Still Going Through It
As soon as my husband and I got back from our honeymoon we started trying to have a baby! We tried for 9 months and every month that went by that I didn’t get pregnant I felt sad, and for the first time I even felt like maybe I wouldn’t be able to conceive.
By month 10, my period was late. I didn’t feel any different aside from it being late, so I didn’t think anything of it. On my birthday, I decided to take a pregnancy test just to see if I could possibly be pregnant.
I remember it like it was yesterday, I took the Clear Blue test and then covered it with a hand towel. I walked away from it in the bathroom and went into the kitchen with my husband. We waited the couple minutes and then walked into the bathroom, where we both looked at each other one last time as if knowing if the test said “pregnant” our lives would change forever. Then my husband removed the towel. I saw the positive pregnant test and said, “This has to be a lie!” I just couldn’t believe we were finally pregnant!
Fast forward to the third trimester of my pregnancy, which by the way was pretty good thus far, where I remember one day feeling so filled with anxiety. Out of nowhere I was so scared all I could do was cry. My husband and I drove to my parents’ house because all I wanted was my mom.
The funny thing about anxiety is that no matter how great your life is, how healthy you feel, where you’re at, or what time of day it is anxiety doesn’t care and will still creep in. I don’t know why I felt like the fear and anxious feeling I was feeling would just go away being at my parents’ house because it didn’t help much. My mom hugged me, and we talked, and I cried and cried. Crying did relieve some of my fear and I felt a little lighter when we finally left her house. The next morning, I was better.
That one anxiety episode was all I ever had while being pregnant with my daughter and as my scheduled delivery approached, I had no idea just how much my life was about to change…forever!
My third trimester was honestly so miserable for me. Not only am I really short, with nowhere for the baby to move around, but I had also gained almost 50 pounds and was so swollen from the top of my head to the tips of my toes! Looking back, I am so upset that my doctors didn’t see that as “something could be very wrong” because even I knew something had to be wrong for me to be as swollen and miserable as I was.
I was induced exactly one week earlier than my scheduled due date on the morning of January 6th, 2010. I arrived at the hospital at 5am and finally had my daughter via cesarean section at 9:51pm. My daughter was very healthy and was well. I on the other had was very out of it due to the magnesium I had to take, otherwise I was okay.
I stayed in the hospital for a couple nights and was released at noon on that third day. From the moment we got home, and I mean from the moment we got home, my anxiety immediately started. The fear that is anxiety was debilitating and I didn’t know what I was going to do, especially with just having a newborn I needed to be there for.
Then my husband had to run to the pharmacy to get my prescription and I wanted to go with him I did not want him to leave me feeling the way I was and with a newborn baby. I had no choice but to stay with our daughter and let him go because I was in no shape to go with him even if I wanted to. He left and I cried a little while watching the clock counting down the minutes as if that could have made him come back any faster…. but of course, it didn’t.
In all my life in suffering with anxiety, this anxiety episode was the worst I had ever felt it. I had to request more time off work than what was originally planned for a cesarean section. I was diagnosed with PPTSD, Post Partum Traumatic Stress Disorder, which I had never heard of before. I was finally put on medication and saw a therapist in the meantime while my medication kicked in. I started to feel like myself again after almost 3 months and felt like my anxiety was finally under control, or so I thought.
Late one night in the summer of 2018, while I was working on my laptop, fear suddenly struck me! I could not believe what I was feeling…again! It had been 8 years since my last severe anxiety episode and all those dark awful feelings came rushing back. I immediately closed my laptop and went to bed, hoping if I slept, I wouldn’t feel that fear and I would feel better the next morning.
Nope! I awoke the next morning with the same dark ugly awful scary feeling in the pit of my stomach, anxiety! I told my husband what happened the night before and how I was still feeling because I have always been open with him about my anxiety, and it helped me feel better getting it out in the open as well as him knowing what I was going through.
He told me to keep myself busy, so I wouldn’t be in my head making it all worse. He also recommended trying to workout because releasing endorphins can also help with how I was feeling. He left to work, and I started to do a workout while watching tv. In the middle of working out, the fear and anxiety became so intense I had to stop and try to breathe through it. I was alone with my daughter asleep because it was summer she didn’t have school and my husband was at work, I knew I had to be strong and figure things out so I didn’t scare her.
I calmed down a bit to try and take a shower. I had just shampooed my hair when my body ran cold from fear and my heart began to race! I felt like the shower was spinning around me I just wanted to run, anything at all to get myself to feel better! Once again, realizing my daughter was asleep and I wasn’t about to scare her, so I began talking to myself. “RC, she needs you to be strong, you’re the only adult here to take care of her so you have to get it together!” I also realized I needed to rinse my hair first before getting out, so I quickly rinsed my hair and got out.
I called my husband at work and told him how scared and anxious I was and asked him to come home. Thankfully he rushed home. I climbed in his lap, and I cried. I was not only feeling severe fear and anxiety just like I did back in 2010 when I had my daughter, but because I knew how long I was in that dark place the first time scared the crap out of me adding to this current anxiety I was feeling! The knowing of what I went through for those almost 3 months had me so sick.
I now know that because of what I experienced with my anxiety after having my daughter was what added to the severe episode in 2018, I; however, had no idea why or what triggered the new intense anxiety I felt, and now that I think of it at the time I still didn’t understand or know what triggered the first severe anxiety episode either.
My husband and I walked through what might have changed recently or maybe something that had happened that I hadn’t connected yet, but we just could not figure out what was bringing on this crazy intense fear and I did not want to wait another almost 3 months to find out this time.
I made an appointment with a psychologist my brother had recommended that had helped him before. Thankfully she had an opening that same day!
For the first time in my life, I realized how much help I needed, and I refused to give up before fighting for the life I knew I deserved for myself and my family… and I had hope she might be able to finally help me.
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