I know I need to do something, but I don't know what. I have a long story to get to why I'm feeling like I am now, but if you bare with me I'll get to my cry for help.
I've been crying all day. Again. I'm 30+ weeks pregnant with number 4. I'm planning a water HB with a hands-off midwife (perfect birth). The last 2 were the same, only in a freestanding BC.
I had a dream pregnancy my first time, but birthed in a hospital with some trauma. I felt very disconnected from my newborn and had a lot of PPD. I know now but had no idea then, that food allergies made my baby a total basket case. He was so far beyond "colic" it wasn't even funny, though with very few physical symptoms. It was all emotional/personality symptoms. He was the most difficult baby I ever could have imagined, and the complete opposite of everything I had dreamed of. When I went back to work at 9 weeks it was a relief! The scale of Happy to be around him vs. wish I could give him away didn't tip toward happy most of the time until he was about 4. (Now he's absolutely wonderful! 'Course we have him off dairy) I was pretty sure that, despite having always wanted 3 kids, I wasn't having any more.
Then I found myself unexpectedly pg again at 13 months PP while using TCOYF to TTA. Needless to say I faught that pregnancy hard! I had 6 months of MISERABLE 24 hr ms. It was terrible. But the birth was absolutely wonderful. 5 hours long, 15 minutes of transition, 2 pushes and she was here. She was an absolute DREAM baby! Well, compared on the spectrum of 1 (being an easy baby) and 10 (being my first baby), she was a 5 or 6. But I was happy to take it! Going back to work at 12 weeks was the most awful thing I'd ever had to do.
After her I really couldn't wait to do it again. But having 2 under 2 (hardest thing I ever did, I swear!) made me want to wait til she was 4. I planned #3 and tried hard for him. I set it up to quit my job at the end of his pregnancy so I could stay home and have as wonderful a time with him as I could have had w/dd. His pgcy was similar to dd's, but I didn't mind as much because I wasn't fighting the fact I was pg again.
His birth was harder than dd's. It was longer and much more painful. I wasn't as able to concentrate on my hypnosis and it was harder, with a "long" 1 hr transition (for me that was long) with a lot of pain/pressure in my butt, hips and thighs. The first few days were awesome. I was sure I'd gotten another one like dd. Around a week old it began to occur to me that I'd made a horrible, horrible mistake.
Over the course of the year I discovered through trial and error that he has 10 food allergies (known at the moment, anyway). I spent months eating literally just chicken and squash because every new food I introduced (1 every 2 weeks) caused some horrible reaction. The worst was the personality/sleep stuff. He made my first son seem average. On that same scale of 1-10 I'd peg him a 15! I was in hell. I was getting next to no sleep, never mind "me time", and my nutrition was in the toilet. He's allergic to corn, so I couldn't even take most vitamins. Everyone told me to switch him to hypoallergenic formula, but there was no way. He was my last baby, and I wasn't doing any less for him than I would do for any of my kids.
Plus, dh had to return to work 3 days after the birth. He owns his own business, and had a tight deadline. He was gone 21 hours a day (slept the other 3, then back out) for about the first month of ds' life. I was doing it all alone and I had such awful PPD that I thought I might die. The kids were HORRIBLE, the baby was worse, and I was completely and utterly overwhelmed. It got "better", but I'm suspecting now that it never really got "all better".
By 8 months we had discovered that garlic was one of his biggies causing no sleep, so he was sleeping better. Around 10 months his symptoms to some of the lesser allergens lessened. And I was able to test things on him directly, so it didn't take a full 2 weeks to rid it from his system like it did to rid it from my milk. So I began eating small bits of some new things and I began to feel a little better.
Then a month later I learned of a 2nd surprise pregnancy while using LAM to TTA. I was in total shock, not ecstatic that I'd have 2 under 2 again, but all-in-all ok with this pregnancy. The older kids are much more helpful to me and so on, so I won't be all alone to take care of the little ones (we homeschool, so they're always around, but dh works 2 jobs and can't be home a whole lot), etc. My mother is in the same state this time, so she can hopefully be here to watch the older kids during the birth (allowing me to concentrate and have a birth more like dd's). And I haven't had the ms as bad and constantly.
However, my laundry list is long. I'm sick more often than I'm not. I got about a month's break, but now it's back along with the heartburn the second I take a bite of anything, too. And I'm still on the pretty restricted diet that allows me almost nothing that I feel would make me feel better/things I crave. I have vulvar vericose veins, making standing difficult, much less things like sex (and a hubby that loves my body more when pg than not! And he loves it plenty when not, as is evidenced by the 4 kids
). I have struggled with severe yeast/thrush EVERY DAY since the birth of ds#1. I finally saw a homeopath last summer, and one remedy helped, but it stopped working in July when my father committed suicide and I was the one taking care of everything afterward. We've been trying to find a new remedy w/o success, so nursing my fussy toddler 2-3 times a day is very difficult.
Ds is doing MUCH better when he's avoiding all allergens. He's usually only difficult when it comes to sleep. He's been doing this CRAP again where I'll get him down solidly, but the second I stand up to leave my bedroom he's awake and crying. Once it happens once it's impossible to get him down well again (w/o him waking the second I roll away), and my only choice is to leave and let him cry for 5 minutes (literally all it takes) til he's back out. I'm NOT a CIO person, but if I stay I will get so incredibly angry at him that I'm afraid I'm going to hurt him.
I'm worried about the sleep crap when the baby's born. I'm not moving him out of my room, and I don't know if they'll be able to sleep together, especially if he's still screaming himself to sleep 1-2 times a day (I don't see a baby sleeping through that, even if I would leave the two of them alone in a room together). I'm worried about how jealous he's getting, pushing the other kids off me and wanting me to pick him up a lot again. I'm going to be basically alone w/all the kids for about 14 hrs a day. Nights are hard for me anyway, with anxiety problems, so dealing with tired kids fighting bedtime, or nursing someone alone in the dark, is REALLY hard for me to do. And I'm positively terrified that this baby will be like ds. I CAN'T go through that again. I simply CAN'T. I wouldn't make it, I'm sure.
And dealing w/mr fussy, pregnancy, ms, homeschooling, home renovations, etc is making it impossible to even sort of keep the house clean. It's a disaster all the time, and that stresses me out. Dh doesn't help, even when he's not working, even when I've cried on his shoulder and begged him to help me more. He doesn't do it cruelly, he just plain doesn't get it, I think.
I feel stupid for feeling like this. I have really uneventful pregnancies (no "real" problems to worry about), no money problems at the moment (just a tight budget), my dh loves me dearly, I have good kids, I have a great life. But I can't stop crying. And I don't know what to do about it. I can take inositol, magnesium, omega 3s, etc, which all help my mood. But that won't help me with my feelings of fear about the personality/health of the new baby, guilt over hating and resenting my little ds sometimes, overwhelming feelings about my home and workload (I own my own busy online business, too, on top of everything else), fear that the birth will be as bad or worse than the last, fear that my PPD will be as bad as last time, etc. My Fear Release Hypnobabies script isn't even scratching the surface...
So, thanks for hanging in there for such an incredibly long post. Suggestions?
I've been crying all day. Again. I'm 30+ weeks pregnant with number 4. I'm planning a water HB with a hands-off midwife (perfect birth). The last 2 were the same, only in a freestanding BC.
I had a dream pregnancy my first time, but birthed in a hospital with some trauma. I felt very disconnected from my newborn and had a lot of PPD. I know now but had no idea then, that food allergies made my baby a total basket case. He was so far beyond "colic" it wasn't even funny, though with very few physical symptoms. It was all emotional/personality symptoms. He was the most difficult baby I ever could have imagined, and the complete opposite of everything I had dreamed of. When I went back to work at 9 weeks it was a relief! The scale of Happy to be around him vs. wish I could give him away didn't tip toward happy most of the time until he was about 4. (Now he's absolutely wonderful! 'Course we have him off dairy) I was pretty sure that, despite having always wanted 3 kids, I wasn't having any more.
Then I found myself unexpectedly pg again at 13 months PP while using TCOYF to TTA. Needless to say I faught that pregnancy hard! I had 6 months of MISERABLE 24 hr ms. It was terrible. But the birth was absolutely wonderful. 5 hours long, 15 minutes of transition, 2 pushes and she was here. She was an absolute DREAM baby! Well, compared on the spectrum of 1 (being an easy baby) and 10 (being my first baby), she was a 5 or 6. But I was happy to take it! Going back to work at 12 weeks was the most awful thing I'd ever had to do.
After her I really couldn't wait to do it again. But having 2 under 2 (hardest thing I ever did, I swear!) made me want to wait til she was 4. I planned #3 and tried hard for him. I set it up to quit my job at the end of his pregnancy so I could stay home and have as wonderful a time with him as I could have had w/dd. His pgcy was similar to dd's, but I didn't mind as much because I wasn't fighting the fact I was pg again.
His birth was harder than dd's. It was longer and much more painful. I wasn't as able to concentrate on my hypnosis and it was harder, with a "long" 1 hr transition (for me that was long) with a lot of pain/pressure in my butt, hips and thighs. The first few days were awesome. I was sure I'd gotten another one like dd. Around a week old it began to occur to me that I'd made a horrible, horrible mistake.
Over the course of the year I discovered through trial and error that he has 10 food allergies (known at the moment, anyway). I spent months eating literally just chicken and squash because every new food I introduced (1 every 2 weeks) caused some horrible reaction. The worst was the personality/sleep stuff. He made my first son seem average. On that same scale of 1-10 I'd peg him a 15! I was in hell. I was getting next to no sleep, never mind "me time", and my nutrition was in the toilet. He's allergic to corn, so I couldn't even take most vitamins. Everyone told me to switch him to hypoallergenic formula, but there was no way. He was my last baby, and I wasn't doing any less for him than I would do for any of my kids.
Plus, dh had to return to work 3 days after the birth. He owns his own business, and had a tight deadline. He was gone 21 hours a day (slept the other 3, then back out) for about the first month of ds' life. I was doing it all alone and I had such awful PPD that I thought I might die. The kids were HORRIBLE, the baby was worse, and I was completely and utterly overwhelmed. It got "better", but I'm suspecting now that it never really got "all better".
By 8 months we had discovered that garlic was one of his biggies causing no sleep, so he was sleeping better. Around 10 months his symptoms to some of the lesser allergens lessened. And I was able to test things on him directly, so it didn't take a full 2 weeks to rid it from his system like it did to rid it from my milk. So I began eating small bits of some new things and I began to feel a little better.
Then a month later I learned of a 2nd surprise pregnancy while using LAM to TTA. I was in total shock, not ecstatic that I'd have 2 under 2 again, but all-in-all ok with this pregnancy. The older kids are much more helpful to me and so on, so I won't be all alone to take care of the little ones (we homeschool, so they're always around, but dh works 2 jobs and can't be home a whole lot), etc. My mother is in the same state this time, so she can hopefully be here to watch the older kids during the birth (allowing me to concentrate and have a birth more like dd's). And I haven't had the ms as bad and constantly.
However, my laundry list is long. I'm sick more often than I'm not. I got about a month's break, but now it's back along with the heartburn the second I take a bite of anything, too. And I'm still on the pretty restricted diet that allows me almost nothing that I feel would make me feel better/things I crave. I have vulvar vericose veins, making standing difficult, much less things like sex (and a hubby that loves my body more when pg than not! And he loves it plenty when not, as is evidenced by the 4 kids
). I have struggled with severe yeast/thrush EVERY DAY since the birth of ds#1. I finally saw a homeopath last summer, and one remedy helped, but it stopped working in July when my father committed suicide and I was the one taking care of everything afterward. We've been trying to find a new remedy w/o success, so nursing my fussy toddler 2-3 times a day is very difficult.Ds is doing MUCH better when he's avoiding all allergens. He's usually only difficult when it comes to sleep. He's been doing this CRAP again where I'll get him down solidly, but the second I stand up to leave my bedroom he's awake and crying. Once it happens once it's impossible to get him down well again (w/o him waking the second I roll away), and my only choice is to leave and let him cry for 5 minutes (literally all it takes) til he's back out. I'm NOT a CIO person, but if I stay I will get so incredibly angry at him that I'm afraid I'm going to hurt him.
I'm worried about the sleep crap when the baby's born. I'm not moving him out of my room, and I don't know if they'll be able to sleep together, especially if he's still screaming himself to sleep 1-2 times a day (I don't see a baby sleeping through that, even if I would leave the two of them alone in a room together). I'm worried about how jealous he's getting, pushing the other kids off me and wanting me to pick him up a lot again. I'm going to be basically alone w/all the kids for about 14 hrs a day. Nights are hard for me anyway, with anxiety problems, so dealing with tired kids fighting bedtime, or nursing someone alone in the dark, is REALLY hard for me to do. And I'm positively terrified that this baby will be like ds. I CAN'T go through that again. I simply CAN'T. I wouldn't make it, I'm sure.
And dealing w/mr fussy, pregnancy, ms, homeschooling, home renovations, etc is making it impossible to even sort of keep the house clean. It's a disaster all the time, and that stresses me out. Dh doesn't help, even when he's not working, even when I've cried on his shoulder and begged him to help me more. He doesn't do it cruelly, he just plain doesn't get it, I think.
I feel stupid for feeling like this. I have really uneventful pregnancies (no "real" problems to worry about), no money problems at the moment (just a tight budget), my dh loves me dearly, I have good kids, I have a great life. But I can't stop crying. And I don't know what to do about it. I can take inositol, magnesium, omega 3s, etc, which all help my mood. But that won't help me with my feelings of fear about the personality/health of the new baby, guilt over hating and resenting my little ds sometimes, overwhelming feelings about my home and workload (I own my own busy online business, too, on top of everything else), fear that the birth will be as bad or worse than the last, fear that my PPD will be as bad as last time, etc. My Fear Release Hypnobabies script isn't even scratching the surface...
So, thanks for hanging in there for such an incredibly long post. Suggestions?
). You'll have to adjust your standards and adjust your way of living based on your needs and those of all your family members when the baby comes. Can you trust yourself to adjust your behaviour according to your needs? Nevermind preconceived notions, old standards, etc. You can adjust to what you need at that time.
You have so much going on, no wonder you're feeling bad. I just wanted to say that I did hypnobirthing and the fear release didn't seem to be helping, but my third birth was really wonderful after my second one was less than what I wanted. At least you can know that people here have some idea of how you're feeling, and that thought helps me some because no one at home seems to.
So I'm just going to say I begin therapy tomorrow, dh's workload lightens in a couple of weeks so I'll get more help, and I started some new routines that involved the kids helping with my housework more. So, I'm doing better and moving toward normalcy again. Thank you very much for letting me know I wasn't crazy and anybody would be having trouble if they were me. 
