Hi
Baby is 8 months old this week. I've had some strange anxiety for awhile now. I scored a low 40s on that quiz.
I'm very obviously stressed and that is part of what is going on.
Here's a list of things that have happened during my pregnancy/since DS's birth
--We moved (this is a good thing, I wanted it, same town)
--My mom now lives with us. (helpful, but has its challenges, and I really can't even discuss it with DH because mom will undoubtedly overhear. Which he and i are not comfortable with and her MO is to then not speak to me for days)
--My dad passed away in August last year after a few weeks in and out of hospital and nursing home.
--My son was born in November.
--Three weeks later, my grandmother passed away after a very brief illness. I really honestly did not expect it, and we were close.
--Not a real issue to me, but for my mom, who I'm positive is also depressed and realistically, she has been for YEARS, IMO, like my entire lifetime, is that my grandmother's sister and my mom's cousin who she grew up with like a brother both passed away in the last month.
(I mean, yes these were people I knew and had some good memories of, but from when I was little, or many years ago. Not people I was close to, who knew us now, my children, etc. These were people my mom was fairly close to, at least for a lot of her lifetime.)
If this helps anyone in advising, I took some Prolamine Iodine at the advice of my CPM....however, I think I stayed on it too long or I'm sensitive to Iodine, or something happened, because I had a major panic reaction that caused me to seek medical attention. Bloodwork showed my thyroid was off, I was told this was the cause, and told to stop taking the Iodine, which I did. Repeat bloodwork shows my thyroid as normal. Not at all borderline either.
So, I prefer to leave that alone.
This is not something my CPM necessarily agrees with, but it's ultimately MY body and MY decision. I remember her telling me this iodine was meant to be a temporary thing, that I would eventually wean off it. I remember realizing at the time the panic stuff happened that I'd been taking it for over six months. I take some responsibility in not maintaining contact with the midwife about when to wean down. That kind of got lost in the shuffle of funerals and new-baby-life. (I will also admit I read the bottle, it had different recommendations than what she was giving me, and I did not feel comfortable with the high dose, so I lowered it myself to the bottle's recommendation probably a month before this happened.)
So, we are at today. It's been nearly 3 months since the real panic attack type episodes. (There were 2.) I also had an incident about two months ago now where a friend of mine stopped speaking to me over something another person claims I said--that I did not say. Yes, this was a friend of 8 years. Yes, I was extremely upset by the fact that I was calling her just to see "what was up" a normal everyday call and I was blindsided by this accusation. Yes, I was upset that she refused to speak to me after that, answer any calls, anything, after telling me XYZ was going on and she would call me later.
But the intensity of the reaction I had was well, uncalled for. What I see it as now is during both of the deaths that happened last year, I really couldn't "lose it"--I had my children with me, I had my oldest needing an explanation of death, I HAD to keep it 'together' to do this. And I had my mom, who lost her husband and her mom and I felt like I had to keep it together for her. And I did.
The way I reacted to losing this friend, you all would have thought somebody died. It was like I could finally express all of that upset. Now, I had an excuse, something that nobody in the house but ME was upset about, nobody was needing me to keep it together. So I finally "lost it" for a couple days.
And there was the birth--my home waterbirth I wanted. I expected it to be like DD, fast. It was my longest pushing session at 2 hours. (I had TWENTY MINUTES with my other two.) I had a lip. MW's way of dealing with that was to push it out of the way of my baby's head. Which was INCREDIBLY INCREDIBLY painful. I did not have my doula who I had present at my other two births. When I told her about it, I cried. I said something like "you know me, you know I don't do birth drugs. I BEGGED BEGGED for drugs."
I had no idea what to do in this situation. I had no preparation.
(but the after-time at home made it SO WORTH IT. I'm not speaking against homebirth AT ALL.)
To top that off, I have only talked about the reality of that with a couple close friends and my doula.
Any other time I have talked about this birth, I have mentioned the lip and blown it off with "that's a part I could've done without" I'm active in a group trying to change laws for homebirth in my state, so I feel like I really have to downplay it.
And it is NOT in any way shape or form a criticism or complaint of HOMEBIRTH. but it could so easily be seen that way that I leave it alone.
SO........let's get back to today. The panic episodes were related to driving, so I now have anxiety related to the fear that it might happen again. I'm only just now beginning, if I really focus on positive-feeling, to not be anxious when I have to merge onto the interstate. (when I have screaming children with me, I avoid it sometimes)
My baby is fabulous and I adore him. He is the happiest baby I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.
I'm extremely irritated by noise....I used to be a preschool assistant, I KNOW noisy children! Only on the worst of the worst days did I really need to get away from it for my breaks.
Now, my two children fighting along with the TV being on (and my mom does put it a bit loud) is enough to make me absolutely INSANE. This is unusual for me.
My older kids unfortunately bear the brunt of Mommy's irritation. Not that I would ever in a million years hurt them, but I have little patience and I find myself snapping at them about things that I've dealt with a million times worse in the classroom and had tons of patience for. in fact, I was known for calm and patience. WHERE IS IT NOW?
The thing that has me wanting to seek answers is I keep reading all these GD type books and I WANT to be that way, I DO, I REALLY DO....and then I find myself telling my 4 year old to shut up...because I just can't handle the chatter on top of the TV on top of the baby crying and an adult trying to talk to me at the same time! I WANT to be different, I KNOW what I need to do and when it's coming down to it, I can't.
It does sometimes seem to be getting better, then I have days that are not so great again.
I've been afraid to even admit to it or talk to anyone out of fear that somebody will tell me that I should stop breastfeeding to take a medication, stop cosleeping so I can sleep, and put all the kids in daycare and go to work to get away from them.
That is NOT what I need. I've BEEN a working mom, I KNOW that life is more stressful than what I have now thank you. (for me. I'm not speaking for anyone else's choices.) And in all reality, if I didn't breastfeed and cosleep, I'd be getting a lot LESS sleep. (Done that too with my first)
I've finally found a place that will do free counseling, they will be calling me tomorrow. (I have insurance but can't afford the copay for several appointments.)
I want to know what vitamin and diet changes I could make that might help me out. Given what happened with the Iodine, I am not real comfortable with a supplement like that. I just started taking my prenatal again. (dropped it with the iodine pills, thought I should eliminate all excess iodine for a little while.)
I don't want to go a medication route if I can at all avoid it. I've also heard that many are not safe with breastfeeding, and some, even though they say they probably are, can react in some babies. I don't want to do that if I can resolve this with diet changes and something like a B vitamin maybe?
Baby is 8 months old this week. I've had some strange anxiety for awhile now. I scored a low 40s on that quiz.
I'm very obviously stressed and that is part of what is going on.
Here's a list of things that have happened during my pregnancy/since DS's birth
--We moved (this is a good thing, I wanted it, same town)
--My mom now lives with us. (helpful, but has its challenges, and I really can't even discuss it with DH because mom will undoubtedly overhear. Which he and i are not comfortable with and her MO is to then not speak to me for days)
--My dad passed away in August last year after a few weeks in and out of hospital and nursing home.
--My son was born in November.
--Three weeks later, my grandmother passed away after a very brief illness. I really honestly did not expect it, and we were close.
--Not a real issue to me, but for my mom, who I'm positive is also depressed and realistically, she has been for YEARS, IMO, like my entire lifetime, is that my grandmother's sister and my mom's cousin who she grew up with like a brother both passed away in the last month.
(I mean, yes these were people I knew and had some good memories of, but from when I was little, or many years ago. Not people I was close to, who knew us now, my children, etc. These were people my mom was fairly close to, at least for a lot of her lifetime.)
If this helps anyone in advising, I took some Prolamine Iodine at the advice of my CPM....however, I think I stayed on it too long or I'm sensitive to Iodine, or something happened, because I had a major panic reaction that caused me to seek medical attention. Bloodwork showed my thyroid was off, I was told this was the cause, and told to stop taking the Iodine, which I did. Repeat bloodwork shows my thyroid as normal. Not at all borderline either.
So, I prefer to leave that alone.
This is not something my CPM necessarily agrees with, but it's ultimately MY body and MY decision. I remember her telling me this iodine was meant to be a temporary thing, that I would eventually wean off it. I remember realizing at the time the panic stuff happened that I'd been taking it for over six months. I take some responsibility in not maintaining contact with the midwife about when to wean down. That kind of got lost in the shuffle of funerals and new-baby-life. (I will also admit I read the bottle, it had different recommendations than what she was giving me, and I did not feel comfortable with the high dose, so I lowered it myself to the bottle's recommendation probably a month before this happened.)
So, we are at today. It's been nearly 3 months since the real panic attack type episodes. (There were 2.) I also had an incident about two months ago now where a friend of mine stopped speaking to me over something another person claims I said--that I did not say. Yes, this was a friend of 8 years. Yes, I was extremely upset by the fact that I was calling her just to see "what was up" a normal everyday call and I was blindsided by this accusation. Yes, I was upset that she refused to speak to me after that, answer any calls, anything, after telling me XYZ was going on and she would call me later.
But the intensity of the reaction I had was well, uncalled for. What I see it as now is during both of the deaths that happened last year, I really couldn't "lose it"--I had my children with me, I had my oldest needing an explanation of death, I HAD to keep it 'together' to do this. And I had my mom, who lost her husband and her mom and I felt like I had to keep it together for her. And I did.
The way I reacted to losing this friend, you all would have thought somebody died. It was like I could finally express all of that upset. Now, I had an excuse, something that nobody in the house but ME was upset about, nobody was needing me to keep it together. So I finally "lost it" for a couple days.
And there was the birth--my home waterbirth I wanted. I expected it to be like DD, fast. It was my longest pushing session at 2 hours. (I had TWENTY MINUTES with my other two.) I had a lip. MW's way of dealing with that was to push it out of the way of my baby's head. Which was INCREDIBLY INCREDIBLY painful. I did not have my doula who I had present at my other two births. When I told her about it, I cried. I said something like "you know me, you know I don't do birth drugs. I BEGGED BEGGED for drugs."
I had no idea what to do in this situation. I had no preparation.
(but the after-time at home made it SO WORTH IT. I'm not speaking against homebirth AT ALL.)
To top that off, I have only talked about the reality of that with a couple close friends and my doula.
Any other time I have talked about this birth, I have mentioned the lip and blown it off with "that's a part I could've done without" I'm active in a group trying to change laws for homebirth in my state, so I feel like I really have to downplay it.
And it is NOT in any way shape or form a criticism or complaint of HOMEBIRTH. but it could so easily be seen that way that I leave it alone.
SO........let's get back to today. The panic episodes were related to driving, so I now have anxiety related to the fear that it might happen again. I'm only just now beginning, if I really focus on positive-feeling, to not be anxious when I have to merge onto the interstate. (when I have screaming children with me, I avoid it sometimes)
My baby is fabulous and I adore him. He is the happiest baby I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.
I'm extremely irritated by noise....I used to be a preschool assistant, I KNOW noisy children! Only on the worst of the worst days did I really need to get away from it for my breaks.
Now, my two children fighting along with the TV being on (and my mom does put it a bit loud) is enough to make me absolutely INSANE. This is unusual for me.
My older kids unfortunately bear the brunt of Mommy's irritation. Not that I would ever in a million years hurt them, but I have little patience and I find myself snapping at them about things that I've dealt with a million times worse in the classroom and had tons of patience for. in fact, I was known for calm and patience. WHERE IS IT NOW?
The thing that has me wanting to seek answers is I keep reading all these GD type books and I WANT to be that way, I DO, I REALLY DO....and then I find myself telling my 4 year old to shut up...because I just can't handle the chatter on top of the TV on top of the baby crying and an adult trying to talk to me at the same time! I WANT to be different, I KNOW what I need to do and when it's coming down to it, I can't.
It does sometimes seem to be getting better, then I have days that are not so great again.
I've been afraid to even admit to it or talk to anyone out of fear that somebody will tell me that I should stop breastfeeding to take a medication, stop cosleeping so I can sleep, and put all the kids in daycare and go to work to get away from them.
That is NOT what I need. I've BEEN a working mom, I KNOW that life is more stressful than what I have now thank you. (for me. I'm not speaking for anyone else's choices.) And in all reality, if I didn't breastfeed and cosleep, I'd be getting a lot LESS sleep. (Done that too with my first)
I've finally found a place that will do free counseling, they will be calling me tomorrow. (I have insurance but can't afford the copay for several appointments.)
I want to know what vitamin and diet changes I could make that might help me out. Given what happened with the Iodine, I am not real comfortable with a supplement like that. I just started taking my prenatal again. (dropped it with the iodine pills, thought I should eliminate all excess iodine for a little while.)
I don't want to go a medication route if I can at all avoid it. I've also heard that many are not safe with breastfeeding, and some, even though they say they probably are, can react in some babies. I don't want to do that if I can resolve this with diet changes and something like a B vitamin maybe?
I have started taking Reliv. Not cheap, but seems to be helping. I can feel a difference when I remember to take it.
) and b12?
I have found myself taking this during and after pregnancy, and though it is not a cure-all, I certainly feel better taking them than not taking them. Trust what your body tells ya, I say.
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: I haven't gotten back to you. 
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