One brave mama. Sisanie opened up to Ryan Seacrest on-air about suffering from postpartum depression and Bell's palsy after giving birth to her twins Maxon and Aiza this past May. The first-time mom recalled that about two weeks after welcoming her twins, she was back in the hospital after suffering what she feared was initially a stroke.
“It’s something that people don’t really talk about that much and it happens after you have a baby and it’s postpartum depression and it was a factor of things for me and I discovered it early on, maybe, like, two weeks after they were born,” Sisanie shared. “First of all, postpartum, you can go across the board about how you feel about the baby … I didn’t have like ill thoughts — it wasn’t that dark — for me, it was more like I would see my baby and stare at it, but I couldn’t look at it .... it’s hard to explain … I was just, like, in shock maybe.”
Sisanie continued that one contributing factor was she woke up one day and half her face was paralyzed.
“It was on Mother’s Day actually … we’re out in the backyard and we’re laughing about something and Michael [my husband] goes, ‘Why do you look like a pirate when you’re laughing?’ And I’m like ‘What?’ … So the next day I’m getting ready to go see the doctor for my appointment and you know when you go to smile when you put your blush on? … Only half of my face went up,” Sisanie recalled. “The whole left side of my face was numb and paralyzed as if I got a stroke in the middle of the night or something so of course I go into panic mode.”
The mom of two explained that she had a mild case of Bell's palsy.
“It can happen during pregnancy, during the third trimester or after pregnancy, it can happen if you’re not pregnant,” Sisanie explained to Ryan. “In my case, it was because I was so inflamed. After I had the c-section my ankles were the size of my thighs. I was like a balloon. Even I was inflamed up in my head so there was blockage to this side of my face.”
The realization was terrifying for the new mom.
“[My doctor] literally took me next door to her friend who was a neurologist … and she basically told me to get a brain MRI so two weeks after having my twins I’m now going to the hospital again where I delivered them to now get a brain MRI so … It was pain. It was just so confusing. I was just angry, like, ‘Why is this happening?’ … I just had never heard of something like this happening so that’s why I wanted to use this platform and at least put it out there because if this ever happens to a mom — or if you’re going through this — like it does go away and it does get better.”
Watch the video above to listen to emotional audio Sisanie recorded while suffering from Bell's palsy and to hear more of her story.