Where do I start?

I've been thinking about this blog post for about three months. You know, the one where you come back from a big hiatus? How do I explain why I haven't been on here for months? Well to be honest, it's not that exciting, it was more laziness than anything else. Sometimes I go through bouts of anxiety and depression, and that happened this winter, which blows. I had gone years without a panic attack and then boom. It had a lot to do with hormones and going off my birth control (you see where this is going?), but also my constant worrying and neurotic thinking didn't help. Turns out hormones are more powerful than I could ever imagine, as I would find out throughout late winter and spring as well.

I found out that I was pregnant in February, and honestly it was a huge surprise. It shouldn't have been that big of a surprise, because well, I know how these things work. But still, when you've never been pregnant before, seeing those two pink lines can be an incredibly shocking experience, it doesn't seem like a possibility. It took a while to get used to (and I'm still getting used to it, I'm 16 weeks along) but things are starting to sink in a little more and I'm adjusting better than I thought. The first few months were rough, I admit, and I went through even more depression and anxiety. Hello hormones, and the fact that my crackpot doctor put me on an antidepressant that I had a bad reaction to. It basically did the opposite of what it's supposed to. Yes, I would love to not be on any meds at all while pregnant, but for me this proved to be an impossibility. My hormones do crazy things to my brain. I now have a better doctor who got me on the right medication, a therapist who I LOVE, and I'm doing a lot of work on myself, learning how to stop my negative thinking, live in the moment rather than the future.

Enough brain talk. What about this baby? Well the sonogram picture I put in the last post was about 8 weeks ago, so I imagine it looks much more human-like and bigger now. I get my next sonogram in three weeks, the big one where they make sure all the parts are there and in working order. And of course . . . gender! Yes, we're finding out. I'm a planner. I need to know. I have a list of names, and this is embarrassing to admit, but this list of baby names has been in progress for about ten years. The same little Word document has traveled from computer to computer and college, to apartments, etc. It's not that I've always been baby crazy, its more that I wanted to remember a name when I heard a good one. I probably won't be sharing it on this blog and I'm thinking about keeping the name a secret even from family and friends until birth. 

The baby is measuring perfectly. Although my original estimated due date got pushed back 9 days because I measured small on the sonogram. The due date calculated from the sonogram is November 3, but the due date calculated from my last period is October 25. The explanation is that I probably ovulated late in my cycle, but i'm not sure if I believe that. The due date we're telling everyone is November 3, but I wouldn't be surprised if it came in October.  Heartbeat is great, and fast. 

So yes, the focus of this blog is probably going to change quite a bit. To be totally honest, when I started this blog it was because I was reading so many pregnancy/baby blogs. I knew I wanted to blog my pregnancy and baby, and I wanted to get started before that so that I could learn how to blog, connect with other people, etc., before it happened. It definitely won't be all baby talk all the time though, because right now, it's just in there marinating and I'm pretty much going on with normal life. I don't read all the baby books and I try to stay away from the Babycenter message boards and everything. When I do that, I find myself comparing my situation to others and constantly feel like I'm thinking and feeling the wrong things. So I'm just letting nature take it's course and letting this be my experience. That means not obsessing over every little feeling and bodily change. But this blog has always been about my life, and this is my life right now. 

Zoloft: My love/hate affair

It is sunny out. And its going to be warm. It hasn't been like this in a while and I am so relieved. It is amazing how much influence the weather can have on your mood. You just feel lighter and happier on sunny days. Its kind of sad that I live in a city that doesn't see much sunlight. Right now I'm laying in bed with my puppy, with sunshine pouring through the window and a light breeze is blowing the curtains. Heaven.

Speaking of sunshine and happiness. You might have noticed in my last post that I'm on antidepressants. I have been for eight years now, Zoloft to be exact. I have always been a "worrier", but in college, stress started getting to me and I began having panic attacks, seemingly out of nowhere. One minute I'd be happily watching a movie with my boyfriend (now husband) and the next I'd be hyperventilating, curled up in a ball and thinking that I was about to die. Things started to get really bad when I went home to visit my parents for a weekend and I ended up having a full blown panic attack.  I pulled myself together and was able to go back to my dorm the next day. But then it started again. I remember my roommate helping me walk to student health, and I couldn't even stand up straight. I couldn't breath, my heart was pounding out of my chest and I was nauseated. The geniuses at student health diagnosed me with dehydration and pumped me with three liters of saline fluid. When that seemed to do nothing, they ordered blood tests and asked if I had been tested for cancer. (???!!!) Not something you say to someone during a panic attack.

After the fiasco at student health, my parents brought me home. I stayed there for a week or two, luckily it was winter break. If you don't have panic disorder, it is impossible to understand this. It seems like a mental thing but it is SO PHYSICAL. I was sickeningly dizzy, could barely get off the couch to go to the bathroom, had ringing in my ears and couldn't eat. We were able to find a psychiatrist that could fit me in for an emergency appointment and I was diagnosed with panic disorder and put on Zoloft.

I have a love/hate relationship with Zoloft. I believe it is what really pulled me out of this random breakdown, which I still don't know the reasons and trigger for. It acted as a band aid while I went to therapy and learned why the panic attacks happened and how to cope with them.

But I'm not the same person as I was before I started the medicine. I'm tired all the time and it really gets in the way of my life. I often take daily naps and will sometimes just fall asleep when I'm trying to work on something. I have trouble concentrating on a task. I have become EXTREMELY forgetful and scatter-brained. I can't remember certain long-term things and I do stupid shit all the time. I forget appointments, I forget to pay bills, I forget to look in the rear view mirror when I back out of the driveway and I hit my sister's car. Oops. Then last night, I realized I couldn't find my NEW $700 camera and after 20 minutes of sobbing and calling around, I found out that I had left it at my cousin's wedding shower and that my aunt had it. It has become sort of a joke among my family and friends about how scatterbrained I am, but it bothers me because I wasn't always like this.

Then there is physical stuff. I have gained about 30 pounds since I started taking Zoloft. I'm sure some of it had to do with college life, dorm food, and massive consumption of PBR light. But still. I'm hungry all the time, and I wasn't like that before.

In the past couple years, I have managed to go down from 150 mg to 50 mg, which is pretty huge. Many people have TERRIBLE withdrawal effects from trying to go off their medicine and many people relapse and have to go back on. Luckily, I have not had trouble going down, I think because I have done it so gradually. In a few weeks, I plan on going down to 25. I want to get off of it this year. I hardly ever have panic attacks and when I feel one starting, I know how to bring myself back down from it. But it still scares me a bit, the idea of not taking that pill every night. But I can't wait to be free of it.

So I'm kind of coming out with this because I want to know about other people's experiences. I want to know if people have gone off the antidepressants and whether the weight has come off, sex drive returned, etc.  Or any kind of experience with it. One thing I realized after going on the meds is that MUCH more people are on antidepressants than you think. I was so secretive about it until I realized that I was definitely not the only one. Anyway, I love having discussions about this topic, so fire away! :)