anxiety.

maybe i should have known when i took the pregnancy test.

or, maybe i should have guessed it when i would wake up in sweats during my pregnancy with grace, after the nightmare of miscarrying. 

an alarm should have gone off when i had that one, recurring thought of grace dying during her c-section.

or when i asked john if she was okay within seconds of him meeting her.

or the countless amounts of times i almost asked the nurse for her to be on a heart monitor or if she was healthy.

but, i knew it when was waking up 2941946 times a night to make sure she wasn’t dead, because i had CONVINCED myself that she was going to die of SIDS.

(yes, i still wake up.  at least twice a night.  it’s been almost 10 months.)

In NJ, where I live, you fill out a questionaire/survery thingie to determine your “at-risk-ness” for post partum depression.  I remember filling it out after Jackson was born and it was like, “are you anxious?” …um, my kid just left the NICU and is being treated for a virus i never heard of before that TRIED TO KILL HIM.  um.  Yeah.  I’m ANXIOUS. 

“do you cry?”  um.  see above.

For Grace, though – I had no reason to be anxious.  I had no reason to cry.  But I was.  And I did.  Not often, but I did enough to know that something wasn’t right.  I was not myself.

So, I did what any normal Mom would do.

I kept it inside, assuming it was like a cold.  It would go away with liquids and time and “rest”. 

It didn’t.

So, I got my thyroid checked.  I was born with congenital hypothyroidism; I was born without a thyroid.  When your thyroid is messed up, it can lead to depression, so let’s check that.

It was fine.

Well.  I wasn’t, so then I made another appointment with my OB/GYN and we talked about me and the feelings I was having.  And, I talked to John.  I just let him know that I didn’t feel like “me” – and that I was really anxious and that I felt like I might need some help.  Of course, he was incredibly supportive.

So, I went to my OB and and we had a lovely talk about post-partum and her “breaking point”… where she knew something just wasn’t right.  (she is an amazing survivor of PPD and has been amazingly helpful)

….and a few nights later, i had my breaking point.

I woke up in the middle of the night to make sure Grace was breathing.  She had spit up earlier in the evening and she was swaddled and was happily sleeping.  My brain told me “oh, good, you should be sleeping, too.” — but my heart would NOT let me.  And my stomach would turn into knots and I went kind of nuts.  All of a sudden, it was “wait.  what do you do when your friend was drunk in college.  you didn’t sleep them on their back.  they could choke on their vomit.  and, sh!t, grace SPIT UP EARLIER TODAY.  are you an idiot?  you are going to KILL GRACE.  she is going to spit up and she is going to choke and die and you’re going to wake up in the morning and boom. she’s dead.  GET HER ELEVATED!”

yeah.  so then i started pacing.  and staring.  and crying. 

then i calmed down.  the tears went away.  but…. then john woke up.  and he asked why I was up. 

….”grace is going to die if i don’t get her elevated and i can’t find anything to make her bassinet elevated so i am just going to sit here and watch her sleep.  i’m nervous that she is going to spit up again”

yeah, um.  john picked up a pile of (somehow?) folded towels (he must have folded them…), put them under the bassinet and she was elevated.  it took 2 seconds.

i slept more sound than i ever had.

and then John asked me the next day when I was going to start seeing someone about my anxiety.

touche.

Soooooo, I have been in therapy since Grace was around 8 weeks old.  It has been incredibly helpful and wonderful and I feel like I have come a LONG way.  I go once a week, and it’s really wonderful to have that hour (…or so…) to myself and to be selfish and talk about what’s going on in my mind and my heart and my feelings on different things.  but, what’s been very beneficial is having the RIGHT therapist.  omgoodness, this woman.  there are no words.

I mean, I know I basically pay her to be nice to me, but I love her.  And she gets me.  I need that.

I am not going to sit here and preach about therapy or about post-partum depression/anxiety or anything like that.  Pinky promise. 

But, as a new Mom, or a mom of Irish Twins — please keep in touch with yourself.  And if you feel like you’re not you.  Or, you start having thoughts in your brain that have NO BUSINESS being there?  Know it’s normal.  And it’s okay.  But, talk them out.  To SOMEONE.  Write them out.  Find a counselor or therapist.  Start a blog.  (It’s very therapeutic… my (one day, live-in) therapist (if I win the lottery…) recommended it to me!)  Get help.  It’s worth the co-pay. 

Pinky promise.