Coming out of a fog

I actually wrote this on Monday earlier this week and never posted it...

I’m starting to feel more like myself again – for several reasons. First off this terrible cold is finally starting to break. Bad timing had me sick while my niece was visiting. She was so sweet to put up with my sniffling, coughing and whining. We went to get makeovers at Benefit and I also apologized to the girl doing my makeup for my cold (she worked wonders on covering up my red nose!) I still have that groggy sleepy thing going on and am a little light headed – but nothing like yesterday when I felt like I would faint from walking up the stairs. The second reason for coming out of a fog is that my diagnosis of post partum depression (PPD) seems to have leveled off. Thank goodness for drugs! I’ve been on Zoloft for about 6 weeks now and after experimenting with dosages I think we found the right amount and I feel like me again. The odd thing was that the PPD didn’t start until Luke was about 4 months old and I thought (mistakenly) that if you were going to get it, it would start right after the baby was born. I recently read otherwise and that it’s very common to get it at 4 months. I think there may have been a combination of life stresses that kicked the PPD into high gear as well. A huge immense thank you to my husband, Pete, for noticing what was going on with me and urging me to see my doctor. My doctor has been amazing and also thanks Pete because she says not enough husbands are aware of PPD or know how to handle it. Luckily I think I got in very early and kept it from spiraling. I will likely stay on the medication until springtime unless I have side effects or a reason to discontinue.

I am now at the point that I can acknowledge what’s going on and look back on how I felt. I was not in a happy place. I had this incredible magnificent little boy in my life and I couldn’t fully appreciate him. I would go through the motions and say the right things and do what I was supposed to do but I was absent. I would sit there and talk to him and he would coo back at me but I would find that I was zoning out and had totally missed out because I was staring blankly at who knows what for who knows how long. He was always safe and I never felt any urge to hurt him or me. But I was in a haze and a cloud and it is such a cliché description but it is so true. In the midst of these fogs were frighteningly scary panic attacks that left me gasping for breath and unsure of what was happening. I think one of my worst moments was when I was at work but I was convinced that feeding Luke milk I pumped would make him sick. Some part of me knew this was a little irrational but had moments when I was 100% sure that since I was depressed, if he had my milk, it would make him ill. It got to the point that I was just going to stop pumping at work. I also spent some time looking for proof by googling “depression and sick babies” but I never found anything. Finally, I convinced myself that even though I thought it was bad for Luke, I would pump anyway and then talk to Pete about it when I got home and we’d test if the milk was sour. Or something. I don’t know what my plan was but I did what I needed to do and after I actually pumped, I did feel better and realized how nutty and delusional my thinking was. I had to check out and try not to stress out. I will probably still have some bad days here and there but I feel confident that I know what’s going on and I know my limits. I used to panic about not pumping enough and what if he needs to drink formula? I am now ok with him having formula if he needs it. Me stressing out about him not having enough to eat will only result in me producing less – so the sooner I acknowledge it’s ok for him to have formula, the better we’ll all feel.