Monday, April 25, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Time and the lack thereof
Having a baby I have found leaves a person with very little time. Things kind of go like this: Wake up to baby crying, change baby, feed baby, try to get baby to fall asleep again, while baby is asleep try to get things done, these things may include: cleaning, eating, sleeping or trying to de-stress. Baby usually wakes up during this time and everything starts again. This is why I boggle at the advice that you get as a new mom.
Sleep while your child is sleeping is something I have often heard. Problem is sleep is not something you can always do when you have other things that need to be done. Things like feeding yourself, doing laundry, washing bottles, washing dishes, trying to get the house looking somewhat presentable, etc. The feeding yourself part seems to be my greatest hurdle. My baby seems to have a inborn sense of when Mommy is trying to feed herself, because almost every time I start putting anything together for consumption is when he begins to fuss or flat out bawl. This has led me to wonder if the baby has some strange desire to keep me from eating. Logically I know this is not the case, but there is a part of me that wonders.
This leads me to my next topic, hysteria. When I was in high school I took a class where we covered Latin roots, prefixes and suffixes. And hyster was one that we discussed. The word hyster has to do with women, which is why hysterectomy refers to the removal of the uterus. It is also part of the word hysteria. This is because hysteria was generally attributed to women, or rather only women were the crazy ones, which is why they were not allowed to vote in ancient Greece and Rome. When I was younger I really wondered about this, women were just fine, there was nothing insane about them. Then I had a child.
Truthfully I was lucky, I went through In Vetro Fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant and during the fertility treatments I did great! No crazed hormonally imbalanced woman going crazy all over everyone. Then I got pregnant and nothing really changed. I was good, even keel, absolutely fine. Then the baby came and suddenly the hormone change happened. I had mood swings, a stress level that was insane, I snapped at my husband, it was terrible. Then I got medicated and things began to calm down. But I began to see why women would be considered insane.
Thankfully in my medicated state I have two sides to me, an emotional side and a rational side. The rational side keeps me chugging along like a normal well adjusted person and the emotional side leaves me in a squirmy pile of goo over my cute baby. But thank goodness for that rational side, otherwise I would probably start to believe certain things that come to my mind. Things like: The baby doesn't want me to eat, or the baby doesn't want me to sleep, or the baby is out to get me, or the baby hates me because he cries half the times he looks at me, etc. My rational side grabs onto those thoughts and says, "Really? That makes no sense at all. The baby has no idea about you eating, the baby just needs something and is communicating the only way he knows how to at this point, by crying." But I can see how someone could easily go off the deep end if they started to believe the crazy thoughts that come into your head when you have just had a baby. And it makes me wonder about what comes next.
Sleep while your child is sleeping is something I have often heard. Problem is sleep is not something you can always do when you have other things that need to be done. Things like feeding yourself, doing laundry, washing bottles, washing dishes, trying to get the house looking somewhat presentable, etc. The feeding yourself part seems to be my greatest hurdle. My baby seems to have a inborn sense of when Mommy is trying to feed herself, because almost every time I start putting anything together for consumption is when he begins to fuss or flat out bawl. This has led me to wonder if the baby has some strange desire to keep me from eating. Logically I know this is not the case, but there is a part of me that wonders.
This leads me to my next topic, hysteria. When I was in high school I took a class where we covered Latin roots, prefixes and suffixes. And hyster was one that we discussed. The word hyster has to do with women, which is why hysterectomy refers to the removal of the uterus. It is also part of the word hysteria. This is because hysteria was generally attributed to women, or rather only women were the crazy ones, which is why they were not allowed to vote in ancient Greece and Rome. When I was younger I really wondered about this, women were just fine, there was nothing insane about them. Then I had a child.
Truthfully I was lucky, I went through In Vetro Fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant and during the fertility treatments I did great! No crazed hormonally imbalanced woman going crazy all over everyone. Then I got pregnant and nothing really changed. I was good, even keel, absolutely fine. Then the baby came and suddenly the hormone change happened. I had mood swings, a stress level that was insane, I snapped at my husband, it was terrible. Then I got medicated and things began to calm down. But I began to see why women would be considered insane.
Thankfully in my medicated state I have two sides to me, an emotional side and a rational side. The rational side keeps me chugging along like a normal well adjusted person and the emotional side leaves me in a squirmy pile of goo over my cute baby. But thank goodness for that rational side, otherwise I would probably start to believe certain things that come to my mind. Things like: The baby doesn't want me to eat, or the baby doesn't want me to sleep, or the baby is out to get me, or the baby hates me because he cries half the times he looks at me, etc. My rational side grabs onto those thoughts and says, "Really? That makes no sense at all. The baby has no idea about you eating, the baby just needs something and is communicating the only way he knows how to at this point, by crying." But I can see how someone could easily go off the deep end if they started to believe the crazy thoughts that come into your head when you have just had a baby. And it makes me wonder about what comes next.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Meds, PPD and Memory
For those of you who know me really well, or who have followed my regular blog for years you will know that I have a huge sense of denial about depression. Maybe denial is not the word exactly, but I have refused the idea that I could need depression meds for years. The reason? My entire family has at some point or another been on depression medication. Growing up my mom has had a long battle with depression starting with Post Pardum Depression after my brother was born. I remember her telling me that she thought she was going crazy. Eventually she went to her doctor and was put on depression medication. Over the following years we discussed as a family the fact that depression was often hereditary and we wondered which of us children would have it at some point. We all got married and moved out and then my Dad was put on depression meds as well. Then my brother was and then my sister. My mom would talk to me and say that I should probably be on them as well since the rest of the family was. But I never felt like I needed to be.
I have always been a rather happy person, and never felt like I needed medication to regulate my emotions. Was it denial? I don't think so. I think I was really fine the way I was. Then I got pregnant and instead of going through a sea of emotions like many women do I sailed through pregnancy without a hitch. I was even keel when it came to my emotions. Then I gave birth and suddenly the dam broke and a flood of emotions ensued. I became a basket-case, I cried at everything, was angry at everything else and was so stressed and frustrated that I felt like I was falling apart. As my mother had said to me previously in my life, I felt like I was going crazy. My doctor had asked me if I needed depression meds, but I was in denial and told myself that I would just tough my way through it all, like I did with everything else in my life. It all came to a head one night, the baby had been crying for three hours straight, I had been struggling with breastfeeding, he was resisting the breast, my breasts hurt terribly, and I was at my wits end. Kevin came home and I gave him the baby and started to get ready to go to bed. He got a bottle ready and began to feed the baby and handed me the baby to see if feeding a happy baby would help me. But the baby was not happy, he was still upset and began crying like he had been all night long. I couldn't handle it anymore and in frustration, stress and probably some insanity I screamed back at the baby. The baby stopped crying, looked at me with this horrified look on his face and began crying harder. I knew then that something was seriously wrong with me. I told the baby I was sorry, put the baby down, and went to bed after promising my husband that I would call my doctor in the morning.
The next day I called my doctor and after talking to her for a bit she prescribed me some depression meds. I started taking them on the 11th of March I think. The next week my in laws came to visit which I thought would increase my stress but actually helped to reduce it. Though having visitors can be stressful, having them out to help with the baby helped reduce my stress quite a bit. And it gave the meds time to kick in. So now here I am feeling much better, less stressed, less frustrated and more clear headed, more able to enjoy my little baby. Now if only I could remember things.
It must be something about becoming a mother, my mom says it is from giving birth, but either way since having David I have been incredibly forgetful. To the point where I forget things I say, forget what I did the day before. Everything seems to just run together. Maybe it is due to lack of sleep. Maybe it is due to stress. Whatever is causing it though I must admit that I miss my memory.
I have always been a rather happy person, and never felt like I needed medication to regulate my emotions. Was it denial? I don't think so. I think I was really fine the way I was. Then I got pregnant and instead of going through a sea of emotions like many women do I sailed through pregnancy without a hitch. I was even keel when it came to my emotions. Then I gave birth and suddenly the dam broke and a flood of emotions ensued. I became a basket-case, I cried at everything, was angry at everything else and was so stressed and frustrated that I felt like I was falling apart. As my mother had said to me previously in my life, I felt like I was going crazy. My doctor had asked me if I needed depression meds, but I was in denial and told myself that I would just tough my way through it all, like I did with everything else in my life. It all came to a head one night, the baby had been crying for three hours straight, I had been struggling with breastfeeding, he was resisting the breast, my breasts hurt terribly, and I was at my wits end. Kevin came home and I gave him the baby and started to get ready to go to bed. He got a bottle ready and began to feed the baby and handed me the baby to see if feeding a happy baby would help me. But the baby was not happy, he was still upset and began crying like he had been all night long. I couldn't handle it anymore and in frustration, stress and probably some insanity I screamed back at the baby. The baby stopped crying, looked at me with this horrified look on his face and began crying harder. I knew then that something was seriously wrong with me. I told the baby I was sorry, put the baby down, and went to bed after promising my husband that I would call my doctor in the morning.
The next day I called my doctor and after talking to her for a bit she prescribed me some depression meds. I started taking them on the 11th of March I think. The next week my in laws came to visit which I thought would increase my stress but actually helped to reduce it. Though having visitors can be stressful, having them out to help with the baby helped reduce my stress quite a bit. And it gave the meds time to kick in. So now here I am feeling much better, less stressed, less frustrated and more clear headed, more able to enjoy my little baby. Now if only I could remember things.
It must be something about becoming a mother, my mom says it is from giving birth, but either way since having David I have been incredibly forgetful. To the point where I forget things I say, forget what I did the day before. Everything seems to just run together. Maybe it is due to lack of sleep. Maybe it is due to stress. Whatever is causing it though I must admit that I miss my memory.
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