Even the Darkest Night: A Father's Journey of Hope and Healing from Paternal Depression

Nothing seemed to stimulate Lindsey to have contractions, and one of the babies was moving around so much that the monitors, necessary to track fetal heart rate as a proxy for the babies’ well-being, simply couldn’t track her. The night in the ICU had seemed endless, with Lindsey hooked up to a ventilator, “sleep” forced on her with drugs, and more blood products dripping into her veins to keep her stable overnight. The code blue team decided “Caroline” needed to be sedated and intubated so that the cardiology team could insert an intra-aortic balloon pump to support her heart. Conversations around mental health get both tender and complicated, and in the end it may seem unwise to add yet another barrier to effective care.