Category Archives: Perinatal Mood Disorders

Craving Smells??

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I am craving a smell. The way my grandmother’s house smelled when she would make her homemade manicotti. I don’t have the recipe… she passed away before I even started high school, long before cooking became a passion of mine. I wish I had the recipe. I wish she were still here… To this day though, I make my manicotti like hers – fresh, homemade crepes instead of pasta, well, that’s about it. I remember that much. The filling is usually fresh homemade ricotta (yes, I know how to do that, it’s really not that hard), and I make a lovely homemade roasted red pepper marinara to go with it. If I’m feeling absolutely ambitious, I make fresh lasagna noodles too. I’d like to learn how to make homemade mozzarrella but I haven’t had the chance (or the guts) to do that yet. I have a feeling that I will be making lasagna this week – don’t have the energy (or back strength) to do manicotti. I could live off Italian food – for life. Give me some pasta, some marinara, and some decent parm and I’d be in heaven. Yeah, I know there’s other italian food out there, it’s not all pasta – but me, I’m in love with pasta. Which is why I would fail oh so miserably on a low-carb diet. My pasta usually goes with french bread and full on full fat butter. (hey, at least we KNOW what’s in butter, right?) YUM!

Yeah, I foresee a trip to the grocery store this evening… and tomorrow is NOT going to be a labor free day. I’ll be stinking the house up with delicious italian aromas!

Dear God, make the excrutiating pain go away! (please?)

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PT yesterday went pretty well. Had a new therapist, didn’t much like her at first but I got her to warm up. She had me do some new exercises and I didn’t get to rest as much in the deep end though. :-( I did fine yesterday… today has been a whole ‘nother story though.

At 420a this morning, I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. I attempted to roll over… and I winced. Loudly. It took me 10 minutes to get out of bed and one of the options I contemplated was just going right there – yes, it hurt that badly. I finally crossed my ankles, squeezed my thighs together, pulled my body pillow out, and rolled over onto my back. I managed to roll over to my right side and sit up, wincing and crying the whole way. My first step almost caused me to fall – the pain was even more intense once I tried to bear weight. I held onto the bed almost the whole way out of the room (we have a small room). Once out, it took me another five minutes to get to the bathroom. I didn’t return until about 10 minutes later – process & travel time included. Once I managed to get back into bed (which was a LOT easier than getting out, and I laid on my right side this time so I wouldn’t have to roll over to get out, just sit up), it took me nearly 30 minutes to fall asleep. I didn’t take any tylenol because in my past experience, tylenol doesn’t help.

I’ll be purchasing a wedge pillow here pretty shortly so I can sleep on my back – and I need to get a maternity support belt as well but at this point we can only afford one or the other and being that I tend to go out of alignment during sleep, it’s more important to me that I address that issue first. Chris stayed home today to help with the girls – he was getting ready to go to work when I woke up and I burst into tears when I realized he was going to work – there was just no way I was going to be able to handle the girls on my own with the amount of pain I was experiencing. We really can’t afford for him to take a day off and I certainly wouldn’t have asked unless it was absolutely necessary.

I did end up partially popping back into place – only to take a nap and completely undo the progress I had made. UGH! Alli has been adorable about the whole thing – she keeps asking if my pelvis is owwy. Makes me smile at least – even if I am gritting my teeth behind my grin.

Playing in the rain…

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is oh so much fun with a three year old! And even more fun when it hasn’t rained in almost a month without thundering. August has been absolutely sweltering here in GA – in fact, the high today was 90 and both my husband and I were grateful for the COOL weather.. LOL. I can honestly say I never thought I’d be saying that about 90!

This afternoon it started to rain without the accompanying thunder and lightning. So we went outside to play in the wet stuff. Or rather, to “splash in the puddles.” Chris came out with Charlotte and right as I was going to carry her into the yard for some fun too it thundered, chasing all of us inside. Alli and I were drenched – well, I was drenched all the way to about halfway down my stomach.. gotta love pregnancy!

I wish we could have stayed out longer because the rain really was quite cleansing and felt so refreshingly cool! Darn thunder!

Postpartum nitty gritty stuff

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Friday was an absolutely insane day.

I attended a postpartum workshop here and had to do a lot of running around so that I could go. My mother in law graciously took half a day to watch the girls so I could attend.

I overslept – had to rush to therapy. Then I had to cash a check to pay for the workshop. Got home,  I had to drive Chris to work – then the girls and I went to the IL’s house. It was there I realized that I didn’t have the key to their house on my keychain. Back to Chris’ job. (a 10-15 minute drive – not long, I know, but when you have kids….) Picked up the keys. Back to the IL’s house. Wait for MIL.. she finally arrives. I had Charlotte down – or attempted down. She was still crying but was getting quieter. Alli decided to throw a huge fit as I was leaving, making me just cringe.

I had to rush home, change, grab my PP work stuff, and then rush to the workshop. I got there pretty close to when it was supposed to start. And guess what.. couldn’t find a parking spot in front of the building. So I end up parking quite a distance away and had to hike down to the building. Five months pregnant. In heels. In nearly 100 degree heat. I was not happy. At least it was downhill, right?

Finally got there, registered, and grabbed a water and a granola bar. First thing I had eaten all day – bad pregnant mama, I know, but busy days get away from me. Once I got there and sat down, I started flipping through the presentation and discovered that PACE, my local peer support group, had it’s very own slide within the presentation! I got to personally plug the group and the presenter made a point of greeting me to let me know he was glad I was able to attend. What an awesome feeling – to have my work recognized by a local professional at a workshop! I certainly don’t do it for recognition, I’m in it to truly help other women but I have to admit, there was definitely a huge rush to knowing that the group I’ve started is being recognized.

FF to the end of the workshop – one of the attendees saw me hiking back up the hill and offered to give me a ride – THANK GOD for that!

After I made it to my car, I drove to the IL’s. Alli and Charlotte were playing up a storm and then lo and behold, one heck of a storm started to brew outside. We got stuck there for about an hour and Alli had a huge diarrhea issue. It was pretty bad. Luckily it didn’t go all over the place, but still.. EWWW. We didn’t leave there until nearly 6p. On the way back to the house, Alli fell asleep in the car. I called Chris to see if he could get off work early – no luck. I didn’t want to take her home, wake her up, only to have to get her back into the car 30 minutes later to go pick up daddy. So I drove around for about an hour. Total mileage once we got home was nearly 100mi from start to finish, not including therapy. (that would have made it nearly 120mi) For someone who is certainly not used to driving that much, I was WORN the heck out.

Once home, Charlotte went to bed, alli had cheese & crackers with milk, went to bed, and I can’t even remember what we did for dinner. I just remember my feet friggin hurt and I wanted to go to sleep.

I did get a great VM that afternoon though – I was approved for PT for my pelvic misalignment and my first appointment is Wednesday morning. I’m starting out in the pool because frankly, I am in so much pain I think land exercise at this point would just plain hurt. I certainly want to do land exercise so I’ll have some tools to use at home when I get out of whack. Pregnancy and I certainly have a love hate relationship. I LOVE being a mom – Pregnancy and I just do NOT get along. At all.

PACE Meeting

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Here I sit at a PACE meeting, the only one present, yet again. But hey, it’s guaranteed time out of the house and if someone needs the support, I’ll be here. Plus it gives me time to think and accomplish PACE/PPD things that I have been meaning to do but just can’t get to while caring for a 3 1/2 year old and and an 18 month old! (Like write Senators and design publicity items!)

Preggo brain has officially taken over though – I came here last week even though there wasn’t a meeting. No wonder NO ONE showed up! hehe!

On a plus side, I did the Maternity Fair this past weekend. The interest was great, I nearly ran out of brochures! I also got a primo spot – right up front so that when people walked in, I was one of the first booths they saw. I was very very happy with that lovely surprise. Suppose it helps that I know the woman who Coordinated pretty well but I certainly didn’t ask for a primo spot. Just lucked out!

I had some great conversations with a lot of moms and with quite a few professionals. Managed to network more than anything. Plan on following up with that this week. My approach towards folks was just to let them peruse the table and if they picked up info, I thanked them, if they had questions, I answered them. I had one husband pick up info for his wife and also had quite a few women thank me for my work which was a reward in itself. I don’t feel that being pushy about PPD is something that is necessary, especially when dealing with the pregnant population. Certainly don’t want to add to their fears at all. When pregnant moms approach me, I tell them about the group and always add that hopefully this will be the only conversation we have, but if they need me down the road, I am here for them. That line always gets a giggle or two.

I have another fair coming up in October, sponsored by the place we have our meetings. The table/spot is free, so of course I’m going to take advantage of it. I’m also going to try and get home to my parents’ house sometime soon. Mom wants me to take two weeks but with the way the PACE meetings are between now and December (and um, factoring in that I’m nearly 5 months pregnant now), it’s just not possible. Plus if my mom and I are together for more than oh, three or four days, things get um, tense. I love her dearly, but we do better at a distance and we both know it. Even with nearly 400mi in between us sometimes things still get tense.

Back to the maternity fair… hopefully I will soon be doing training/educating with some local breastfeeding counselors as well as a local hospital’s L&D staff. I also managed to meet & greet with some local doulas and ran into an old college friend who is a child photographer now. Pretty cool! (We last ran into each other here when my husband and I were just getting ready to move to SC so it’s been awhile!)

I gotta run, it’s 40 minutes into the meeting, I’m still solo, and I have some specific projects I would really like to get done this evening if no one shows up.

Remember… if you are suffering from PPD:

You are not alone

You are not to blame

You will be well with help!