the SmockLady

Let’s start at the very beginning, Part II

Published on Thursday, May 10, 2007 some time around 10:05 am-ish.
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I am having the hardest time pushing the publish button for this post. It may not stay up long.

I went on about my days struggling ever so hard to get out of bed, some days not getting out of bed. Our little pregnancy secret: there were many mornings I stayed in bed while SmockDaddy got Mog ready for Kindergarten and got her breakfast ready and the other two sat in front of the TV and watched or played while I fed them dry cereal (because milk adds to the mess and I didn’t want to clean it up) or pop-tarts with no-spill sippy cups and I got up to sit on the couch as they were leaving for work/school. I sat there with the lights out and the blinds shut unless I had to do something that day that would make people wonder where I was if I wasn’t there - like the school Christmas program or the Valentine’s Day party. Stuff like that. I didn’t want anyone knowing that I was living that way. It was all about the looks, the impression of it all. You know what I’m talking about - gotta hide the truth so the stigma will be hidden too. I even lied to my doctor about how I was feeling when I went in for my check ups. I said, “I feel great. Everything was good.” I was lying to myself too. Everything with the baby was fine; it was just like it had been with the other three, and actually a little better. I hardly had morning sickness or any other like ailment this time around. I just didn’t care about anything. I survived on the knowledge that I had to survive day to day so my baby would survive. I survived because I knew, as fact, that my children needed me, even if I only fed them and kept them from causing harm to themselves or each other while my hubby was at work. I never left them alone to fend for themselves. I never neglected them.

I wanted this baby. I wanted to be pregnant, but I was kooky, y’all. I had some strange thoughts. I’m going to try to express some of those thoughts with you, but first I want to say that I NEVER ONCE thought of hurting myself or my children or the baby. NEVER! Got it. I will swear to that and even God knows it’s true. He knows my heart, but when I tell this story I sometimes get looks of disbelief. I think some of those looks are even because when I tell about those kooky thoughts I tend to laugh a little, because I was just down right stupid in my thinking. Ready?

I was about 14 - 16 weeks pregnant and I started thinking about how to hide this baby, not the baby, but being pregnant. Um, duh, Dork-o, everyone already knew I was pregnant. Could you here the sarcasm dripping in my tone there? I hope so. I was already showing. Hide it? uh. I would act like I could just have the baby and no one would notice. Like some movie where no one could see the parts of me I didn’t want the to see. If I pretend I’m not pregnant then maybe no one will notice. good grief. I concocted a plan in my mind about if I left and went somewhere else to live until I had the baby no one would notice I was gone. Or notice I had come back without a baby, because no one would remember I was pregnant. Because I wasn’t pregnant. I wasn’t married either. Or the mother of three other children. I was free. A woman on the move, ready to go. have you figured out the theme here yet? I hadn’t. I was just living day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment. I would dream about where to go and then remember how utterly stupid that was. I would dream about going away and coming back without a baby because I had given the baby to someone else - and NO ONE WOULD NOTICE! jee jiminy, People. Then she would kick me really hard and I’d remember I was pregnant and I wasn’t going anywhere. And I’d come back to reality and realize I was sitting on the couch, in the dark, crying, and not knowing the faintest reason why.

This was serious. This was more serious than I could fathom. One morning (about week 18) when my hubby told me goodbye for work, without looking up, I said, “Don’t come home.” “What?” In a dry, serious, nonchalant tone, “Don’t come home today.” I’m not sure what he thought, but he just said, “OK.” and left. I’m quite sure he was planning on coming home, but knew not to even attempt a discussion. I continued to sit on my couch, staring at nothing, while Goro and Birdie ate their pop-tarts, drank their juice, played Thomas, and watched TV. I was dry, lacking in thought, caring for nothing. He had been gone about an hour and I realized just how bad things had gotten. I actually tokd my husband not to come home. And I wasn’t even angry at him. I needed help - this wasn’t right. Something was wrong, bad wrong. I had never felt like this before. I had never behaved like this before. I had always been thrilled to be pregnant and I was this time too, but why was I so weird now?

I picked up the phone and called my doctor’s office. I fought really hard not to sound freaked out and terrified and still balanced. I told the receptionist that something was wrong and that I needed to talk to my doctor. She put me on hold and I fully expected to get the nurse on call as is usual practice when a patient calls with a question. The on-call nurse fields all questions first, then decides if you should hold for an answer or the nurse to call you back with the answer or an appointment. When the phone clicked back off of hold my doctor was on the other end. I can not tell you how relieved I was to hear his voice. Not only does he have a very comforting voice, demeanor, and tone of great care, I didn’t have to tell it all to a nurse and beg to talk to my doctor. I almost couldn’t hold back the tears when I heard his voice. I just told him something was wrong and I needed to come in to see him, very soon. I told him what I had said to SmockDaddy and he wanted to know if I could come right in, within the next 30 minutes. I said yes, and hung up to call SmockDaddy. I believe I said something like this, “don’t ask, because I don’t want to talk about it, but can you come home right now and be with the children so I can go see Joel?” He said, “Of course” And I could hear the relief in his voice.

I got up to the doctor’s office in record time and was already beginning to feel better. Better because of the relief of letting go. Finally someone else was going to know and it was someone who I respected and knew could help. I have to admit I was also a little bit scared. I was scared I was going to be judged as a bad mother for feeling this way. My doc and I talked. I told him everything. Absolutely everything about how I was feeling, how I never really felt OK and had lied to him about that and the things I had said to SmockDaddy and the strange thoughts I was having. He put me right at ease and told me it was OK. He knew something must be wrong when the receptionist went firsthand to get him to the phone because I needed to speak to him. She heard it in my voice and knew I needed him, not a nurse. So she made sure he picked up the phone. He told me I wasn’t a bad mother. I wasn’t going to get put away and most certainly the baby was OK. We talked about the reasons that could cause me to feel the way I felt and I started feeling better. for some reason, this time around, the pregnancy hormones were a bit out of whack and were messing with all the hormones in my body and making me feel like this. The lab drew some blood to make sure everything was good and he started me on a round of 100mg of WelbutrinSR* a day. I was diagnosed with antepartum depression. I was a bit scared at first about taking something like that while pregnant, but I needed to be better, to feel ‘normal’ again. To be able to show how I really felt and not the zombie I had become. Within two weeks I was feeling much more like myself and so much better. I was happy when I should be happy and sad when I was supposed to be and all was balanced and well with the world.

Sometime around week 26 there was a 24 hour period when I didn’t feel her moving much. I called to let them know about it, but I knew she was kicking and moving, just not as strong as she had been. It was strange. I went in for a non-stress test. I got to put my feet up on a wonderfully comfortable bed with a monitor wrapped around my belly for thirty minutes. I hate those monitors. Anyway, we heard her heart and the bumps she made when she moved and I obediently pushed the little button every time I felt her move. Everything looked good. There was absolutely nothing else abnormal or different during the rest of the pregnancy. She even came within 24 hours of her due date.

While I do plan on someday uploading her birth story to my blog, I’m not going to do it right now. But for the record, there was nothing unusual or abnormal with the labor and birth process. So there are no details missing from not having that up right now.

I will get Part III up very soon, but I need to take an emotional break from Princerella’s story right now. I’ll get back to it in a few days. I’ve other posts and plans and heartache right now to work on.

*The dose he prescribed is one third that of the normal daily dose of Wellbutrin.

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