Prenatal Depression

It's OBVIOUSLY a thing!

Who knew!?

I sure didn't!

As you may (or may not) know, I have quite a history with anxiety, panic attacks, and some depression. During my prior pregnancies they really didn't last long enough for me to think "long term" for anything like this. I never really got to the point of being like "oh hey! there will be a baby to worry about in a few months!"

At some point during my full length pregnancy I became concerned about having post-partum depression. I felt like with my history I was going to be prone to it.  Little did I know I was kind of already going through it....

Frankly, it has taken several months POST birth for me to really feel like this is actually happening, this is going down, there is a baby, and he is mine.

From the moment I found out I was pregnant, through the day of his birth I was a BITCH. I was NOT happy. NOT HAPPY AT ALL!

And the shitty part about this, I was getting what I always fucking wanted. How the fuck do you explain this to people you care about, friends and family. Like, hey Cameron, you know all the tears I shed about babies and loss and sadness and shit? Well guess what, we have a baby on the way, for realzies, and I'm still fucking upset about it.

No.

That doesn't fly.

With anyone.

About two weeks after our good test results Cameron basically called me out, and asked me why the hell I was so angry about everything when we just go the best news EVER!?

I had no explanation, other than "oh gee, I'm sure it is just pregnancy hormones". Which I suppose could have contributed to this.

Anyway, I decided to start seeing a therapist. I guess this was around 25 weeks, I saw her from then through about his 3rd month.

She kind of sucked, but I did figure out some things on my own.

Before I found out I was pregnant I had made peace with our situation and the fact that I probably wouldn't be able to have any children. I had started to live my life as if that were the case. Getting pregnant again brought up all the old emotions (remember it had been at least a solid year since my last miscarriage) I had time to move on and start doing things for myself.

I had never actually acknowledged this, and Cameron and I never really talked about it, it was just an unspoken thing that we were tired of being sad about babies, tired of loss.

After he was born I felt better nearly immediately. I was lucky enough to NOT get post-partum depression....however, I feel like I MORE than made up for it with an entire 8ish months dealing with some kind of weird depression.

I felt fabulous after giving birth. I felt like I was myself again. Like pre-baby, pre-TTC, pre-worry Katy. It was like a pile of bricks had been lifted off of me. I felt so calm.

It was then that I decided that I should go on anxiety meds. So I did. And I have no idea if it does anything but I don't have the level of anxiety I did before. I still have general anxiety occasionally. But I know meds aren't always a quick fix for things.

So for anyone who is depressed DURING pregnancy, you are not alone. Even if it is something you've hoped for and wanted, or even dealt with infertility, or loss, or whatever, it does happen. I'm very glad I found help for this. It is a very difficult thing for people to understand, probably especially, having tried for 5 years. And it does get better!! (And apparently it doesn't guarantee you'll get post-partum depression! Bonus!)