Tiiu on feeling guilty for the scary thoughts she had about her baby

"I felt so relieved that I’m not alone and there are so many other people who feel the same way."
My baby turned one yesterday. I had a horrible pregnancy. I felt sick all the time. I kept losing weight because I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, my back was hurting so bad and I had weird stomach aches all the time. The doctors told me, “Everything is fine. It just hurts for some people. It is only few months.”
I was depressed already, but I thought, “Well, how could anybody enjoy this?” and kept thinking it was normal and maybe everybody felt this bad while pretending, “I am so happy and I love the baby already so much.” After all, I was telling the same thing to everybody, even though I felt like it would be better to just miscarriage.
When I was 38 weeks pregnant, I told the doctor that I was done, that I just can’t do this anymore and I cried. She said she could induce the labor.
It took two days, and 17 hours in labor—giving birth was as horrible as the pregnancy was. I thought I was going to die from the pain. After the baby was out, I was so happy it was over. Now I can start to live again. That lasted about a week. I started to feel irritated every time the baby was crying. Then I started to feel irritated every time she was awake. Then I started to cry all the time and didn’t get out of bed all day.
My husband had to stay on sick leave because I couldn’t stand to be with the baby. I felt like the worst person in the world. Then, one day I started to feel hopeless. I was ready to kill myself. I sent a message to my maternity clinic and they told me to go to the nearest health center and get medication. I went there, and I am so happy they took me seriously. The next day, I saw a doctor and she gave me medication and made me an appointment with a psychologist.
I started to go to therapy. It helped a bit, but there were so many horrible thoughts I couldn’t say out loud. Like that almost everyday when the baby cried, I felt the urge to jump off the balcony with her. I was so afraid that I would hurt her if she would cry one more second and that I sometimes wanted to just leave and never come back. At the same time, I couldn’t leave the house with the baby because I was so afraid someone would hurt us.
These feelings were so confusing and scary. I felt completely alone. The best description I have read is that, “I carried the baby around like it was a cardboard box.” I didn’t feel anything but irritation, anger, tiredness and hopelessness carrying this thing around and taking care of it.
Then I found your account. I felt so relieved that I’m not alone and there are so many other people who feel the same way. I cried when I went through the stories about postpartum depression and read about exactly the same feelings that I dealt with.
One day about a month ago was the first time I felt empathy for the baby when she started to cry, and I really wanted to hug and comfort her. It was an amazing feeling finally being able to feel that, but at the same time, I kept thinking, “Oh my god, I’m such a bad mother that it took me eleven months to finally feel this.
Now I’m trying to learn how to live with myself after I couldn’t wait a few more weeks to give birth naturally, even though I knew the risks of inducing. And after I chose medication over breastfeeding. And after I had to leave the baby to cry in another room because I was afraid of what I might do. And after I told her that I don’t want her in my life and she was the biggest mistake of my life.