It was during one of my favourite times of day - the house is all quiet, not a toddler nor kindergartener nor husband stirring - just me and my precious newborn baby up for a late night feed in the rocking chair.  All seemed quiet and serene until suddenly my heart felt like it did a 360 degree flip inside my chest!   If I hadn't been so freaked out by the sensation, I would have thought my heart was doing loop-de-loops over the fact that I had fallen madly in love for my newborn baby boy!   I was shocked and stunned and didn't know what to think and so let it go thinking it was just some weird random event that would never happen again.  Boy was I wrong.  And so began my journey of intense post-partum anxiety.

I began to have the heart-flipping sensations daily and they would be more noticeable at certain times than others.  Sometimes it was a small "blip" and other times they were so severe they woke me from my sleep!   On a couple of occasions I was up late at night with them crying and on the phone to my mom who lived a 4 hour plane ride away!  She is an LPN (Licenced Practical Nurse) and I called her one night crying while she was on the night shift.  She put the RN on the phone with me to talk to me and calm me down and find out what was happening.  It seemed that everyone I spoke to just chalked it up to heart palpitations or rapid heart beat but I knew that didn't jive with what I was experiencing.