Down

It's back.  I've been trying to deny it for weeks, now, but the more I try to deny it, the worse it gets. 

I'm such an overachiever that I get postpartum depression before I give birth!  (They're calling it "Perinatal Anxiety and Mood Disorder" now).  I had it when I was pregnant with Mary Grace - back then I was so convinced that I was going to die in childbirth that I wrote BJ a very maudlin letter and gave it to his best friend, just in case.  I spent days crying.  I gave myself high blood pressure, worrying, and got put on bedrest.  She was born in August of 2005 (and I lived!) and I didn't get help until April of 2006.

I'm stubborn like that.  And stupid.

I got pregnant with Claire in July of 2006 - about 20 minutes after the Zoloft started working.  I stayed on  meds until my third trimester, then went off of it abruptly after I read a scary news story about the effects of antidepressants on fetuses and newborns (stupid!), then went back on it immediately after Claire's birth.

I can't remember when I decided to go off of it, or why, but I've been off for a long time.

Five weeks ago I talked to my midwife about the possibility that it might be coming back.  This time I'm not afraid that I'm going to die, though.  I already know I can survive pregnancy and birth - I've done it twice.  I'd even go as far as to say that I'm really good at birth!  No, my very adaptable brain has found something new to torment me - something I'm not sure I could survive.  I'm having extremely intrusive and graphic thoughts - anxiety - about something hideous happening to one of my kids.

The best/worst example is from several weeks ago - we headed up to Grammaland after school and I got them Happy Meals to eat on the way up.  I became obsessed with the idea that one of them would choke.  I could see myself, in my mind's eye, pulling up at my mom's, finding Claire's blue, lifeless body strapped into her car seat, trying and failing to revive her.  Screaming.  Having to tell BJ...  This scene played over and over and over in my head, until my adrenaline was coursing and I was sweating and basically completely freaking out.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop the images or the story playing over and over in my head.  So, I flipped the rear view mirror down and watched them more than I watched the road (stupid!), until they were done eating.  No one choked.  It took me the entire 90 minute drive to get myself together, though. 

That's when I realized that I might have a real problem.

I told my midwife, five weeks ago, that I was struggling, but I wanted to wait and see if it got better when school started.  It didn't.  So at my last appointment I decided to go back on Zoloft.  I started the dose too high (at 25 mg) and had some weird side effects (have you ever experienced three conflicting emotions at once?  It was weird, I didn't like it.  I felt very out of control).  I was also having trouble sleeping, which is DEFINITELY not going to help.  Since I backed off to 12.5 mg I've been much better, I feel more calm and patient, more in control.  I'm going to stay at 12.5 for a week and see how it goes before I try 25 again.

I was on 100 mg before.

It's hard for me to write this here - knowing that most of the people who read this blog know me in real life.  It's hard for me to admit that I'm struggling, that my house isn't as clean as it used to be, that my thoughts are all over the place, that I spend hours every day imagining all the ways that my kids could die and I can't stop it.  What kind of a mother does that?

But I am writing this because it is not my fault.  This is NOT a character flaw.  I am writing this because someone else might be struggling, and might find these words, and might need to know that it's not her fault either.  I am writing this because I need you to be patient with me for a while - I may not post often, or I may forget important things, or I may be selfish.  It's certain that my house will be a wreck for the foreseeable future, so try not to judge if you come over.  I have to hover over my kids more than usual to stop myself feeling like I'm going to find them dead somewhere, so I don't have the time to clean (while they're outside playing, for example) that I used to have.  I'm focusing on resting and taking care of myself and my family, so the other things I take care of might fall by the wayside for a while, and I'm sorry, but this is the best I can do.

I'm proud of myself for not denying it for the better part of a year, this time, before getting help.  I'm proud of myself for leaning on my family and friends more than I'm truly comfortable doing, because I know it's healthier than trying to do it all myself.  I'm proud of myself for admitting that I'm not perfect, and doing what it takes to get better, even though it's hard. 

I don't live with this because I'm weak - I survive it because I'm strong.

The thing about HFCS

I've mentioned before that we actively avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup in this house.  That link contains a video which explains why in excruciating scientific detail.  Bottom line:  it's bad for you, y'all.  Now I'm reading from several different sources that they (whoever "they" are, probably the companies that make HFCS) want to change the name to "corn sugar."  You know, to show us that it's just ... sugar.  Made from corn.  Nevermind that it is not chemically identical to beet or cane sugar, and that it is metabolized differently, or that obesity and diabetes have increased dramatically since its introduction 20 years ago...

Here's the thing, even if I'm wrong - even if HFCS and sugar are identical in terms of their impact on health... by avoiding HFCS or "corn sugar," I'm avoiding things like soda, prepackaged cookies, white bread and buns, and a bunch of other heavily processed low-fiber cheap junk food.  I'm avoiding high calorie salad dressings, but I'm still eating salads.  And they taste better!  It's not any hardship to read the labels and buy a barbecue sauce without HFCS.  Heinz has even come out with an HFCS-free "Simply Heinz" ketchup.

Even if HFCS is no worse for us than sugar, avoiding it is a good way to make sure that I'm not eating too much processed, cheap crap.  So even if they change the name to "corn sugar," I'll continue to avoid it.

How about you?

Minute for Minute

Mary Grace was up for two hours during the night on Sunday night. Two hours. So, on Monday afternoon, I said, "You owe me two hours of sleep. You need to go to your room and stay there until the timer goes off." I set the timer and went to bed.

Claire needed sleep, too, since MG woke her up during the night, so she went upstairs for the duration. I added time to the timer when MG got up to come talk to me about how mean I am, but I didn't make Claire serve that time. MG got really honked off when Claire was allowed to come downstairs, and then she got supremely pissed when the school bus brought all her friends home, and she still had 30 minutes to go.

Well, wouldn't you know it, but she only came down ONCE last night? HUGE improvement.

She's serving her 15 minutes now (because that's how long it took me to go back to sleep. She's not sleeping, she's up there reading books, but I don't care as long as she knows that for every minute she takes from me during the night, I'm going to take a minute out of her day.

Added bonus - making her stay upstairs during the day by herself is helping to eliminate her (completely irrational and unfounded) fear of being upstairs alone.

Cross your fingers that this solves the problem, because I would really like to get a couple uninterrupted nights of sleep before this baby is born.

In other news, I saw my midwife today. I have gained a total of four pounds in the 24 weeks I've been pregnant (WOO HOO!!!) and my blood pressure is holding steady at 118/62. I go back for the glucose tolerance test (yuck) in two weeks. I could do better with drinking enough water. I did much better with hydration in my previous pregnancies, back when I had time to worry about myself. I've had some contractions, and some headaches from being dehydrated, mostly because I'm a twit.

Since school started last Tuesday, I have remembered everything. This is no small feat, as we've had appointments and both the kids were "helper of the day" so they were responsible for snack for the entire class, and then the school sends stuff home with them overnight that needs to be returned the next day. We've had appointments and playdates and birthday parties... In spite of all this I have remembered to take everything and everyone everywhere that it or she needed to be! Of course, pointing this out is going to jinx me, and I'll forget something really important any minute now, but it bears pointing out that sometimes I completely rock.

Major progress has been made in the rearranging of the rooms, thanks to BJ. Aside from the enormous pile of stuff to take to Goodwill, most everything is back where it belongs. Once we get the office squared away (which is mainly up to BJ because I don't know what half of that stuff is) we'll be ready to start on the baby's room. I can't believe we're really close enough to start making a room for the baby. Woah. The carpet in that room is kind of brownish gold, which is going to be a challenge. I need to think seriously about window coverings, too.

There's a lot to do between now and December, but right now all I really want to do is nap. Maybe I'll put in a movie for the girls and do just that!

Upstairs, Downstairs

My five year old still doesn't sleep through the night, and I'm about at the end of my rope.

Our Cape Cod Style house has four bedrooms, but two of them are upstairs and two are downstairs. When we moved in we never expected to have three kids in this house. It was supposed to be our "starter house" in which we'd build "sweat equity" so that we could build our "forever house" after about 5 years. Well, with the way the housing market is, we should have the money to build our "forever house" right around the time that Baby Gozer leaves for college.

So when we moved in, we took the largest bedroom (upstairs). When Mary Grace was born, the second upstairs bedroom became hers. The downstairs two have been an office (in the front) and a guest room where BJ has kept his stationary bike and weights (in the back). When Claire was born, we decided that she and MG should share, and that's worked just fine, but now that Gozer's coming, we've reached critical bedroom mass. We can't have three kids with three beds and three sleep schedules in the same small bedroom.

After kicking around every possible combination of people in rooms, we finally decided to leave the girls in their room, to put the office and the exercise room in our old upstairs room, we took the downstairs front bedroom, and Gozer will be in the downstairs back bedroom. Guests will have the option to sleep on the couch in the family room or at the Motel 6.

We figure this makes the most sense, because Gozer's going to (hopefully!) sleep during the day, so I won't constantly be running up and down the stairs to put him or her to bed, or to get him or her up. I'll be on the main floor where the kids are playing so I'll be able to listen to them while I'm nursing Gozer to sleep. Also, it eliminates having to go up and down the stairs with the baby in the middle of the night. I remember several times finding the girls in my bed, knowing they couldn't walk yet, but having no idea how they got there. I don't want to sleepwalk up and down 13 steep stairs with the baby.

We started the process of moving the rooms last weekend (which is why things have been quiet, blog-wise, for a while). It's amazing how much stuff (and how much dust!) we have. It honestly would have been easier to move to a new house, but we would barely break even if we sold right now, considering the nearly-identical house that's for sale in our neighborhood right now for $10,000 less than we bought ours for 7-1/2 years ago!

You know those puzzles with 25 squares, and one is empty, and you have to slide around all the squares to get them in numerical order or to make a picture? That's pretty much what we've been doing.

Our new bed was delivered yesterday - the king we had wouldn't fit down here, so we had to get a queen. We're working on the closet today. I'll post pictures, eventually, when we get it all done, so expect those in 2023 or so.

The biggest problem in this whole process has been that Mary Grace is not at all happy with Mom and Dad being downstairs while she and her sister are upstairs. We stay upstairs with them until they fall asleep, and most mornings BJ is up there exercising when they wake up, but she has taken it upon herself to wake up at 3 or 4 am every night to come talk to me about how unhappy she is with the new sleeping arrangement.

Claire's fine, because her Big Sister makes her feel safe (and she's been a better sleeper from day 1). Big Sister, however, doesn't have anyone bigger to make her feel safe, so she comes downstairs to register her complaint whenever she happens to fall awake during the night.

This is not cool. I am very tired and very grumpy with her. It takes me forever to fall back asleep when she wakes me up.  I tried bribing her - and she stayed in her bed all night the two nights that she knew she'd get a cupcake if she stayed upstairs, but when the cupcakes ran out, she ran right back downstairs!  I'm not going to give her a cupcake every day for the next 13 years.

We've explained to her that she can come downstairs if she's sick or hurt, if she smells smoke or hears the smoke detector go off, or if Claire is sick or hurt, but she can't just come down to "snuggle" at 3 am. 

She's not allowed to watch TV all day as a punishment for waking me up.  She may never be allowed to watch TV again at the rate we're going.

Suggestions welcome.

Reason #74

Reason #74 why grandparents are better than parents - endless patience for reading stories.