Thankfully today….I got a good night’s sleep last night.  I had breakfast with my kiddo, alone, and now we are going to run some errands.   My house is clean, laundry is caught up.   Today is not the same day it was a year ago.    Praise be to God!

The next few months were incredible.  I took 10 mg of Lexapro, and did intensive talk therapy.   I started going back to bible study at my church.   Life was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I started to feel more like myself.  I started to feel horrified by my scary thoughts instead of seriously considering them.  I started to enjoy my baby and feel the love for him that I felt like I should have had from day one. In July I finally pulled him out of daycare.

In August he turned one, and I felt like I had been through a battle.  I took him to the park and story time at the library.   In September of 2007 I came to my first MOPS meeting.  I started making friends, something I had been sorely lacking since I graduated from college.  I started to be that socially active. smart, funny girl that is the real me. I was not that person who cried all the time, and thought about death and hated to be around people.  And, honestly MOPS was the first place after I became a parent that gave me hope there was life on the other side of this whole motherhood thing.  I will never forget the first afternoon IH and I spent just cuddling and giggling and reading together and my heart just was so full and grateful I had been given this incredible gift.

There were three parts of my postpartum depression that I have had a really hard time getting over.   1.  Is the guilt I still feel for having seriously thought about harming my baby.  I just am not sure I will ever get over that guilt.   2.  Is the fear of getting pregnant again because I am terrified of going through that year of hell all over, and actually this fear is even worse now because my hormones went all crazy in the fall and I totally went crazy.  Like really. But, I still have this desire that won’t go away for another baby.  I will keep you updated on how that goes.   3.  The third is the hardest to explain and that is the spiritual ramifications of what I went through.  I was mad at God; I thought God was mad at me.  I wondered if I would ever get back that calm confidence which I had in my faith before IH was born.

I’m just hanging on to the fact that God made me.   God made me with my weaknesses, and strengths, and He does not make mistakes.  I am beautiful in His eyes, and He Loves me, like really loves me the way we love our babies.  No matter what.   He does not make mistakes.   Me having IH was not a mistake.   Me being IH’s mother is not a mistake.   And, it is okay to be unsure.   It is okay to be scared and even angry, as long as you go to God with those feelings.  As long as we let Him carry us when we are in that pit of despair, we are not alone.    And you know what? I am grateful to be here and to be a mother, this battle I have been through makes me view my role as a mother more divine,   as something more than just a maid and cook and chauffer, but that I have the absolute privilege of teaching this child about Jesus Christ.   I am grateful for this trial, or trying to be, because I know there is a plan for me and that God gave us this spiritual nature to turn to God during hard times, to pray for His help, and praise Him all the time.

(this next part are just my notes for the rest of the discussion)

—2 Corinthians 4:8-11

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

And 2 Corinthians 12:10

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Up to 80 percent of new mothers experience the baby blues, a form of depression that begins a few days to a week after delivery and generally lasts no longer than two weeks.

Symptoms:

·  insomnia

• weepiness or sadness
• diminished interest in once pleasurable activities
• difficulty concentrating
• change in appetite
• anxiety
• moodiness and irritability
• withdrawal from family and friends
• excessive guilt
• panic attacks
• suicidal, scary, or constant negative thoughts

PPD can strike up to a year after birth, but is much more common in the first few months

Other than medicine, therapy, and scripture there are other ways to fight PPD because while incredibly effective for me, the meds do have some drawbacks……like um hello orgasms!!

So.  Exercise and eating a healthy diet with out lots of additives and junk in it.   Yeah.  Um here is where you should do as I say and not as I do.  But seriously just moving is a huge  help.

Sleep, try your absolute best to get 9 hours of sleep a day.    Ask for help and support from your family and friends.   Become part of a group of loving moms who understand, like MOPS!

Don’t neglect your “outside.” Taking care of your physical self can sometimes help you feel better inside, regular showering clean clothes, make up fix your hair…..can help.

Go outside, a little sunshine a fresh air is awesome for you and your baby.

Most Gracious Heavenly Father, please be with us in this room today.  Please use me to help moms know they are not alone.  Please use my words to glorify You, and please strengthen me to be able to tell my story.  Thank You for this room full of loving women, Lord.  Thank You for the platform to be honest about the parts of motherhood that are hard. Amen.

Just in case you don’t know me already my name is Sarah .    I have been super active in MOPS for over three years now.    This is my second year on our steering team and way back in July, during our steering planning retreat, I kind of gingerly raised my hand and said that I thought we should have a speaker on post-postpartum depression, because I knew that I was NOT the only one to have suffered with it.   Now I was thinking we should find a doctor or midwife or somebody to talk to us about it, but my lovely fellow steering team members thought a personal testimony would be better and so here I am.  Today is the first time I have ever talked publicly about my postpartum depression and it is probably going to be hard, and I definitely will be telling you some things I am not proud of, and are not easy to hear, but I hope it helps someone.

So my story with postpartum depression actually goes back about four years before I even gave birth to IH, when I was in graduate school.   I am what you call a type A personality; I had my life planned out ten years in advance, seriously.   I had not one but two bachelors degrees by the time I was 22.  I had a job with a US Senator and had a guaranteed job in DC after I finished grad school.    So in the fall of 2002 I was working my tushie off in school and working full time at the senator’s office.  I had a very nice new fiance, KH.   In the first week of November the Republican senator I was working for, who was running on a family values campaign, lost the election because he had an affair with his campaign manager.   When a politician loses an election, he is not the only one out of work.    Two weeks later, my Pa, my maternal grandfather, died very suddenly.      January 11 was my last day of work for the Senator and I suddenly got very POOR!  KH and I decided for me to finish school in College Town and that we would then move to Capitol City in June for him to finish school at  (his school), and for me to get the highest paying job I could find.   In February, KH’s maternal grandfather died.   Our wedding was in May and every time I met with my wedding planner I had to remove a main guest!  So in April, the day after Easter, KH’s paternal grandmother died.   I was supposed to graduate with my masters the first week of May.   In the last week of April I find out that I had made a D on my political statistics class, so I was not going to graduate.   May 24 I got married, we had a gorgeous outdoor reception planned, and the day of the wedding we had tornado warnings and flash floods, with hail and everything.   Pretty much the month after the wedding I started having really bad anxiety attacks.   (Fact one about PPD, if you have had mental illness issues of ANY KIND before, you are 75% more likely to suffer from PPD.)

So to wrap this chapter up, I did graduate, we  moved to (hole of a town) of all places.  I got a nice high paying job which had NOTHING to do with those degrees I worked so hard for.  We could not find a church we felt comfortable in so we just did not go. Oh, and we lost another two grandparents during that time too!  So that is five grandparents in less than two years.   We spent a year like that, KH working and in school, me working 50 hour work weeks, living in an area we hated, not having any friends, and not going to church.   Oh, and I had baby fever super bad!!   We decided that we could not stand to bring a baby home to (hole of town) , so we bought our little house in (dream home town) and spent several months remodeling it from the studs up.    We got active at  the church I pretty much grew up in, started doing Sunday school bible studies together……and my anxiety had pretty much disappeared.   Oh, and I thought I had baby fever before??  Now I felt like BABYBABABYABAYBAYBAy.  KH and I talked and prayed and talked and prayed and finally I got him on the baby train too.

I guess I just thought I would magically get pregnant once I came off the birth control pill, like one day no pill, next day do a little horizontal mambo with the hubby and wam bam baby! Um. No.  Seriously the first month I got my period after we started trying I like wept.   (Post partum depression fact #2  women who had planned pregnancies are just as likely to get PPD as those surprise babies).   Okay, so  a few months passed and I was sure I was like infertile or something.   I was praying so hard for God to give me a baby.    I went to church to pray one night when everyone else had left and read the scripture in Samuel about Hannah promising God if she got pregnant that she would give her son to God to become a priest.   I promised God that I would do everything I possibly could to raise my child to be a man of God.    I got pregnant that week, and found out I was pregnant on Christmas Eve, 2005. (PPD# 3: women of faith have the same occurrence rates of PPD as women who consider themselves to be atheist.)

So I was still working full time, but I read every single baby/pregnancy related book I could find, I compared American Academy of Pediatrics suggestions to The World Health Organization.  I read every book put out by the La Leche League.  I took every class offered by the hospital.   I was confident that I was going to have a drug free birth, that I would immediately take this precious little baby to my breast and he would never use a bottle or even a pacifier, (Good gravy the pacifier, I even printed out a study about the evils of pacifiers to show my MIL when she actually dared to buy me one)   Any way.  You get the point.  I was a crazy excited and hyper prepared pregnant lady.  In none of my studying about how to be the world’s best mother did I ever think to prepare myself for depression.  I skipped those chapters, I was sure that I was going to be so thrilled to have my son here that I would feel nothing but joy.  Maybe little bluebirds and squirrels would be drawn to me like Snow White.  Seriously I was a nut.

August 31, 2006.  I had been told that IH was getting really big and got talked into an induction.   Can we say bye bye drug free birth?  So, of course that did not work.  I ended up having a c-section that afternoon.   I had a panic attack while they were stitching me back up and they knocked me out.   It was hours later before I had recovered enough to hold IH for the first time.   I was sure that my panic had destroyed my breastfeeding relationship and was afraid that because I had a C-section he would have something wrong with him.  (Post partum depression fact 4, C-section patients get PPD twice as often as a vaginal birth)

Right after he was born…… I mean I loved him, but I so did not have that instant OMG this is the most perfect creature ever and I am madly in love with him feeling.  And, I felt guilty for not having that feeling.   My milk took a pretty long time to come in and I refused to let him have even a pacifier because I was so afraid of nipple confusion.   I did not sleep the entire three days I was in the hospital.   I did not let the nurses take him to the nursery, but at the same time I did not really feel able to care for him.  KH changed every single diaper the entire time we were there.   I left with my milk still not having come in, and his weight was quickly dropping.    We got home and I felt like crap.   I had not slept.   He cried nonstop because he was hungry.   He was just this little red hairy, needy creature and I had no idea all of sudden.    In the past, I would study hard, know what to do, and then succeed.   With IH I had done all of the preparation I thought I needed to do, and I still was like what!! What the heck is wrong with you, child?  Are you defective?   Still no milk, my nipples were raw from trying to get him to nurse when it was just colostrum.   The Monday after he was born was Labor Day.   It was also KH’s last day at home before he had to go back to work.    I said I was going to take a short nap and if my milk was not in that evening we were going to go buy some formula.   I left IH in the living room with KH and I went to my room and slept deeply for the first time since…days before I gave birth.   I slept for just two and a half hours, and woke up with like monster boobs.   Seriously, my milk came in like right away and strong.   So we struggled with the nursing thing for a while, but I felt like it was the only thing I was doing right with IH.

When he was about a week old, we were home alone, and he just would not stop crying, and I had no idea why…..so I gave him a pacifier and just cried and cried.   I still did not really feel as connected to him as I thought I would.   My body felt awful, and so gross and leaky and just blegh.   My husband got to go to work every day and escape and I was left all alone.   I would not even turn on the TV because I was afraid I would like mess up his brain synapses or something.  I was not answering the door, or my phone or emails…..I was just secluded in my room with the baby trying to sleep when he slept and not being able too.  One night when IH was about two and a half weeks old, KH had come home, and he was watching TV, and I had been nursing and Isaac fell asleep in my arms.   I just looked at him and he was so fragile and I felt so huge and clumsy and I just kept focusing on what would happen if I dropped him.  Or, if I fell asleep and rolled over on him, or if I let him slip down too far in the bath tub, or if I left him in the back seat of my car or any of the hundreds of other ways that I could screw up so bad that my child would wind up dead.  I just started shaking and could not even handle it.  I kind thrust the baby into KH’s arms and went in my room and just like sat there and was numb, and wondered what had I done!  I had ruined my life!   I had messed up everything that was good in my life.   I just wanted to be that smart successful woman working with politicians to help make this a better world.    (Post Partum depression fact 5, if it lasts more than 2 weeks, it is not just baby blues.)

I went back to work full-time in (capital city) when he was eight weeks old.   I dropped off IH at the day care as soon as they opened at 7.   I drove to work, worked all day, drove home and it was 7pm. KH had picked him up an hour before, and we ate, bathed him, put him in his bassinet and collapsed in bed.  He cried every two hours, I would pick him up, nurse, KH would change him and we did that until our alarms went off.

I felt like the only thing I was doing right as a mother was giving my baby breast milk.  I pumped in the car on the way to work; I pumped during my breaks, during my lunch break, and on the way home.  I pumped so often that my body thought I had twins or triplets and our fridge had hundreds of ounces of frozen breast milk at any given time.  I nursed every time he even made a squeak of fussiness when we were together.   (PPD fact 6, breast feeding does help reduce PPD because of all of those “happy” hormones that are released.  Obviously for me, it was not enough.)

Every day when I would go to work and drive over the River Bridge I would wonder if maybe KH and IH would be better if I drove off it.  I thought how mad God must be at me because I had promised him I would do anything I could to raise IH to be a man of God, and how I was the worst mother ever.  Ever.  Then I started to think how then he would not have anything to eat if I drove off the bridge and kept on my way to work.   One time I figured out how many frozen ounces of milk he would need to last him until he was a year old if I were to die.  I came up with this insane number and realized that I could never have that much stockpiled.   As time passed I started to think how maybe it would be better if I just drove off that bridge with IH in his car seat.    I thought he was doomed to have such a horrible parent and he and I would be better off dead.  At least I knew he would go to heaven.

(PPD fact 7.   If you start seriously considering killing yourself and your baby?  It is time to get professional help.  Like yesterday)

I scared myself when I could not stop thinking about death.   I read all about Andrea Yates and all of those other mothers that had done the unbelievable.   I was starting to feel mad at God that he had let me even have this baby if he knew what kind of mother I was going to wind up being.

The February after IH was born, I got laid off from my job.   I never really loved it, just loved all the money I made, so I did not think I was bothered by getting laid off.

I had a really nice severance package and the plan was for me to stay home for a few months with Isaac, and collect unemployment, and study for a new job and then we would reevaluate the situation.   Only I never withdrew him from daycare.   He was still in daycare while I was hiding under the covers in bed at home.

That April my parents paid for my whole family to go on this amazing cruise to Europe.    It was fantastic.   But there was this afternoon that Isaac and I were alone in our cabin.  And I swear all I could think about doing was throwing him and then jumping off this 11 story cruise ship balcony.   As soon as KH came back to the cabin, I dragged him into our room and told him everything.

The Monday after we got back he called Counseling Associates.   The therapist insisted I call my Primary Care that day and I had a prescription for Lexapro within hours.

to be continued.

I take pills for that.   A lot of pills.  I am trying to balance out Crazy Clomid Sarah with Happy Go Lucky Lexapro Sarah.     I dropped the 20mg of Lexapro down to 10mg so any potential baby is being exposed only half as much to this class C drug.    That means I have SOME anxiety, SOME obsessing, but not as much as I would be with nothing.     Clomid starts at 50mg, you take it for five days and then hopefully you spit out some nice juicy eggs in the middle of the month.   Only on 50mg I only had some lame little late eggs.  That means this month I got to take DOUBLE that, 100mg. Those five days you are on taking Clomid?  Cuh-RAZY lady.   Hot flashes, no patience, anger at the smallest thing.  Perfect for a preschool teacher, right?   The middle of the month when you are hopefully ovulating?  A jittery, blurry eyed, dizzy mess.   Sexy, yes?

I seem to be walking the fine line between nutso and normal pretty well, just a few slip ups here and there.  I gotta be honest, I hope that I do not have to take the Clomid much longer, well actually I can’t take it for very long, something about my liver being important.

If I do get pregnant, I am going to stay on 10mg of Lexapro,  I know.   I know.  Less than ideal, but a useless or worse mother is not going to do any kids any good, so I am willing to take that risk.  No one forward me any articles about it okay?    After that maybe baby I am going to go back to 20mg of Lexapro faster than they can say “It’s a Boy!”  (I have no delusions of a daughter.)   Hopefully it will keep PPD at bay, even though I will have a hormone crash the size of the Hindenburg.

Do you have any advice?  Have you been through anything similar?  Does your body still say babybabybabybaby?

Here is hoping for a day like this soon.   I am trying really hard to  do NaBloPoMo, but have been pretty darn busy, so here is hoping for real post tomorrow.

It is that time of year.  I hate November.   I am okay with the day of Thanksgiving, but wish we could skip the rest of the month.

Is it just me?  Maybe it is because I love October so much.  Maybe it is because I stay so busy in December.  But November.  Blah.

I hate wearing winter clothes and burning up.  I despise wearing clothes I wore all summer and freezing.

I can only think of bad things which were major life events that happened in November.  (Your birthdays do not count, sorry friends.)

It is okay to feel melancholy sometimes.  The good news is I am pretty sure the sun is going to come out tomorrow, and my mood will turn around too.

Lordy, I hope this was not the first post you ever read on the Huckablog.  It was a little depressing.  Someone tell me your favorite thing about November?

I felt like I could not breathe.  My heart was racing.  I was cold and sweating at the same time.  It felt like there was a veil being lifted off of my head and as it pulled off all I felt was shear panic.   I thought every single thing you are NEVER supposed to think, and then I scared myself.  If I could think those things, could I DO those things?     I was unsafe.   IH was unsafe around me.  Those were the  only things I could make my spinning mind settle on.  UNSAFE!     DANGER!   FLEE!   I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom where KH was still in the shower.   I slammed the door behind me and locked the door.   Trying to lock myself away from my precious baby.    The week lay ahead of  me.  There was no school, no MOPS, no playgroup because it was the week of Thanksgiving.  Just me locked in my horrible, oppressive house with a four-year old to entertain and my spiraling mind.   I sobbed to KH that he had to call in sick,  that I needed help!  I explained that I could not be left alone for even a second.   I begged him, BEGGED him to stay home.    He was confused, and exhausted and had no idea how to help me.   He had one 10mg pill of Lexapro squirreled away in our closet, I took it and went to lay in a ball on my couch.

I was still shaking, still in physical pain which I could not describe, all I knew was I was NOT okay and if I was left alone something unfathomably bad was going to happen.  KH  called his co-worker to cover for him, no answer.  Called his boss, no answer.   He HAD to go to work at least to check the servers.   He could leave at 9 and be home by 10.  It was 5:30AM.   Three and a half hours alone!? Never gonna make it.   I next called my brother.   For some reason, I was not embarrassed for him to see me in my ball.  No answer.   Next stop was my mom.   She answered.   Was here in 10 minutes.   KH made it to work in time.   I tried to tell her what was wrong, but it was impossible to explain.   I just needed help!  That was all, HELP!   She had made a Doctor appointment by 8:10AM.   She cleaned my house.   I stayed in my ball.  My body needed sleep so bad, but that was never gonna happen.   She took IH and I out for breakfast, de-caf coffee for me.   I ate no more than two bites.   She made me go through the motions, but I was made of sand.  The least little breeze and I would crumble.  A hug from my child and I was flat.

KH came home to take me to the doctor.    Five minutes with her and she was sending me to be evaluated at the local crisis counseling center.   IH was playing with my dad, hopefully oblivious to what was going on.   I was “evaluated”  in a room that reeked of stale cigarettes and despair.   I have no idea what I said, but whatever it was, I hit enough trigger points that she wanted to send me to a mental hospital.  Let’s review that,  MENTAL HOSPITAL.    All I wanted was a nice cocktail of drugs to let me sleep, I was sure if I could just sleep, I would be so much better.  The intake lady said I could go be admitted to the hospital and I would be out in a day and a half with my drugs to make me all better.  I was in.  That sounded perfect, the other alternative of waiting a week and a half to see a psychiatrist was unbearable.  I would never make it a week and a half.

We went home to pack a bag.  No clean clothes.  Seriously.   That overwhelming pile never got touched.  I was literally afraid of it.  I threw some strange mismatched outfit in my bag and we left.  The hospital was not far, maybe 30 minutes.   I had my pillow, and my cell, a book, and lipgloss.  What on earth was I packed for?    Turns out this hospital?  Also a REHAB hospital.  There was a drug addict in the waiting room with me.  I was so scared.  I just wanted some help!   I filled out a huge list of questions.   I answered a few wrong.   Apparently intrusive thoughts and extreme anxiety are not the same thing as homicidal.  Oops.

Some guard took my bag to search, and confiscated most of my stuff.  A nurse asked me questions.  When I told her I just wanted to stay for a day to get my medications correct, and to get some sleep…..she LAUGHED at me!  Literally laughed in my face.   She said I would be there at least a week, more like two.   Um.  ACK!    Rewind!  I started talking,  I said I was mostly fine, just tired, I said my PCP would write me a script for a mild SSRI.  I changed my mind!  I was not going!  I want to go home!!  KH talked too, he promised I would not be left alone until my meds were in effect, he promised he would take care of me and that he would bring me back if I needed too.     The nurse left us alone in a teeny closet room.   I was miserable.  I had been up for going on 40 hours.  She finally got me signed out, took my blood pressure….and said I needed to go to the ER because my blood pressure was in the stroke danger level!  No wonder!  I thought I was about to be locked in the clock work orange hospital with druggies for weeks!   Finally they let me go home.  It was midnight.

We stopped at a drive through for a bite, which I could not eat, watched a silly sitcom, and KH held my hand until I finally slept.    At 10AM I woke up alone.   IH was still with my parents.   I felt not good, but a million times better than the day before.   I threw on my clothes, and drove straight to my parents house.  I still felt uncomfortable being alone.   We went grocery shopping,  did laundry,  played with IH.   As long as I was not alone, or alone with IH, I was okay.    (or not shaking crazy anyway)   I got a shiny new Rx for 20mg of Lexapro, double what I had ever been on before.  I canceled just about every responsibility that I could.   I kept my job at the preschool.  IH came home and slept when KH got off work.  My mom was here before KH left for work each morning.   It went like that for about two weeks.

Finally I decided I was okay to stay alone for the time between KH leaving for work and school.   At work at the preschool I was fine, I felt no anxiety around other people’s kids, just my own!  Then a few days later I was okay to come home from school and be alone until KH got home from work.   A week later I was okay putting IH in bed alone.  Then a week later I was okay driving in desolate areas alone, and then another week and I noticed….a miracle.  I was ENJOYING my life!  I was with my kid playing and laughing and not at all nervous!     It took about two months before I felt like myself.    Not only like myself, but better than I had felt since March……..the month I fully weaned off of my Lexapro the first time.

So, what caused it?   Lots of doctors appointments, therapy appointments, time and prayer and I know the answer.   1.  My hormones were jacked the hell up.   Like seriously, whacked.   I already knew that my anxiety ebbed with my hormones….I had PPD after all!  2.  I have OCD.   Not really depression, but OCD — heavy on the O, low on the C.  When it gets really bad, it is scary!  I was scared of, yes, unreasonable things, but it did not matter.  3.  I was overwhelmed.  I was taking too many pictures and not sleeping.  I let everything seem like it mattered 100 times more than it really did.  4.  I was not preventing it.    It was a perfect storm, and one that could have been prevented.

How am I keeping it from happening again?  1.  I took 20mg of Lexapro for almost a year.   I am now at 10mg and plan on staying on it, or another SSRI forever.   This is a disease and I am treating it just like I would take insulin if a diabetic.  I chemically need help to keep my brain from obsessing.  2.  I go to therapy every two weeks.  It helps so much.   I can tell her anything, even the ugly stuff and she makes me not feel crazy, helps me work out what is a real concern and what is me obsessing over something stupid.  (like earthquakes.  Oy Vey.)   I  plan on going forever.  I may drop to once a month at some point…..but not anytime soon.  3.  I am trying really hard not to overbook myself.  I am making rest and sleep and fun a priority.

I will always have stress.  That is life.   And, I am glad that it is my life to live.  And, no, it is not perfect, but it is good…and knowing that.  Truly KNOWING that is huge.  It is what makes the Sarah of the fall of 2011 a world away from the Sarah of 2010.

The smile is much more real this time.

I will address the looming baby question at some point this month.

I will address the faith part too, how OCD affects your faith deserves its own post.

One such day was November 22, 2010.   I did have to look it up, I remembered that it was the Monday before Thanksgiving, but not the date.    You see the reason I disappeared from NaBloPoMo last year was because I went crazy on November 22, 2010.    That sounds horrible, and there are other ways to put it, but that it is what it felt like so I think it fits pretty well.   I am going to tell you what happened.  It is kinda hard, but I am going to write it down here for the same reason I want to do NaBloPoMo this month, to remind myself that the Sarah* in the Fall of 2010 is not the Sarah in the Fall of 2011.

This story actually starts back a little ways.  Alllll the way back to March of 2010.   That was the month when KH and I decided we were going to not try not have a baby.  Did ya get that?  That means we were not going to do anything to prevent, but I was also not going to obsess about trying to get pregnant.  Because we both pretty much thought I would get pregnant pretty quickly, I  started taking prenatal vitamins and started to wean off of the Lexapro I had been on pretty much since that other time I went crazy.    I felt good!  Life was Good!  There was no reason I needed an anti-anxiety medication.  My 10mg went to 5mg and then 2.5mg and then nothing.  I was totally off the Lexapro by April.   I also kept having this weird pain in my side….and it was getting worse!   It was my gallbladder.   It was full of a medicine sludge from all of the stupid hormones I had taken in the fall and winter of 2009!  ACK!  Fine.  I was not taking anymore hormones.  Side still hurt.   Damn it.

On April 5th of 2010 I went in to have my gallbladder yanked out.   I was wheeled back at about 7:55 AM.   At 7:59 KH got a call from an unknown number.  He ignored it.  His wife was in surgery after all!  At 8:05 it rang again.  He answered it.  It was his boss’s boss’s boss.   That cushy job that let him hang out with us all the time?  The one that paid great, and had excellent benefits and had my hubby around all the time?  Turns out he was around all the time because there was not really enough work for him.  He got RIF’d.   (That means reduction in force if you are like me and had no clue.) So.  No job.   Wife in surgery.  Wife not on her anxiety drugs and kinda sorta trying to get pregnant.  Yup, that about covers it.

All day he took such good care of me.  My parents were here with us, so it was 5PM before I was lucid and we were alone.   He was so sweet, and I felt strangely calm as he told me that I was now a SAHM to an out of work husband.   People brought us food for a week because I was out of commission.  I started telling my super close friends what had happened.   My MOPS steering team collected money and gave me a Kroger gift card.   It was wonderful and horribly embarrassing all at the same time.  We had to cancel our vacation I was so looking forward to.   My mom spent the whole summer in KY working on my Ma’s house, and Gabs was being a brat.   My dad was obsessing about school projects and calling every five minutes.    JH was getting divorced and I had to go to court, and a million other little stressors were quickly adding up.

We had unemployment, and a small severance package, and insurance for a month.    KH started getting interviews pretty quick…but nothing to match the pay he had before.    We had said we could make it until July 1st and then I would start looking for a job too.   He got hired on June 20th.    Not as much money and he had to drive to the capital city, but it was a job in his field which was pretty darn secure.   I also took a pretty sweet little job at IH’s preschool, it doesn’t pay much, but not much is more than none, and IH gets free tuition.   SCORE!  We waited until the new insurance kicked in and then threw away my birth control pills AGAIN.

But something weird happened.   My period never came!  Like a week late, then a month, and then TWO MONTHS, no period.   I was sure I was pregnant.  Positive.  But test after test kept coming up negative.   After it was almost two months late I got one test with a faint double line.  The next day I was at the preschool when (so TMI, really sorry about that)  I started bleeding so hard, I thought I was dying.  I had to go home and change it was so bad.   I called the OB of course and some blood work and an ultra sound showed that I either had a chemical pregnancy, or not.  Thanks for clearing that up.   Either way, not PG now.

I also had been feeling……off.  Nervous and jittery and thinking all kinds of  intrusive thoughts.  Like before, only not.  The hypochondria was horrible and I was doing all kinds of stupid rituals again.   I pushed through, convinced that I would be fine.   The OB gave me another hormone to get my cycle back in check.   I accepted every photography gig I was offered because we were still trying to bounce back from that whole three months of no income.    I stayed up every single night editing pictures, and when I did go to bed I was just a tangle of nerves and heartburn.

I did that for about a month.  The week before Thanksgiving KH had a week of vacation.  We had no money to go somewhere, so I made to-do lists everyday.  At least our house would be back in order and I could stop stressing about that!  I had a mountain of laundry and every time I looked at it, I had a literal panic attack.   We had some family pictures taken by one of my friends using my camera.  I told her to just shoot non-stop thinking she would get at least a few good ones by chance.  She took me at my word at took 2300 pictures in an hour.   They sat in a folder on my computer taunting me.  She got a few good ones, but I know the smile was so not real.

KH got sick, IH was being whiny and NONE of my to-do list got done.

Sunday night, November 21.   KH got IH in bed finally.  I sat for hours guzzling Dr. Pepper and editing pictures of another family, one with three gorgeous kids, including the most precious baby girl.  A lovely and thin SAHM who had a stunning house and a nice car and had just returned from a beach vacation with just her husband.   And they were beautiful pictures.  Really, still some of my best work to date.    I finally finished at about 3AM, November 22.      I crawled into bed next to my husband.   He had been snoring peacefully for hours.    I tossed and turned and fretted.  I could not sleep.    I looked at the clock,  I knew hubby’s first alarm went off at 4AM, and he would go back to sleep and hit snooze three times before actually getting up at 4:45.   I tried to go to sleep.  I really did.   The alarm went off.  I stared at the darkness.The alarm went off.  I stared at the darkness still.  The alarm went off.  I started to be so anxious I was literally vibrating.  It went off, and he got up and headed to the shower.  Finally.  It was quiet.   It was dark.  I had a soft bed all to myself.   I had three hours until IH would wake up.  Only not.  I hear a cry and a door slam and little feet padding across my floor.  He climbed in bed with me.   He snuggled next to me.  It felt like he was choking me.  I could not breathe……

to be continued tomorrow.

*I am over the whole using fake names bit.      My name is Sarah.   There are about a million and a half of us, and no one is reading this anyway, so I am going to use my real name dangit!   I refer to my hubby as KH and my son has IH all the time,  I even have it on a necklace I often wear so that is who they are.   The dog can remain the dog I guess.

I want to tell you that some days I want to be back on Lexapro so bad, but that makes me sound like a drug addict.

I want to tell you about what is going on with my uterus, but no one wants to read about gynecological issues. (edited to add.  I am not pregnant. Please don’t ask me if I am!)

I want to tell you the huge list of things I need to be doing right now, but it intimidates me to even think about it.

I want to tell you about so many things, but just can’t get the words out!

So have a cute picture of my kid instead.

In October I announced I was going to have a sale! 20% off, just for MOPS moms, in the month of November.  I booked several new customers.  Great news!  The very next week, a mom who is new to our group announced she is a photographer too!  And, will have a day where she does FREE family portraits in a local park!

And, I feel….unhappy about  this.   Now,  I have looked at her website and she is okay, but I think I am better.  I know that seems vain, but it is pretty obvious.   I know I must be getting more work than her because I would NEVER have time to do free portraits in the month everyone is getting their Christmas cards done.   I have had one family cancel, and I have no reason to think Photographer B is the cause.  But, it still makes me feel icky.

Is 20% too little a discount for women whom I love?  I am still dang affordable.  Should I have MADE time to do free portraits?  (I have three sessions booked for the day she is doing free shots.) Is this going to hurt my business?

It also makes me feel suspicious because she is doing them midday!  Outdoor portraits in the middle of the day?  Um. No.  Never.

Is there anything I can do? Anything I should do?   Grow up and welcome healthy competition?