When I think about the time of pregnancy-birth-postpartum I have two sides of the quilt. The front, a beautiful patchwork of colors and layers, the side that is carefully planned and organized, and the back, the side I don’t often show. However, the back of the quilt is the part that holds the entire thing together and without it there cannot be a whole quilt.  

I got pregnant with my second child just as I was finally emerging from the depths of covid isolation, like the rest of the world. My husband had to leave on an emergency trip halfway across the world where his father was very sick. I took a pregnancy test with much hesitation because I didn’t want to know the news. Trying to tell my husband over facetime, about something that should have been happy and celebrated was very challenging to me as I felt like we should be focusing on my father-in-law’s health. My husband was gone the whole first trimester until his father passed away and when he came back, we were individually, and as a family, feeling very broken. I had my first panic attack and I felt like I often couldn’t communicate rationally or effectively. I became an insomniac from dealing with painful fake contractions in the middle of the night for months before I gave birth and along with myriad other ailments, I felt like I was one thread away from unraveling.  

I think that I got through the time focusing on everything besides the state of my mental health, such as doing my best to care for my two-year-old daughter. It wasn’t until my son was 11 months old and I stopped breastfeeding, the hormones regulated, I started to feel the fog lift and felt like myself again. I could begin to understand the full impact of holding all these anxieties and fears in, and not sharing them with my healthcare provider, partner or friends and family. As a mother, (and a healthcare professional) I think that physical health is often the focus of prenatal care and conversations with fewer directed questions about mental health unless there are obvious indicators. Mental health should be another vital sign, frequently measured and assessed. 

I am including two pieces of fabric from the quilts I made for my children. Before they were born, I held a strange superstition that the babies weren’t going to come until their quilts were done (and it was true!) Sewing has always given me a lot of joy, distraction and comfort and I am so happy to be a part of this beautiful community story. 

—Johanna Ysselstein Qadri