apron strings

d is for depression and depression meds are for me.

thanks sooooo much for all of the love on my last post. seriously. you guys made me feel all warm and fuzzy. which is exactly what i needed. for some stupid reason, i thought some anonymous readers would say something stupid, like OMG SSRI's=still birth. And, i, in no way, expected that all of you would 'get it.' sorry. bad blogger. no cookie.

i never said that i think (because i also suffer from moronic-ness) that depression is a weakness, or that were i strong enough i could overcome it. but, it was neat that even though i didn't know that i was saying those things...you did.

i am getting past all that now, because i feel so much better and really without too much effort. i'd rather work on sewing.

but anyway, because i was mistaken about depression and it's effects on pregnancy, i had thought that i'd just stop taking the medications, by weaning myself off of them. my regular psychiatrist (well, actually the nurse, i never even meet the psychiatrist) referred me (because i insisted)to a specialist in maternal mental health. they are one of the only ones in the country and they're at emory near my work. i love my new doctor. he listened to me. and he's a doctor.

as it happens, they are doing a study on depression in pregnancy. which i elected to participate in. they will not change any of my medication, they just want to study my experience. for altruistic reasons i want to participate. but mostly because it is free.

i had planned to $250.00 per visit, because of course Kaiser doesn't pay for a specialist in maternal mental health. so, i get to meet with an actual psychiatrist, for an hour. ( up until now i was meeting with a psych nurse for 15 minutes.)

i really like him. he explained to me that his concern was for my unborn child (i'm sorry, was there just a "my" before unborn child?) first, and myself, second. i told him that i would like to come off of the medication, though i really hated to because it had really made my life so much better.

he told me that he would tell me the pros and cons and then let me decide for myself. he led me through the risks of the anti-anxiety and SSRI that i am on to a developing fetus. they have done numerous studies, and all but one conclude, that if you take an SSRI then you have a 2.5% chance of having a child with a birth defect. versus 3.0% in the general population. however, there was another study that showed that if you take SSRI's during pregnancy, you have a 2.9% chance of having a baby with a cleft palate. so, all in all, if I take the medication that i take, i have the same chance of having a child with a birth defect that i would if i weren't depressed and were not taking medication.

the only side effect that i need to be concerned about is that babies born to mothers on SSRI's tend to (1 in 5 chance) have babies that are jittery and may have a bit more breathing difficulty. there is nothing to say that they won't breath, just that their breathing scores aren't as high.

these side effects are horrifying to me. at first i got teary-eyed and felt like i was going to have a crack baby. but the doc talked me down, and LIW's comment, "it may make a baby jittery" really helped. She was so, "utter despair vs. a slightly shaky baby for a few minutes..."

while, i wish there were no risks, and no side effects, unfortunately, there are very serious consequences of depression on a pregnancy. should i decide to forgo medication, i will automatically go through double depression. one, because i will be depressed and unmedicated, and because withdrawal from SSRI's adds situational depression on top of that. pregnant women who suffer from chronic depression, are way more likely, to go into preterm labor, deliver a stillborn baby, and miscarry.  not to mention the health problems it creates for the mother. also, depressed mothers tend to have speech-delayed children. how crazy is that?? (who feels like speaking motherese when it is all you can do to get out of bed?)

i had no idea. did you? all the risks of being depressed and pregnant and unmedicated, make sense. depressants are more likely to be sick and to die of illness. 

so, i am on medication for the duration. wish i wasn't. wish my brain would cooperate. but i know all to well that it won't. i am very happy to participating in this study, i like the idea of being monitored by an actual psychiatrist, i like the extra ultrasounds, and i like the $200. gift certificate for babies R' us.  I mean for $200 i would even pretend to be a bit sad.

i am doing so much better. i still cannot believe that we've one the greatest lottery. though feeling pukey every 1.5 minutes is really bringing it home.

oh, and i promise to never talk about depression again. seriously, it's depressing!

not so funny

so, for a lot of reasons i failed to tell you something quite important. and something you really need to know to know me.

like all depressants, i am an expert at hiding what plagues me. why upset anyone? and it makes me feel so vulnerable. i just can't blog at the  moment without fessing up. because, as much as it sucks, it's a part of who i am. actually, it's who i am.

in october of 2006, after a year of infertility, g-d knows how many early miscarriages, and while working at a job i absolutely hated. i developed an all-consuming, paralyzing and terrifying depression. clearly more than sadness. the kind that weighs on you like an elephant that keeps you from getting out of bed. or talking to people. or having the energy to do anything at all that might help get you out of it. i can't tell you more, in the off chance that someone who loves me might worry that i would, through my actions, drag them through what too many of my relatives have. yeah, it was that bad.

the sucky, sucky, part about depression is that it keeps you on the couch. you feel this all consuming and an over-whelming lethargy. you cannot do anything that might make you happy. you just can't. so you lay on the couch and watch t.v., though not paying attention to anything. and when it gets bad you do this every night. for months.

the other crippling aspects of depression are a complete inability to focus on anything more than a second, migraines, insomnia (which of course, makes depression worse) lack of appetite and irritability, and anxiety so bad that you always feel on the brink of a panic attack.  to the 100th degree.

the scary part is....is that it never occurred to me that i might suffer from depression. because when you've been sad for so long, (since middle school) it's a way life. now, it occurs to me, that spending all day on the couch in my pj.s during spring break in high school wasn't quite healthy.

i always thought that i was sometimes sad because my childhood wasn't so great, i was always tired in college because i had to work so much, etc.  because i couldn't have a baby.

k finally insisted that i go to counseling. thank goodness.

i was diagnosed the first time i ever spoke to a mental health expert with at least situational depression. though they were pretty sure that i suffered from chronic depression, they weren't sure because i had so much to be sad about.

from the beginning, they wanted me to go on a SSRI, which i fiercely resisted. i did start taking an anti-anxiety drug, in a very small dose. which greatly helped my anxiety. i was so tired of not sleeping and nightmares when i did.

being who i was, i knew i could, on my own, get myself out of it. by exercising, meditating, counseling, yoga etc.

so, i did. for a year. and even after all of that, i still couldn't manage to be happy. sure, i felt better. but there remained an impenetrable wall between me and anything that might make me happy. and i still had an incredibly hard time getting off of the couch to do what i knew i needed to to starve my monster.

finally, finally, and after i was officially diagnosed with chronic depression. i reluctantly agreed, this october to take a light SSRI (that was as safe as possible for TTC).

almost immediately, i felt better than i have in my whole life. i still felt sad and despondent at times, but it started giving me the energy i really needed to feel better. to feel good for any length of time. for the first time in my entire life. it  sounds cheesy, but even a light dose of an SSRI began to chip away at the wall that had always been between me and happiness.

this has all become suddenly quite relevant, because it is not coincidence that we won the greatest lottery the very month that my SSRI got to a therapeutic level. there are numerous strides that show a link between infertility and even light or situational depression. also, of course, i am greatly concerned about possible effects of on my unborn child.

you can see, if you had the interest and time, how my SSRI began too help me...notice how in october i started sewing all of the time, and making cupcakes. how i began the life that i was meant to live. and you can hear a bit more cheer in my voice.

thank goodness, i live in atlanta, and live near one of the only psychiatry clinics that deals exclusively with maternal depression. and prenatal care of it.

to protect myself from stress that will and does effect the precious, pencil eraser sized being inside of me, i ask anonymous readers not to judge. unless you are an expert on depression in expectant mothers and psychiatry, unless you have any idea of what you're saying. remember, i have a guardian angel who's quite skilled at using and carries a shot-gun. :  )  (hope i know you are laughing. did you know that she slept on my couch with a rifle/shot gun in her arms after i discovered a peeping tom? and we both know she would have shot'em without blinking.)

there's obviously more that i want to say: what my treatment will be, how this all makes me feel like a failure, like my body has failed me once again, how the most fvcked up part of my mental make-up is that depression is my default, so that anytime i feel any emotion, the first thing i feel is depression. which means that now, though i should be experiencing the greatest joy, i am depressed. how ridiculous is that????

so that's where i am. and who i am.

***

we had our 3rd u/s where they counted the h/b. it's 128. at first they told me that they wanted to see 120 and of course i didn't like only being eight over. but then the doctor said the new rule is 110. so phew. i am measuring a few days behind the last u/s, but apparently that is normal. is that true??

i am still the p word. which is everything.