Antepartum Depression

I posted this entry earlier today, and then I took it off for no real good reason. And then I realized that people with a blog reader were only going to get half of the story if I didn't leave the post up. You all know I am pretty open with my life -- for good, bad, strengths and weakness. So here it is.

So it turns out I am not just a little bit crazy during this pregnancy, I am officially crazy.

After talking to my family and some friends about some really sad and stressful thoughts I've been dealing with in this pregnancy, I finally talked to my doctor about it. My midwives are concerned that I have developed a form of clinical depression known as Antepartum Depression. Most of us have heard of postpartum depression. It gets more press because the safety of the baby is often in jeopardy, but antepartum and postpartum are sort of cut from the same cloth.

It turns out that a lot of people go untreated for this illness because they think they are just pregnant crazy OR because they have experienced depression enough in other times in their life that they think it is normal. It is more easily diagnosed in people who feel completely side swiped by the emotional change... like me.

I did a lot of reading about this, and there are lots of risks to the baby for going untreated such as preterm birth and advanced postpartum depression. Yuk! I don't want that, so I will take my medication with pride.

I know I've told most of you about at least some of my feelings lately. And maybe you already thought, "I think she might be losing it a little."

I'm assuming that this started back in November. I think the stress of my near miscarriage might have created an imbalance of serotonin in my brain. I remember the intensity of the feeling of being told intense feeling from when I was told on the phone that I should come in to the office to confirm that my baby was dead ... twice. I think that was enough to just through things out of whack, and then life happens on top of the main trigger.

Now, I knew that pregnancy could change your thoughts and feelings in a major way. When I was pregnant with Quinn, I think my serotonin levels rose, and I was perfectly content to do nothing all day. That is not me. I like I stay busy. I was in the middle of my master's, and I didn't go into my office for months. I assumed this was the new Jill, and I guess that is that. But Quinn had not been out of me for an hour before I started thinking, "I have to get to the office sometimes next week." Back to normal.

For me a drop in serotonin looks very different. In terms of symptoms, I haven't been sleeping at night. I just stay away worrying about little tiny things that do not matter. As I told my sister, there may be 4 nights in my life that I didn't sleep well, but since November, I've had more nights than not where I was up worrying about something. Then during the day I worry, I stress, I get anxious, nervous, paranoid, and very angry. I have good times and fun times, but there is always a dark cloud. I am crazy sensitive, which adds to the pain and worry. It is just not me.

I've know for a few months that something was wrong. I can talk myself through it quite a bit. I knew it was short term for the pregnancy, and I my brain could tell me that the things I was feeling weren't real -- No body is out to get me. I am not about to get fired. My daughter doesn't hate me and so on, but it couldn't change the feelings and the stress. I knew it would end in a few months. "It's just a hard pregnancy..." blah, blah, blah.

I feel lucky that I have been sane enough lately to know something was wrong, though. Thank God for small favors. And I recently started feeling like there was no way I could make it to June. I thought I didn't have a choice. It is nice to know that I have options.

So, I will be taking Zoloft for the next month to see if there is a change. I'm hoping that I will only have to take the drug for a month because I am not convinced that it is safe for the baby. If I can just reboot my brain a little, I might be able to get through the last two months on my own with help from friends and family. But then again, I want to be as healthy as possible when she gets here, so I can bond properly and all that Jazz. Maybe I'll stay on it.

Depression is not cool. I hope it goes away VERY soon. I have so many wonderful things in my life, and I want to be able to feel them again.

I have no plans to let this get in the way of future baby making. I still consider myself a quiverful Christian who wants an army of little ones at my house. It is just a bump in the road. A really crappy bump that makes me cry really easily, but just a bump none the less.