Category Archives: postpartum depression

Today is Italian day!

I will be starting up the Italian cooking shortly after the girls go down for quiet time. I can’t wait… I bought ricotta yesterday, don’t really feel up to making it from scratch. I also made sure to buy some parm. we’ve been out and it’s been killing me to eat pasta without parm! And no, I am not Italian – I just grew up in New Jersey – on the east coast and well, there’s a LOT of italian restaurants there and I was raised on the stuff! I could eat Italian all day if given the opportunity. YUM YUM YUM! Bring on the garlic!

As far as my mood, it’s been weird lately. Up and down – Chris has been a little off too though. Don’t know if it’s the weather or what – it FINALLY started to rain. I think my mood can be attributed to being stuck at home all day. The past week I’ve been queasy too so I’m sure that hasn’t helped – and then there’s the whole pelvic pain thing. I’m feeling kind of BLAH. I think tomorrow morning after breakfast, I’ll put the girls into the stroller and we’ll go for a walk. I don’t know how far we’ll walk – probably not that far considering my pelvic pain, but who knows, maybe it will help. Wait a sec – I’ve got PT in the morning. So probably not the best idea to do tomorrow morning. Just have to wait and see.

Ok, OUCH. Alli just cannonballed a beanie baby poodle at me. Can I say OUCH again??? OUCH! She’s now whining and fussing b/c she’s in time out. I warned her not to throw it hard and she failed to listen. Typical three year old, right? *sighs & rubs chin* Beanie Babies are lethal weapons!

Craving Smells??

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?)

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…

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

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.