I'm Too Afraid And Guilt-Ridden To Give This Post A Witty, Concise Title.

For a number of reasons, and at times no reason at all, I'm on a depressive cycle.  This next topic is highly personal.  I debated whether to share it at all, but seeing as one reason I started this blog is to be transparent with my feelings, here it goes.

I want more children.  In fact, Husband and I have been trying to have a third child.

For a year, we've been trying to have a third child.

It isn't working.

I never anticipated this.

All Husband had to do was look at me to get me pregnant the first two times.  I was on the pill when I got pregnant with Preschooler.  With Toddler there was just one time.  One night of unprotected sex.  That's it.

I thought I was a fertile-Myrtle.

If everything had gone according to my original plan, I wouldn't have even started having kids until just now. I wanted to establish my career first in my ongoing futile effort to be the MOST SUCCESSFUL PERSON EVER, so I could WIN AT LIFE. I always wondered why God gave me my two kids sooner than my plans.  Now I know.  At least I have two kids, who I love more than life itself.   It would've devistated me to have fertility problems with my first two pregnancies.

And that leads to the guilt.  The guilt I feel because I want more, and I'm very, very sad that it's not working.  As if I don't really have a good reason to be sad, seeing as I already have two kids.  As sad as I am about not having a third, each and every day I thank God for my first two kids.  But it doesn't always take away from the sadness I feel for wanting more, and the subsequent guilt.

I think what it comes down to is that as a woman, I like to think I'm in charge of my fertility.  That I can have as many kids as I want, and then stop having them when I choose.

But I guess that may not be a choice of mine to make.

The Post In Which I Beleatedly Relate My Two Birth Stories

Hey fellas : This post is about giving birth. I'll talk about things like vaginas and poop. If this makes you nervous, please exit now, and direct your attention to something such as ESPN.com. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Pregnancy #1

My first pregnancy was a surprise.

We had just moved to Ohio, an unexpected move we were only given 2 months to plan for. When you and your husband don’t know any one, you *ahem* find other ways to entertain yourselves.

I was on the pill. I used it correctly. It failed. My OB/GYN said it was likely due to stress.

And I was an anxiety-ridden mess. We were both still in school. We were still living on student loans. We hadn’t planned on having children for at least 3 more years.

I graduated from law school. It took me 2 months to find a job. I was an anxiety-ridden mess.

I started my new job at the same time I started my third trimester. I had 3 months to become totally competent in a difficult field, so I wouldn’t appear incapable when I returned after my 6 week maternity leave. I was an anxiety-ridden mess.

It was 2 weeks before my due date. My doctor was concerned. The baby never dropped, a sign he interpreted as a very big baby. Ultrasounds revealed a 10-11 pound baby. He told me there was a 50-50 chance I’d need a C-section. I was an anxiety-ridden mess.

We induced 2 days later. I was given gel to ripen my cervix. My body reacted so poorly to the gel that we had to quit using it. I couldn’t sleep all night.

I labored. I got an epidural. I pushed for an hour and a half. My doctor thought things weren’t moving fast enough. He gave me an episiotomy. Without even asking.

The baby was born. She was only 7 pounds. Turns out she just had a giant head. I got a 3rd-degree tear despite the episiotomy. I had been awake for approximately 22 hours. I could barely stay lucid enough to hold my new baby.

I wanted to breastfeed. The baby just wouldn’t latch. I got a little help from the lactation consultants, but the minute they’d leave, the baby would stop latching. She’d cry all the time. I didn’t know how to help her. I was an anxiety-ridden mess.

The second day in the hospital, the baby finally fell asleep. My husband and family left to get a meal, thinking I’d finally get some rest.

10 minutes later, the nurses rolled her bassinet back into my room because she wouldn’t stop screaming. And I broke down. Because my baby couldn’t be soothed. Because I was so exhausted, and she wouldn’t give me even 10 minutes to rest. The nurses were so concerned about me they called my husband, and asked him to come back.

It was a sign of things to come.

I was sent home with a baby who still felt like a stranger.

The recovery from childbirth was unexpectedly worse than the birth itself. I spent 3 days so constipated I could barely function. No amount of Dulcolax would help. My doctor finally prescribed an industrial strength stool-softener.

It worked. Too well. For the following 3 days I couldn’t control my bowels. I was so ashamed of myself. I literally felt like an animal.

And the baby still wouldn’t latch. For 5 days I could hardly feed her. I was an anxiety ridden-mess. We finally broke down and gave her a bottle of formula. I was so ashamed that I was unable to feed my own baby.

I began pumping like a fiend, mostly because if I had to bottle-feed, I was at least going to feed her breast milk. Two weeks after I gave birth I ended up with a sever case of mastitis, with a fever so high I became delirious.

My best friend from law school traveled to Ohio and nursed me through the mastitis. But after it healed, it was clear to me I just couldn’t handle breastfeeding. I was certain this would ruin my baby. I was an anxiety ridden-mess.

And the worst thing of all, was that the baby still felt like a stranger, albeit a stranger I felt no ill-will towards. It was like being a babysitter. You felt obligated to care for your charge, but it wasn’t the mother-love I expected.

Just before my maternity leave was up, I finally started to experience the mother-love I was so anxious to find. I hated to take her to daycare. I was sure this would ruin her. I was an anxiety-ridden mess.

I took her to daycare. For the first two weeks I cried more than she did at drop off.

Eventually I was able to function at work, and take my baby to daycare without tears. But I could never shake the guilt I felt that I had to take her to daycare. I was an anxiety-ridden mess.

Pregnancy #2

My second pregnancy was also a surprise, only because my husband and I acted like stupid teenagers who thought “one time wouldn’t hurt.” Mentally I was medicated enough to control the anxiety.

But it was a difficult pregnancy. I had morning-sickness for 20 weeks straight. During my 6th month I had some bleeding from an indeterminate cause. I was told to take it easy.

One month later it became clear the baby wasn’t growing at the rate it should. I began bi-weekly non-stress tests and told to abstain from work.

Another month later it became clear the baby wasn’t growing at all. We entered a precarious system of balancing the baby’s health while encouraging her to stay in the womb until her lungs fully developed.

Ultimately we were able to keep her in me for 39 weeks. My labor was easy. My doctor was kinder. My recover was remarkably swifter. The baby was born 4 pounds, 10 ounces. She was little, but very healthy and strong. We had determined straight away not to breast feed for my own mental health, a decision I and my doctor supported whole-heartedly. Everything went right.

And it didn’t matter.

Just as before, I felt like a babysitter, unable to capture the love I hoped would happen almost immediately. Just as before my depression worsened.

By the time the baby was three months old, I was so low that my husband knew, and I knew, that bad things would happen if I didn’t get help. I was scared. My husband was scared. The next opening at a psychiatrist’s office wasn’t for 3 months. My doctor put me on the highest dosage of Effexor she could legally prescribe. I pushed on through for the next 3 months, even though I could barely function.

Finally, I saw a psychiatrist, and for the first time in 2 years was properly diagnosed with and treated for bipolar depression.

Ultimately, my pregnancies were the best surprise ever. They reminded me that sometimes there is a hand greater than yours guiding things. I am blessed.

In the future

We haven’t ruled out the possibility of a third pregnancy, now that I’m properly medicated.

If I ever get pregnant again, it would be, in part, that I just want one opportunity to love my baby fiercely the minute she is born, not months later.

That strikes me as a selfish reason reason to have a baby.

But it’s true.

A Weighty Issue

I questioned whether to even publish this post. It seems whiny and self-indulgent. But, for the sake of the honesty and transparency I committed myself to when I started this blog, here it goes.

I’ve gained 40 pounds since my wedding. Twenty pounds with each child. With my first child I really thought that I needed to eat ice cream and Taco Bell each day. So I did. I once made my husband cross 3 lanes of traffic to get to Taco Bell so I could have a 7-Layer Burrito.

By the time my body fully recovered from that first pregnancy, I gained twenty pounds.

Ashamed of my gluttony during my first pregnancy, I resolved to eat better the second time around. For the first twenty weeks I did great. I threw up everything I ate and lost 10 pounds. And although I was put on limited activity for my entire third trimester, my weight gain was very healthy.

I still gained twenty pounds.

God Bless Husband, who truly believes I’ve only become more beautiful.

I’ve been in denial about my weight gain. I reasoned that since I can button up my pants (regardless of the blubber spilling over), that I’m doing ok. I reasoned that since I’ve got an hourglass figure, I look voluptuous, not fat. I simply stopped picturing what I looked like from the shoulders down, preferring to imagine what I used to look like.

I don’t look voluptuous. I’m not big boned and I’m not tall. I’ve got to much fat on a frame not sized to hold it all. I look out-of-shape. I look slovenly. I looked up my BMI and I’m well into the overweight range.

Is this what people think whenever they look at me?

I can’t keep denying this. It’s so easy to ignore the truth.

I was a skinny child. Not just little, skinny. I was a slender young adult. I never had to worry about my weight. I ate reasonably, indulged when I wanted, stayed moderately active, and everything was fine.

Not so much anymore. I still eat reasonably, and only indulge occasionally, but even so, I’m always hungry. Despite eating three healthy meals a day, I’m ravenous by 8 pm, and need a substantial snack (like a bowl of cereal) to feel full enough to sleep.

Just chasing and hauling my two kids around our 2-story home all day isn’t enough. I haven’t exercised regularly since 2007. Working bizarre hours at a full-time job and taking care of two babies drained me of time and energy.

And I’m tired of this. I’m tired of hating my appearance. I’m tired of feeling old and worn out.

So yesterday I joined a gym.

It is less than 10 minutes from my house. It has free childcare.

I’m excited to get going. Just because I haven’t been doing it doesn’t mean I don’t like exercise. It’s incredibly good for my mental health. Sweat and stress seem to drain from my body; I feel physically and mentally detoxified.

But I can’t seem to defend myself against the critic inside that says “You’re fat and there’s nothing you can do about it.” It’s the same critic that silenced me all my life - “If you aren’t naturally wonderful at this, you are a failure and there’s nothing that can be done to exonerate you for this.”

I know I will never look like I did pre-pregnancy. But I’m hoping to at least love myself the way I look now.

Crazy = Wonderful

October 2006 through October 2007 will forever go down as the year I went crazy.

Now, I don’t use the word “crazy” lightly. But the time line of what happened in those months is as follows:

October 21, 2006: Husband and I got married

Two weeks later: Husband and I find out his graduate advisor is moving from the University of Minnesota to The Ohio State University, and we must move as well.

January 1, 2007: We move from St. Paul, MN to Columbus, OH.

One week later: I start my final semester of law school at an entirely new law school, and Husband resumes his graduate work at an entirely new university.

One week later: I find out SURPRISE! I’m pregnant.

February 2007 - March 2007: I throw up every time I smell coffee, which, at law school, means every day.

May 2007: I graduate law school, and start hunting for a job to support myself, Husband, and the expectant baby.

Two months later: I obtain a job (WHEW!)

Mid-July: I begin said job.

October 16, 2007: Toddler is born.

I think the only thing that could’ve made that year more stressful would be the death of a family member (and I truly thank God I didn’t have to go through that.)

Strangely enough, that year didn’t do a ton to add to my bipolar depression. The postpartum hormones did. And it made Husband and I grow so much closer, because we had no one to depend on except each other. And it brought us the most precious surprise ever, Toddler.

So, was it stressful? Yes.

Was it full of uncertainty? Yes.

Was it lonely? Yes.

Was it wonderful? Yes.