kind of alter and help keep that neurotransmitter around longer, they have to... It takes a while. It takes the body a little bit of time. So it takes four to six weeks for medications like that to work. And I think that's the hard part is like me when I was really struggling thinking, "Gosh, I need it to be... better yesterday. I can't wait for this medication to work."
And so this new medication that came out, it's not a typical medication like a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Those are the main class. It's a new class on its own and works a little bit actually on GABA receptors and it's sort of a hormone, hormonal -based sort of medicine almost. I I think they call them neuro -steroids and it works a lot faster actually than a typical, at least what they have seen in trials. And so the course is actually only two weeks. You take it for two weeks and you're done. And as opposed to like the other antidepressants where you're on it for a while, it takes a while for it to work, it takes a while to titrate the dose to the right dose.
Here you get a two week course. And then supposedly after that, people were starting to feel better. But the studies, I think they did, there are limitations I thought on the studies. And I actually wrote a pretty thorough newsletter about it. I don't know if you want to link it in show notes later. Yeah, it's still available. I definitely will. Yeah, and I kind of dug into the studies a little bit on kind of the pros and cons and where I would like to see a little bit more, but it seems promising. And the caveat is that the study participants they took were people who they classified as more severe, post -partum depression.
Okay.
And the other thing is that people couldn't breastfeed, I think people were not breastfeeding while they were. taking it.
Right. I remember hearing that about it. So that was kind of a downside. That is a downside.
And I want to say that like other antidepressants, a lot of them are studied to be relatively pretty safe and effective and okay to use during breastfeeding. So for me, I think it would have worked because I had stopped breastfeeding, but I know that many people don't want to. And that's completely, completely like you shouldn't have to. So I think more studies probably need to be done to see if this can be used with breastfeeding but so far they have not said that that was okay.
Okay really good to know and yeah I'll definitely link that newsletter because I think a lot of people would probably be interested in taking a look because I think like you said a lot of people you know medication is just not the right fit for whatever reason and that's totally fine but I think there is such a stigma about accepting help, especially in the form of medication. And that's really a shame because it can really help a lot of people in situations. What are some other common misconceptions or stereotypes about perinatal mental health or treatments that you have found in your own journey, just like particularly unhelpful or untrue or inaccurate or hurtful? What do you think are the biggest kind of myths out there about it?
Yeah, I mean, I even hear a lot of people say like, "Oh, but breastfeeding is supposed to prevent post -partum depression. Like why wouldn't you keep breastfeeding to make sure that you don't get it?" And I think that's another chicken and egg kind of thing. Like it could be causing your, it could be actually causing some of the depression. or anxiety to come on. Yes, it could prevent it if you're having a good feeding journey, you're having a good relationship with your child, doing this and it's working for your family. Yes, I absolutely think it can be productive and breast milk is fantastic, but at the same time, there's so much pressure now to do it all to exclusive breastfeed that like you probably realize it affects mom's sleep because they're just die hard trying so hard to make that work that they're losing sleep over it as well.
So I think that's a really big one that can contribute to mood disorders. It's very like a risk -benefit kind of thing. And yeah, so that played a role in my journey. And the other thing too that we just sort of touched on is the fact that like, actually there was, and maybe we'll talk about this later, I have my own podcast and we interviewed a guest who said that his wife actually had to go on a depressants and said, you know, I'm going to stop breastfeeding now because I have to take care of my mental health. And she was apologizing to her baby for not being able to breastfeed her baby because she had to go on medication.
And I said, did anyone ever tell you that there are medications you can safely use while breastfeeding? Like that they didn't, no one told them that that was an option or to discuss more if they wanted to continue breastfeeding like that just breaks my heart.
That's horrible.
So I think those are, yeah, that's a misconception that just because I want to take care of my mental health and try an antidepressant then that means I have to stop breastfeeding.
No, I think if you work with the right provider to give you the options, there definitely can be ways to make that work.
For sure. And I love that you just brought up your podcast because like you were mentioning earlier, another really big stigma for certain people is culturally, right? Like either, you know, seeing a doctor in general or taking a certain medication or seeking therapy. Those things are just not done, not accepted. And so can you tell us a little bit about your podcast and what kind of like inspired you to start it? It's called Healing the Tigris.
Yeah, I'd love to. to share. Thank you for bringing that up. When I was in my healing journey, there was a website, I don't know if you remember, called Motherhood Understood. And yeah, she was a really big account and she was sharing a lot of stories of other moms that had gone through different perinatal mood disorders, whether it was anxiety, OCD, traumatic birth. And for me, I think hearing these real and raw stories from moms everywhere, it was incredible because you're like, wow, this is the stuff nobody hears about or talks about.
And I loved reading those stories. But after a while, I think I was trying to seek out a story to connect more to myself and my own story. And I was looking, like as I was sifting through, I was looking for people who looked like me. I was looking for other Asian Americans who were talking about this happening. Because in my circle of friends, and I just thought, wow, I feel like none of my Asian American friends are struggling this hard.
None of them talk about it. So is it just me? Am I the failing Asian American? over here? So I was trying to pick out people's stories to read and there were so few. But I just thought that can't be it. It can't be just a handful of us struggling. And actually as I opened up more and wrote more, some of the people who talked to me were other Asian -Americans and actually there's a lot of people from Singapore that somehow follow me.
And a lot of them, I guess, also opened up about the same struggles that they have. So I'm thinking like this is not just this is an issue, you know, perinatal mood disorders don't discriminate. So I think knowing that I wanted to elevate more and share more like other Asian American stories. And so that's kind of the idea of like, where this podcast,, like why it started. My co -host is a therapist and she had followed my stories and we actually went to high school together.
And so we've known each other for a while and she brought up to me and she's like, you know, I'd love to start a mental health podcast with you. Like what do you think about that? And I said, I'd love that. And I'd love to focus. on Asian Americans, like an API community. And she's also an Asian American. So that's kind of how Healing the Tigris was born to sort of heal the Tiger Mom era, I guess, as we call it, and just start to bring out more conversations for Asian Americans to know that, like, you're not alone. And you're not the only one suffering this. You know hearing other people that look like you talk about miscarriages, talk about you know Being a single mom, or talking about like postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, Psychosis all these are topics.
We want to cover and and have a few of them have covered So it's very new we just started like last September But that's that's kind of what we've been working on.
I love that And representation is so important. So I think that that is such a genius idea for a podcast and the episodes that I've heard so far have been so great. So everybody go take a listen. Because yeah, I just I love podcasts that, like you said, like make you feel less alone. Like I can't be the only one that's gone through this, right? Think that that is so important, especially for new moms and first time moms who really just had no idea what to expect.
I think that that is so wonderful that you're doing that. We're going to be right back and we're going to talk when we get back about your decision to be one and done because I think this is another huge topic that we hear about all the time on my Hey Sleepy Baby page, so I'm so interested to hear about your thought process behind that. We'll be right back.
Okay, we're back and Jasmine, I would love to kind of just finish out our conversation talking a little bit more. little bit about how your postpartum experience has kind of shaped what your family is going to look like. And this is something that I hear a lot on my page, "Hey, sleepy baby," because I do tend to have a lot of parents over there that struggle with sleep and that have had a hard journey in that way. But I also notice a trend in our generation, I guess I would say as a whole, that... that more people are deciding to be one and done. They're deciding to have one child and that's what their family is going to look like. And I would just love to hear from you about how you kind of came to that decision and what your thoughts are on being one and done with your daughter.
Yeah, sure. To be honest, I never imagined that was what my family was going to look like. I grew up with a sibling, and so I always imagined I'd have a family with at least two kids. Probably, actually, I'm not going to say at least. It would have been two kids only.
Two is a good number, too. Yeah, two was it for me, kind of like that's what I planned in my head. But this postpartum depression thing just really took me by surprise and caught me off guard and there's, you know, something I like to say is that, you know, my mom always said like, "Oh, like, you know, having a sibling is such a gift." Like, you know, I gave you a sibling and it was such a gift, like, you know, that you could have this companion, like a built -in companion for the rest of your life. Not to say that I don't, I love my sister, but I'm saying, you know, some siblings don't necessarily have a guaranteed great relationship and maybe becomes a burden instead of a blessing. And so, you know, going into this,
I always thought I have to give my child a sibling because that's all I've ever heard from my mom, all I've ever known, and to be a good mom, that's what I have to do. But after this whole experience, I realized the best gift to give your child is not necessarily a sibling. The best gift to give your child is a healthy mom, a mom that's there, who's present, who's well, who can give you all of herself in a way that she's not murdering herself. It took a lot for me to kind of get to that point, I think. I struggled a lot during the time she was about three, because I always liked the age gap of about four years, four and a half years or so. That's me and my sister. And so, I liked that age gap. Personally, that was what I was shooting for.
So, by the time she was three, I was starting to get anxious, thinking, "Do I need to start thinking about trying again?" There was also a little bit of anxiety about, "Well, what if our infertility issues come back? Like, how long is that going to take? Is this going to cause unnecessary anxiety again in trying to conceive? And then I would be taking away some of my energy for my child, my current child, just trying to even make another child." So at that point I actually sought out a therapist that had a PMHC perinatal mental health certification… Because you know, I wanted to make sure if I did get pregnant, I had somebody on board who knew my whole history, who knew like what I was going through and could support me all the way. and Some of it we talked about like would I breastfeed this time? Would I go straight to formula? What would sleep rotations and support look like? How would I get the sleep that I need this second time around?
And I guess after just talking through everything, I'm not even sure we really even came to a conclusion. We came up with great plans. Like what could we do for support? And my parents and my husband's parents would not probably be able to give as much support. So a lot of it’s-- just us. So I think like the decision at the end of the day, like for anybody, it really depends on, like, what support do you have? And going forward, like what, what can you do to be the best for your family? And I think part of it too was I had to learn to grieve that vision I had.
I had to give myself permission to grieve over it and also to let it go and realize that it's okay to paint new dreams because maybe I just always thought I had to have a family of four because that's what society tells you you need. That's what my mom told me I needed. But what did I really need? Did I really think about what I really wanted or I was just thinking about what other people wanted for me?
And at this point in time, like I value my mental health and it's at a great place. It's really hard for me to rock the boat and think about going back there, trying to figure out the whole sleep again. And that insomnia piece that just really shook me to my core. So things are really great right now that I feel like I don't, I don't need to mess with it. this up I don't need to change it up. And yeah, I feel like my podcast is my second baby at this point .
How do you kind of navigate how your family feel about it? What do you ever get comments from other people about? You know, oh, when are you gonna have another? How do you kind of deal with that because I know that that can be really annoying.
Yeah And my husband has been so supportive like he was like, I am okay, whatever you decide. If you wanted a second kid, like we would make it work. If you don't want a second kid, this is great. I love our family, you know, he said, yeah, the most important thing he says that you're well and you're here. You're here with us. You're taking care of us. And, you know, you're, you're physically and mentally here. And that's so huge. So I think having his support on this has been great and like a huge part of it….. other people I think like I know for a while my mom was kind of hinting like oh do you think you might want you know to think about it cuz it's kind of like that right timing but I think that they're hesitant to say that I should or should not because they realize what I went through was pretty severe.
And so my dad actually told me after this whole, like pretty early on, like actually after I was recovering and stuff, he told me like, I don't think you should have another kid. And my dad was like, I'd rather you just be happy and here. So I really appreciate that. Like I actually think because I'm so vocal about it, I don't get a lot of comments saying like you should. Occasionally, you'll get the random like internet person who's like, "Oh, but the siblings are such a blessing." Like, "Oh, you'd be doing your kid a disservice." But you know, everyone's story is different. You have to respect that.
It's so true. Well, I really appreciate you opening up about that and being honest about it. I know so many people struggle with it. And I think it's also okay to just not know for a while, right? Like you said, you kept the door open until your daughter was three. And so I think, you know, a lot of times people are in the thick of it. Like when they're talking to me about it, they're still in the thick of the sleepless nights and their baby is still really young. And they're like, how could I ever do this again? And it's kind of like, well, maybe you'll want to. And then also maybe you won't and either one or okay.
Exactly. And yeah, actually, I, I feel like maybe even when she was like four or five years old, I was still kind of like, the door is not completely closed, like, and the other thing was like, I think with my therapist at some point, she was like, are you still thinking about it? Because our discussions during therapy would shift to other topics. And it stopped being about the one and done. It wasn't consuming me so much. I think I just really learned to like enjoy what I had, the relationship that I had with my daughter, and Just actually finding more of myself During that time period, you know, I love the relationship I have with her. It's so great.
And you know, I'm just like I would hate to like have to Disrupt it to try something else. And I know that moms with multiples you make it work, moms with one, moms with multiples, women who don't want kids, you make it work. You do what's good for you. I feel like I haven't fully said anywhere that I'm officially one and done. I didn't feel like I needed to announce that, but it's kind of where it's landed, I think.
Okay, I love that. And like you said, you don't need to make this grand announcement. You don't have to wear a sign on your forehead that says I'm one and done. Like it's nobody's business. Right? Yeah. Okay, so Jasmine, before I let you go, what is one thing no one told you before becoming a parent that you wish you knew and it could be, you know, related to this mental health journey or something completely different. But what do you feel like you just wish someone had pulled you aside and warned you about?
I think this is something that actually came up on our podcast because my co -host went through this and she said this and I thought it was really, it really sat with me as well or really like resonated. I think we go into this thinking I have to be, I have to be everything. I have to be the best. I have to be the most perfect mom and if I'm not, you know, keeping up with everything, then I'm a bad mom and I'm failing. And there's this idea, though, of the good enough mother. And that's all you need to be. You're not going to be a perfect mother. And I love that message she had.
And I think that that is one thing I wished people had told me. Because I think a lot of us type A perfectionist people go into it, you know, we're so used to the control we have over our lives and being able to control things and organize and, you know, make things happen for us. But you can't hold on to that control when you have a baby.
Like, you can drive yourself crazy trying.
Exactly.
They're their own person, they're their own being. And you have to respect that too. And so I think it's a very humbling journey to be a parent. And so I think if moms just went into it giving themselves a little more grace, you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be good enough.
I love that. It's so true. Jasmine, where can listeners connect with you, find your resources and your podcast?
Yeah. So you can find me over on Instagram at pearlsofjasmine. I have a blog, which is also pearlsofjasmine .com. I don't blog very much anymore, but my whole like post -partum depression story, I kind of go into details about the antidepressants starting it, even weaning off of them and that experience. So that's all very in detail on my blog if people want to read more.
I also have a newsletter I recently started last summer that is more up to date. I'll send out topics and stuff just like the one about the Zirana loan, the new medication. And the podcast is over on @HealingTheTigress. You can find us on Apple, Google, Spotify. I think pretty much anywhere that pools podcasts. So those are the big places.
Yeah. Okay, awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today and again for being so open and vulnerable. We really appreciate it. And I hope you have a great rest of your day.
Thank you, you as well.
