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For six weeks after delivering my son, I had postpartum thyroiditis. Every afternoon around the same time, I would shake uncontrollably. Anxiety about night feedings and colic (which my son didn’t have) plagued my thoughts all evening. One night while my husband put our son, Jackson, to sleep, my sister put me to sleep. We watched “Romancing the Stone” and she rubbed my back until I drifted off — as if I were the baby.

Moreover, I lost all the baby weight within weeks. At my two-week checkup with my obstetrician, I had lost over 25 pounds. I left that appointment proud, feeling like I could be on the cover of Us Weekly. It must be the breast-feeding, pumping and healthy eating. But I was kidding myself. I breast-fed for all of three days. Sure, I pumped a few bottles, but Jackson got mostly formula. And I wasn’t eating healthfully. I was eating takeout.

About two months after Jackson’s birth, my thyroid burnt out. I didn’t know it at the time, but I later learned that mild hyperthyroidism had given way to Hashimoto’s disease, a potentially more serious, and chronic, thyroid condition in which the thyroid becomes underactive. Over the next few months, I gained about 30 pounds and became extremely lethargic. When I woke each morning, my first thought was: When can I take a nap today?

My body was just transitioning, I thought. And I had a baby now. Most new moms were tired, right? Still I sensed that something intense was happening: I was a different person.

My husband and I had some traumatic fights during those months. I feared that our marriage, the very foundation for loving this new child, was falling apart. He said things like “you’ve changed” and “I can’t live like this anymore.” And the truth was that we really couldn’t live like this anymore.

To make matters worse, I felt that my internist largely dismissed my concerns. He ran my blood work for virtually everything except my thyroid hormone level. We spent the follow-up appointment discussing my elevated cholesterol (also a symptom of hypothyroidism). He offered me Xanax and suggested I talk to a therapist about postpartum depression. Even most friends and family members chalked up these physical changes to the stresses of being a new mom.

Finally, when Jackson was 6 months old, I saw my O.B. again. She, too, bet on postpartum depression but ran thyroid tests to rule it out. I vividly remember when the doctor called with the results, “I’m surprised you can get out of bed in the morning, much less work full-time and take care of a baby.” When I hung up, I wept. I wasn’t losing my mind. I wasn’t just having a hard time adjusting. My thyroid, this little butterfly-shaped gland in my throat that I last worried about in high school biology, was having a hard time keeping my body up and running.

The synthetic thyroid hormone Synthroid helped with losing weight and energy levels. And ever since, I’ve had routine blood work and sonograms to monitor my hormone levels and the small lumps on my thyroid. During my second pregnancy, I saw an endocrinologist and had blood taken every month. My endocrinologist told me that it was important that I have my medication adjusted every month during the pregnancy since the thyroid helps the body stay pregnant.

I was surprised to find that several of my women friends also turned out to have thyroid problems. They tell the same story about discovering their condition either later in life or surrounding a pregnancy. Toni had three miscarriages in one year because of a mismanaged thyroid. Lisa was diagnosed accidentally at 41 when she saw a doctor for a double ear infection and bronchitis. “He felt my neck and noticed that my thyroid was quite enlarged,” she writes.

All the women had weight troubles. Eat less carbs. Exercise more. Take the baby out for walks. You’re getting older so it’s harder. That was the advice I got, along with speeches about the American diet of processed foods and sedentary lifestyle. But I’ve never been sedentary, and becoming a mother certainly didn’t have me sitting on the couch eating potato chips. My friend Jen remembers being patronized at her doctor’s office. “I was literally patted on the leg and told it’s just going to be hard for you to lose weight, dear,” she said. Her endocrinologist prescribed her a medication for diabetes and told her to eat 1,100 calories a day.

My takeaway from those six months is this: Even amid the huge life change that is motherhood, I knew something was really wrong with my body. And if I had put my health first, I would’ve figured it out much faster and with much less heartache. But prioritizing yourself isn’t something many new moms do very well.

Of course the early weeks with a newborn are exhausting for all parents, but if you don’t start to feel normal once the baby’s sleep schedule stabilizes, it’s worth getting your thyroid checked. A simple blood test can make all the difference.

Kristin Sample is a writer, teacher and dancer. Her novel “North Shore South Shore” is available on Kindle. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @kristinsample or check out her blog, kristinsample.com.

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