anxiety Archives - Page 2 of 6 -

Random Worries of a Pregnant PPD Mom

June 27, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

I’m not fretting too much about this stuff, but it’s taking up space in my brain so I thought I’d put it somewhere else.

I’m worried that if I spend 40 weeks totally exhausted (which seems to be the way this is going) I will be already tired when I go into the newborn-tired phase. And that’s not good for someone who’s attempting to avoid once again turning into a raging lunatic.
I’m not even sure I’m going to get to 40 weeks. If all my wishing for this to be over happens to work I won’t. Which isn’t how it works, I know. So maybe I’m just dreading 16 more weeks of feeling like crap.
I’m not sure if I’m up for all the baby stuff again. (I know. Too late, right?)
I’m worried I’m going to have another breech baby.
I’m a little concerned that if I do end up with another scheduled c-section I won’t be as okay with it as I’m trying to prepare myself to be.
I’m afraid I’ll be disappointed in myself and how I handle labour if I do get to experience that this time.
I’m afraid that, no matter what happens, the new-baby stuff will result in me being an absolutely awful mother to Connor.
I’m dreading all the icky postpartum stuff – sore boobs, sore incision, hair loss, night sweats. (Oh wait, I get night sweats now. (Thanks, meds.) So I guess I dread that getting worse. Or never, EVER going away.)
I’m worried that the recently-discovered marginal cord insertion issue I have is more of a concern than my midwife is making it out to be. (This is when the umbilical cord is inserted into the side of the placenta instead of the middle, and it can affect the baby’s growth. Anyone have any experience with that?)
Despite #9, I’m worried that I’m measuring small because my being on medication is making this baby small.

And bonus #11: I’m worried that this many worries is a sign that I get to deal with mucho anxiety this time as well as the potential for rage/depression/general craziness.

Sigh.

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Filed Under: Hard things, Postpartum depression, Pregnancy · Tagged With: admissions, antenatal depression, anxiety, expectations, lists

The Power of Truth

April 26, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

It’s been five days since the antenatal depression light clicked on. Five sleeps. Five sunrise-sunsets. Five turns of the Earth. And everything actually feels okay in my world.

No matter what the situation, I always feel better once I recognize it. An anxiety attack is less end-of-the-world when I realize it’s a momentary and not entirely logical reaction to something (even if I don’t know what that something is). The stones at what looks like the fast-approaching bottom fall away to reveal solid ground beneath me. And I stop feeling like I don’t know what I’m going to do next.

I don’t know if it was the recognizing of it or the saying of it or the writing of it. But that truth took away some of the power this illness has and gave it back to me.

There’s always power in truth. Whether you admit it to yourself or the whole world, saying it helps dissipate the darkness. I know this, and yet I have to learn the lesson every time.

I’m not saying everything is better or that this won’t still be a battle at times, but I am feeling better. And, for now at least, I’m sleeping in my bed instead of hiding in it.

Thank you for all the comments and words of love – both here and elsewhere.

Image credit: auro on Flickr

Filed Under: Happy things, Pregnancy · Tagged With: antenatal depression, anxiety, community, gratitude, perspective, we're not alone

Reset

April 9, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

The last couple of weeks have been rough. After Michael’s accident we had family members flying all over the place, which my anxiety really didn’t like (especially when it involved putting my 72-year-old father on a plane for a 24-hour trip to Australia). He got there all right, but then Michael passed away and we started an overwhelming game of Should We or Shouldn’t We Go to Australia for the Funeral.

We didn’t go.

It was agonizing. I couldn’t imagine not going, and yet I couldn’t quite figure out how we’d make it work either. I’ve been so sick so far this pregnancy that a 24-hour trip seemed like the World’s Worst Idea. I could have gone, of course, and would have, but we also didn’t want to totally overwhelm everyone by showing up a day before the funeral with a three-year-old in tow.

In the end, we decided we will be the second wave of support and go down in a few weeks (with my other sister) when things have calmed down and my sister and brother-in-law are trying to adjust to their new normal. In the meantime, we’ve sent texts and messages—by the hundreds, it seems—and if waves of love can reach that far they’ll have had an ocean’s worth.

Now the funeral is done. Friends and family have spoken words of love and Michael’s school mates formed an honour guard for him as he left the cemetery. Those of us here have had our own moment to remember him and we now exist in that space between blessed closure and enduring disbelief. We continue to ask why, but an answer never comes.

Until today, half of my family was in Australia (more than half, actually). My brother also went for a quick down-and-back to help my dad and youngest sister travel comfortably home. (Working for an airline has its benefits.) Much to everyone’s relief, they’re just arriving home after another 24-hour trip in a very short span of time.

There is no pause button in this life. And try as I might, I haven’t been able to find any sort of rewind button either. So for the moment, I have chosen to hit reset. Instead of being in perpetual limbo—waiting for what?—I declared Easter weekend a weekend to go out of town. We got out of the house, where we’ve been sitting waiting for the phone to ring or the next text message to wing its way across the world, and spent some time in the mountains.

More on that later, but in the meantime I’ll say this: It helped.

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: anxiety, family, perspective, The Universe, weekends

On Life, Loss and the Universe’s Math

March 28, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

My nephew Michael was born a little while after my Nana passed away in the early 90s. I remember at the time thinking it was an odd minus-one, plus-one situation. Some sort of weird cosmic math where one is taken away to make room for another.

When I was pregnant with Connor, my cousin took her own life. It was shocking. Horrifying. But, maybe because of the overlap (I was already pregnant), that time I didn’t think about the math.

Yesterday, Michael was in a serious car accident and he’s now in a coma. He and his family—my sister—live in Australia and they feel so very far away. They are so very, very far away. And I sit here, three months pregnant, feeling helpless and wondering why the universe seems to require things to be just so perfectly balanced.

Michael is young, having just finished high school. He’s smart, athletic, and cute. He’s also a really, really nice kid. Why does he have to have his life threatened when others are allowed to live on and contribute nothing to the world except pain and anguish? Why does that perfectly balanced math have to come from within my own family?

It just makes me think. Connor climbed into bed with me early this morning, curving his small body into mine. He was restless, though, as was I after a night of lying awake and wondering about things bigger than I that I don’t understand. My small boy pressed his cool cheek against mine and rubbed my wrist. I felt his soft hair and his little fingers and the in-and-out of his quiet breathing.

I kept him with me there in the quiet darkness of a day not yet begun and wondered how I can keep him safe. But I can’t. Ultimately—ironically, unfairly—none of us can do that for our children.

We just have to hope the universe isn’t quite so picky with the math.

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: anxiety, family, hope, The Universe

New Life

March 14, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

When I chose my one word for 2012 – VIBRANT – I had a moment where I wondered if perhaps it might come to mean more than just joyously living life. It was wishful thinking at the time – a what if and not a when.

Now it’s a when.

Somewhat to my surprise (but certainly not unwelcome) I’m pregnant.

My reaction to this, and the roller coaster of emotion over the last several weeks, could potentially fill this blog from now to my due date. (But don’t worry – I won’t subject you to quite that much navel gazing.) I will share one story about a reaction that was most unexpected given that this is something wanted and hoped for, but mostly I’m hoping to move on in a much more positive frame of mind than I’ve been in of late.

If you read my post yesterday, you’ll probably wonder what on earth had me so worked up. I wonder that a bit myself, actually, as I knew I would once I got past that milestone. You see, I started a new job in the middle of December, which puts me not quite at the three-month mark. Total newbie. And I’m replacing someone who was away on mat leave for a year and then returned, on a part-time basis, only to resign a couple of months later to stay at home with her son. The team I’m leading has had a rough time with having a manager over the last couple of years (or not having one, as the case may be).

I know, this is more important. And people will understand. And what are you going to do, anyway?

I know all that.

But somehow over the last six weeks I’ve managed to work myself up into a state of guilt and unbridled angst over this. “Screw you” is not a life philosophy I subscribe to. (Not that anyone who leaves a job for any amount of time due to pregnancy or parenting does…) I’m not even past my probation period – not that I had any concern about being fired as a result of this announcement, but it’s all just so…new.

So instead of continuing to add to my already ever-present nausea with a stomach in knots, I decided to come clean. Better to have it in the open than stuck in my head, I figure. And besides, given how fast I’m already expanding it wouldn’t have been a secret for long.

In any case, it went well. I’ve told them and now I’ve told you.

And now, joyously, all those words that have been walled up inside me can be set free.

Coming on or around October 13, 2012 to a blog near you.