Light and Darkness

I sat on the floor, looking at my beautiful newborn who was sleeping contentedly under the mosquito netting in her bassinet. My head was spinning from exhaustion. I felt myself sliding into a black hole it would take months to get out of it.

Pregnancy was a time of intense joy and intense anxiety. I was thrilled to be having my first child. Like most new moms, I was also incredibly anxious. I worried constantly about the possibility of miscarriage. As soon as I could feel my daughter's movements, I started timing them. If I hadn't felt her move in a while, I would rub my belly in order to get her to kick or move around. As much as I loved watching my belly grow and feeling her move, I felt it would be easier once she was born. As long as I could see her, I would know that she was alright and I wouldn't worry so much.

A month before my due date, my husband and I moved from our home in the rural area of Cape Coast in Ghana to his sister's home in the city of Accra. I had found a birth center that offered water birth, the only birth center to offer that in the country. I liked my midwife, Sarah, who had been trained in the U.K. She was very respectful of my choices and together we planned out my ideal birth. My sister-in-law's place was only a short distance from the birth center which made it ideal, especially when the traffic in Accra was often at a standstill.

A major drawback of living at my sister-in-law's place, however, were the three hound dogs that belonged to her landlord. They barked at all hours of the night, disrupting my sleep. Once I was awakened, it would take me several hours to get back to sleep. We had planned to stay at my sister-in-law's place for a month after the birth and I wondered if the dogs would wake our baby.

Finally, the due date arrived. The month had dragged on. It was Harmattan, the dry season in Ghana where the winds from the Sahara would sweep down, carrying a fine layer of silt in the air. It was an arid, desert type of wind that seemed to suck all the moisture from everything, filling homes with dust and giving the city a permanent gray haze. That morning, however, the sky was full of clouds that threatened rain.

I arrived at the birth center for my check-up, only to be told that it didn't seem that I would give birth that day. Before we returned home, we stopped at Papaye, a local restaurant, to pick up lunch. I began to feel the first stirrings of labor. As we ate lunch at home, the clouds broke. A full-on tropical storm started, with the pouring rain blowing sideways from the wind. True to form, the electrical company cut the power. My husband and sister-in-law fell asleep while my contractions started in earnest. For the rest of the afternoon, I walked and breathed through my contractions. Finally, I called my midwife who told me to come to the clinic. The storm had died down as I woke my husband and we packed into the car with my sister-in-law.

Arriving at dusk, we found the clinic dark. The power was still out. Thankfully, Sarah was there to welcome me. I walked around the courtyard as Sarah turned the generator on. I was relieved that the lights had come on. My water broke 30 minutes after arriving and I spent the evening in labor. Finally, Sarah told me to get in the tub as my daughter was about to make her arrival. I relaxed in the warm water but it wasn't for long as my daughter arrived 5 minutes later. After her check-up (and a proper bath for mom, something I hadn't had since arriving in Ghana three years before), we settled into the private room. We left the next morning after breakfast.

Exhaustion started to set in when we arrived back at my sister-in-law's place. My husband left to get my mother-in-law who lived a short distance away. She was joyous when she arrived, loudly exclaiming over the birth of the baby. My head spun as the events of the past two days caught up with me. I looked at my daughter sleeping contentedly in her bassinet and felt myself falling into a black hole, one that I would not pull myself out of for months.

I soon discovered the lack of sleep common to all new moms. My daughter woke up throughout the night, needing to be fed and cared for. As soon as I would start to fall back asleep, she would cry again. Or the dogs would bark. After awhile, I stopped sleeping altogether.

My body reacted with a vengeance to the lack of sleep and cocktail of postpartum hormones flooding my body. My tinnitus, which I had gotten infrequently throughout my life due to my hearing loss, started taking over my life. It was almost constant and had considerably increased in volume, drowning everything else out. I started wondering if I would go insane. I desperately searched for some way to make it stop. Having a fan for white noise didn't help. It intruded into my nights, making it impossible to fall asleep. Even when my daughter started sleeping for longer stretches and my husband took her into another room so I could rest, I was unable to sleep due to the tinnitus. I would run into the bathroom, having discovered that running water was the only thing that seemed to soothe it. I prayed that the water would be flowing (running water was frequently turned off by the water company in Ghana).

My hearing started to fluctuate as well. I prayed that it was temporary and spent many days worrying that I would lose it. The hearing loss was worse in one ear, making me feel off balance. In addition, my ears started clogging up. I went to other chiropractic colleagues (I am a chiropractor) and got adjusted and had massages. While it helped other issues, it didn't help my ear problems. I had unexplained ear pain. My pharmacist sister-in-law gave me ear drops (which were a mistake as they were ototoxic, which made the tinnitus worse) and antibiotics. Although I am a big proponent of natural remedies, I was too tired and too desperate to refuse to take them. I went to Medical doctors but they couldn't find anything wrong with my ears.

Two months after my daughter was born, my ears clogged up fully. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I fell asleep and was able to sleep throughout the night for the first time. I had struggled to sleep even as my daughter started sleeping through the night because I felt the need to stay awake in order to protect her. I was constantly on alert and wanting to watch out for her and couldn't seem to turn that watchfulness off even to sleep.

As my sleep increased over the next few months, my symptoms eased. My hearing stopped fluctuating (and a later visit to my audiologist in the U.S. confirmed that my hearing had not dropped and was back to previous levels). My tinnitus is still more frequent than it used to be but it is quieter and more manageable. I mainly only get it in quiet environments now. And I discovered that my clogged ears were related to muscle tension in my neck and around my TMJ. Regular self-massage and getting chiropractic adjustments have helped considerably.

These experiences have led me to do more research on tinnitus in an attempt to relieve my symptoms. While white noise helps many people, it didn't seem to help me that much. However, the sound of running water or soft music will lessen to erase the tinnitus. I realized that I need to be cautious when taking antibiotics and ear drops (and many other medications) as many of them are ototoxic (toxic to the ears) and will worsen tinnitus or cause problems with hearing. Regular sleep has helped as well, and also eliminated the brain fog I had been experiencing. Chiropractic adjustments (specifically focused on the upper neck and jaw), as well as craniopathy (which adjusts the bones in the neck), can help open up the Eustachian tube and relieve clogged ears.

While my ear problems have never fully gone away, they have allowed me to do research and share my knowledge with others in order to help them. And that may be the biggest blessing in disguise. While having my daughter has affected my health, she is my biggest source of joy. As I learn to heal myself, I learn how to protect her health as well and that is its own reward.