Category: Uncategorized

In February of 2020 we found out that we were pregnant with our fourth child. I had some mixed emotions over this, I had been thinking about what my future would look like since my third baby would be starting school that September and this news meant that my future was going to be pushed back at least another three years while I stayed home with a new baby and went back to diapers. I also had concerns that it may push me back into a depression, or worse, it might make the tumour regrow. Luckily, those worries were both unfounded. As my pregnancy progressed so did my excitement for a new baby.

A month after finding out about the pregnancy the world shut down. I all of a sudden had so much more to worry about. I was already considered “geriatric” for pregnancy, so the pregnancy came with enough worries on its own, but now I had to worry about this unknown. Would my baby be okay if I became ill with Covid? What would giving birth during Covid look like? I also had to get a new doctor as my family doctor who had delivered all my other children had since retired and my new family doctor does not deliver babies. So, I was trying to navigate a whole new medical process in the middle of a medical crisis, it was a bit scary. My doctor was great, he did an ultrasound during one of my first visits to tell me the gender of my baby even though it was a bit early. I was so happy to find out we would be having another girl.

Luckily, I did not get Covid while I was pregnant so there was no need to worry about how that might affect the baby or if there might be any long term complications to her health because of it. She was born in October, so restrictions were not as strict but still more than I would have liked. In the hospital I was able to have my husband with me, which was a relief, I was not looking forward to the possibility of having to go through the whole thing alone. She was an uncooperative baby as far as the birth was concerned. After the 40 week mark, she was still not consistently head down during ultrasounds. My second to last ultrasound they had measured her at 9lbs4oz, which is coincidentally what she weighed when she was born, and she was head down. This was promising for being induced the following week. When we went back in, there was another ultrasound which showed she had returned to a sideways lying position. Cue some serious disappointment! I voiced my disappointment, and my doctor had voiced his concern about me potentially having my water break while baby was sideways and having an arm in the way by the time I made it to hospital. So, I was admitted to hospital and not long after the doctor attempted to turn the baby to allow for a safe induction. It worked and the induction process began. Around 1am I was in a birthing unit and shortly after that they proceeded to break my water. I laboured for some time, then the contractions slowed and another ultrasound was done to ensure the baby was still head down. She was not, she had retreated and returned to her favourite sideways lying position. This was the end of my labour. At this time it was decided that I would deliver this baby via c-section. This was not what I was hoping for, but I was prepared for it because of how much she had been moving. I was done being pregnant and very much just wanted to get this baby out one way or another. I was a bit worried about how this would go after the first time. I did not want an epidural and was prepared to be told I would have to be put under for the procedure. I was happy to find out that I did not need either of those things and instead would be given an anesthetic similar to the freezing a dentist will give for a filling, just a much larger dose into my back. I was also told that the anesthesiologist would not require me to tell them that I wanted this. Relief. This operation was much easier for me. Apparently, it was not as good for my husband as there seemed to be an excessive amount of bleeding and he became very worried during the procedure. Once it was done and I was taken out of the OR everything was pretty smooth. I got sick which seems to be what I do after anesthetic – I was sick during my first c-section and was apparently quite sick after my tumour removal, but I don’t remember that. Once feeling began to return to my legs we were taken to a room where we would be monitored for a few days.

After the baby was born we were allowed to have one visitor per 24 hours, we had the same visitor, my mom, the whole time as most people were working during that time. My parents had my older children at their home and my mother would come to visit me and the baby after dropping them off at school in the morning. She would leave in the afternoon to pick up the kids from school, then my husband would come back for a short time after work. But, he was working during this time, so he went home at night to sleep. The baby slept all day. This is not an exaggeration, she would fall asleep around 7 or 8am and sleep until about supper time, then she would be awake all night. She wasn’t feeding well, I don’t know if it is because I wasn’t producing enough milk or if it was just because she didn’t care to do it. By the time we left the hospital she had lost more weight than she should have. We were referred to feeding specialists and were advised to ensure she was eating every two hours and to top up all feeds with a bottle. She started gaining weight again with this, but she still was not eating very much. Now, three years later, I’m still not sure how she is gaining weight as she would prefer to not eat the majority of the time.

It’s been a very different experience raising a baby during a pandemic. For the first two years of her life most of the people she met were just eyes. I noticed that she was able to tell when people smiled at her even though she couldn’t see their mouths she was still able to read their expression through their eyes. She is much more shy than any of my other children since she was never really in any social situations as a baby. She is now starting to get used to meeting new people even though she is still very shy. She is also a big Mommy’s girl and will hide behind me or hide her face in my shoulder in new situations. But, she is growing up and learning to be part of this world that has changed so much since she was born.

From March 2020 until May 2023 the world experienced something that hadn’t really happened in over 100 years. It caused a lot of panic and stress and hate. It created a whole new way of life for many people. And, having four young children to enjoy this experience with made it so much more … everything.

The media was beginning to spark some public panic at the beginning of March. We were preparing for an annual winter vacation – a getaway from the winter. The last few days leading up to our vacation were met with many questions about whether or not we would go and how worried we were about this new flu virus that everyone had been talking about. Well, since I had spent more than 20 years avoiding the News at this point after a suggestion from a counsellor in my youth, I had no idea what everyone was talking about. So, I asked my good friend Google to enlighten me about Coronavirus. Apparently, Google was not yet alerted to the dangers of this new virus and only had information about the milder more common Coronavirus. My friend, Google, informed me that if I had ever had a flu virus in the past that I likely had Coronavirus. So, not being a scientist or someone who watches the news, I decided that whatever this new mutation of Coronavirus was, it was a mutation of a virus my body had already dealt with and my body would be prepared, at least in part, for this one should I ever be exposed to it. So, my level of panic at this time would have been non-existent and I couldn’t really understand all the people who were getting so worried about something that hadn’t even come into our province yet and was also something that had been around for some time.

So, we took our vacation. We went to the sun. We had about two or three days before the world seemed to end. We ended up spending much of our vacation watching news broadcasts of what was happening around the world. We watched, with a bit more anxiety now, as things started shutting down. We spent a lot of time trying to come up with fun activities for the kids to do while we were on vacation and all the places we had planned to visit were now closed and we couldn’t even use the pool. The last few days of our vacation were spent trying to figure out how we would get home as airports closed and flights were cancelled. But, we made it home, hours before new restrictions would be put in place that would have meant isolating in the area we entered the country – which was no longer able to be our province. So, after our vacation in the sun we returned home to schools being closed and were told we had to isolate for two weeks. Luckily, my wonderful parents were able to bring us groceries since we had no food in our home and were now not able to go to the store. They did a few deliveries of groceries for us over our two weeks of isolation and even brought some things to help keep the kids entertained in that time.

The kids wouldn’t get to go back to school or preschool that year. The government tried to set up at-home learning for the children in school but it only lasted for about a month after which they decided that the school year would be over and all students would pass regardless of what they were capable of at the end of the year. That was good because the at home learning was essentially non-existent, for my children anyway. However, with my children being immersed in a second language at school, one of my children had just started school that year and another would start the following year also learning in a second language. The only way an immersion class works is if the children are actually being immersed in the language all day at school. Even when we returned to school in September of 2020, there was no way to continue with the immersion through school closures. So, my two children were being asked to work and learn in a second language that they would get to hear for about an hour or less each day. When concerns were brought to the teachers, the principals, the school board, the education minister, it was always met the same way – “all of the children in this grade are having the same struggles.” Of course they were! I didn’t want to know that everyone was struggling, I wanted to know how we were going to get past it – how was my child going to go into the second grade after two years of interrupted schooling and be able to learn what they were going to teach him? And, if they were just going to shrug and say this is where everyone in that grade is because of all the school closures what would that mean in the future, at what point were they going to see that a lot of these kids just were not going to be able to catch up because no one was going back to teach them what they missed? All the while, I was watching the education minister in news broadcasts assure the voting population that the children were, in fact, not falling behind at all and that anyone who suggested they might be was simply wrong. I was infuriated. I was sending emails to anyone who should be doing something about it and getting responses from no one. There was no extra supports being put into schools for these children and the supports that were in place from before the pandemic were stretched so thin and then were being used to cover teacher absences so any child who was falling behind would just be left behind to feel as though they were drowning, while watching the lifeguards on the shore, who were smiling and telling them to just stop drowning.

The 2022-2023 school year was both the last school year of the pandemic as well as the first uninterrupted school year for our children during the pandemic. In theory, this should have been a much better experience for everyone because routines would not be constantly changing. However, in reality, what happened was that the children didn’t really know how to cope with going to school without the extended closures. They were very tired and had a hard time keeping focused. Everyone could feel the strain this was putting on them. No one really seemed too concerned about how that change would affect the children after three years. There were three grades of children who had never gone to school without any interruptions or attempts at at-home learning. Those children didn’t know how to cope with the new normal and two of my children were in that group. It was a struggle. They spent everyday looking ahead to the next break that they had come to expect more frequently. I took it upon myself to give my children mental health days during the school year to let them recharge a bit, one at a time, which was really nice because they don’t often get a lot of time with me.

Now, we focus on helping our boys achieve their academic goals in school. For one of them that meant switching from learning a second language. He was not sure he wanted to change classes but now that he is learning in English and is able to understand what is going on we are seeing a lot of progress. For the other that means watching his progress to see how he improves over time. He was fortunate enough to be given extra support from school that hadn’t been available for his brother and is now getting closer to the academic goals for his grade level. I will forever look back on this time as the time I realized that the government truly does not care about our children – I always had an inkling but it was confirmed as I watched them deny the negative effects of the pandemic on children’s learning and consistently insist that there was no need for any additional supports in our schools.

Well, it has been many years since I posted anything here and in that time a lot has happened. I do hope to get to post here more often now, but I guess that will depend on life. So, please, life, let me do this!

Here are the bullet points of the past 5 years. I will probably try to get in some more posts with some more details as I go, but for now I will just share the highlights.

After my pituitary surgery in July 2018 my hormones returned to normal and the tumour was gone. I will be followed for that to ensure it does not return for 10 years. The follow ups include annual blood tests and MRIs. I found out at my 5 year appointment that I will be doing these tests every two years moving forward because everything has been stable since surgery. YAY!

In 2020, I found out that I was pregnant with my fourth child. Then, the world ended, essentially. Just over a month after finding out I was pregnant the whole world shut down due to Covid. It was a very difficult time, everyone struggled. For me, I was struggling to “homeschool” my 3 children at the same time as I was trying to come to terms with the reality of having a fourth baby. It took some time for me to get used to the idea that I would have another baby and for me to decide that I was happy about it. She was born in October of 2020 and I am so happy that she is a part of my life.

Throughout the pandemic we tried to keep our children on track with their schooling which proved to be more difficult than I could have imagined. With my children in immersion, learning in a second language as they were learning their second language, having them home was very detrimental to their learning. We spent the at home learning time just trying to navigate the schedules – three different classes with three different schedules which often overlapped online learning time as well as a new baby who needed all of Momma’s attention. This will be several posts in the coming weeks as there is a lot there that we all need to unload in order to move forward.

Now, we are trying to catch up on everything that sort of went awry during the pandemic as well as trying to potty train a three year old! It is never boring.

I haven’t added anything to my blog in a very long time.  I began drowning in my dark places.  They would come and go, and there seemed to be no real reason, or help for me. I spent many days wishing my existence away.  I often had moments where I wished that there was something physically wrong with me so that I could understand and the people around me could understand how I was feeling.  There were so many dark feelings that I just didn’t know how to deal with.  I found myself so deep in the darkness that I did not even want to teach my dance classes.  My dance classes have always made me feel better, whether I was ill or just in a bad mood, dance fixed it all.  But, in my darkest hours dance couldn’t even save me.  It was frustrating when I looked in the mirror and had no idea who it was looking back at me; when I would yell at my children over nothing; when I was sad for no reason and all I could think about was how happy I used to be and how I had no reason to not be happy now.

Well, August 2017, I go to see my doctor.  I am concerned because my cycle has become irregular.  At a closer look she tells me that it is not really irregular but instead that I have simply stopped ovulating. She tells me I should try to lose weight and it will probably come back.  I really don’t appreciate this comment.  I knew that I was overweight, but I was not at a weight I had never been at before and my cycle had always been regular.  On top of that, I knew that my mental state was more likely the culprit for both, the weight and the irregular cycles.  Well, that was the last cycle I had.

Fast forward to March 2018.  I return to the doctor, concerned that my cycle had stopped, but a little worried that the answer will still be ‘it’s probably weight related.’  Instead, the doctor sends me for blood work.  She also sends me home with a prescription that will kick start my cycle if my blood work comes back normal.  My blood work does not come back normal.  I get a call from my doctor just a few days before I am leaving for a family vacation.  She tells me that the prescription will not work.  She starts telling me about my pituitary gland, which is the master hormone gland, in the brain.  She tells me that the elevated prolactin in my blood work is likely caused by a small lump on my pituitary gland.  She tells me this lump will likely have to be removed.  She tells me this is very common, and not to worry about it as it is not a big deal.  Panic sets in.  What I heard was, ‘lump, brain, needs to be removed,’ which translates to “BRAIN CANCER!”  I have no reason to believe that it is brain cancer, just those three notes, the important things she told me, all I can think is I must have cancer.  I am terrified.

My wonderful husband does a quick google of what she said, pituitary gland lump, her actual words.  He finds just what she said, it’s pretty common, not a huge deal.  A bit of relief.  I start doing my own research on pituitary tumours.  Now that word, tumour, spreads a lot of fear all on it’s own, so I will say right now that they are very rarely cancerous.  I started looking up symptoms of pituitary tumours.  There are so many symptoms, it can mess with your entire body because the pituitary gland controls all your hormones.  So, weight gain, anxiety, depression, irregular cycles or no cycles at all, pregnancy symptoms, headaches, these were all explained by this thing in my head.  This news brought me some relief because now there was this physical problem that explained so much that was going on with me.  There was now some hope that I might feel like myself again.

May 2018, I get an appointment for an MRI.  The pituitary tumour is confirmed.  It measures more than 2cm, which classifies it as a macroadenoma, aka a big tumour.  I am lucky as it is not interfering with anything else; it is close to but not touching my optic nerves and touching the carotid artery but not blocking the flow.  This is mostly good news.  However, now surgery is a real thing.  While I know it’s the best option, it is extremely terrifying.  Especially know HOW they do this surgery.  I won’t get into it, but if you want to know, google endoscopic transphenoidal surgery.  Good news, no visible scars, bad news, it’s disgusting and still NEUROsurgery.

The rest is all pretty quick. There are more blood tests, a field vision test, and a meeting with a five person team.  This meeting is where I find out that my surgery will be July 13, only three weeks later.  Then there are more tests, 3 hours worth of blood tests, another MRI, an echocardiogram, a pre-op appointment.  I end up at the hospital almost every second day between the meeting and my surgery date.  All the while trying not to panic and trying to keep up with my children and my life.  June and July are just chaos.  In all honesty, I was still just coming to terms with the idea that I had this thing in my head and now I was trying to cope with the fact that it was about to be removed.

Going in for surgery was extremely difficult.  Another MRI early in the morning before my 7:30am surgery.  Then, wait.  Then, sit outside the operating room on a stretcher, freezing and talk to an anaesthetist about how I am going to be sick after the surgery.  Go into the ER, lay down on a cold “bed” and stare up into crazy medical stuff, I can’t even describe.  Then, lay there while the surgeon’s stand above you and talk about me, what’s wrong with me and what they are there to do to me.  Then, wake up to chaos, can’t focus, can’t stay awake, sick. Get moved to an elevator and into a room, still can’t stay awake, getting motion sick because I can’t focus on where I am, or who I am, or what is going on.

On to recovery, which is where I am now.  The first two and a half days I’m in the hospital.  IMCU, it’s kind of like ICU but not quite.  I get to be in my own room, which is nice.  On the second day I know I am supposed to be getting up and moving around, but feeling stuck in my room, not really sure how I am supposed to do anything.  I could get dressed, but I can’t bend down, I am not supposed to for 6 weeks.  I also worry that pulling a shirt over my head will hurt my nose.  My legs are a bit weak, too.  And I am so tired.  I finally go for a walk around the floor, I feel a bit more free now.  My surgeon tells me I can go home.  I get to go to my Nan’s, I can’t go home, I can’t play with my children, I can’t be alone.  My children visit, I hang out with my Nan, I start figuring out how to do things so that it doesn’t hurt, like sleeping, showering, eating even though I can’t breathe through my nose.  I am considered adrenal insufficient because of the surgery, I am on meds for this, meds that the nurse explained are extremely important and that if a dose is missed it could be very dangerous for me, like emergency room or worse.  Luckily, blood tests show that I can wean myself off these meds, by three weeks post-op I am completely off the meds.  Everyday gets a little better, but I am still tired.  It’s hard, you can’t see that I recently had surgery, so it feels like sometimes the people around me, especially my children, forget that I still can’t quite do what I used to.  I still get tired really easily.  I find it hard to believe that I will be back to myself in two and a half weeks.

So, apparently, I am a Mom.  For more than five years I have been sharing my home with small humans who grew inside me.  I could look at them and think, ‘hey, I made that!’ I have, since day one, loved them so much it hurts.  But, up until yesterday, I have never felt like a Mom. I honestly don’t even know what it means to feel like a Mom, I just know that I never did.  I also know that this is not how it is for everyone because many of the Moms that I have said that to have looked at me like I was from another planet.  Many of these Moms told me that as soon as they gave birth to their child they were instantly transformed into a Mom, or something.  That’s how I envision it anyway.  I always felt like there was something wrong with me.  I wake up everyday, I look after my children, I get them to where they need to be, but at the end of the day, I just don’t feel like a Mom.  Don’t get me wrong, I know I am a Mom and I know I have children, I just don’t feel like it, inside.

So, I had this moment yesterday.  I was getting the oldest ready to go out to play in the snow with the neighbours.  No big deal.  She was mostly ready and I got down to help get her mittens tucked into her jacket.  It was in that moment, while I was squeezing her mittens into her sleeves that everything just felt right.  I felt like a Mom, like a real Mom, not like someone who has small humans living in my home that call me Mom, but an actual Mom.  Then, she ran out the door to play and I went back to being the regular me, the woman who knows she is a Mom but doesn’t feel like a Mom.  Now, all I can do is sit and wait for another moment, I suppose.  Hopefully it won’t take another five years for that to happen.

Well, it has been a VERY long time since I have written anything here.  There has been a while that I have felt the need to write something, but have not had the courage.  I knew, however, that a day would come that I would feel less afraid of what I wanted to put out there.  Apparently, that day is today.  I’m going to put this out here right now.  In this post, I am going to outline a lot of my deepest thoughts and feelings.  These are things I am working through on my own.  I am not putting this out there trying to find people to fix me.  I am not looking for advice or sympathy.  I just needed to tell my story, my whole story.

Did you know…

• A mother can be struck with postpartum depression any time within the first year after the baby is born?  It doesn’t always strike right away.
• There is more than just postpartum depression to be worried about?  You could also suffer from postpartum anxiety or postpartum psychosis or postpartum post traumatic stress disorder or postpartum obsessive disorder, just to name a few, I’m sure there are many more.
• Postpartum depression is often blamed for postpartum psychosis symptoms and events in the media?
• Postpartum depression can manifest itself very differently in different people – for example some women suffering from postpartum depression may want to sleep all the time while other women suffering from postpartum depression just can’t sleep no matter how hard they try.

So, I’m sure you have figured out by now that my reason for taking a break from writing, aside from being ridiculously busy with three young children, is that I am a mother who suffers from one of these scary things I have listed above.  I am a mother who is dealing with postpartum depression.  I am a mother who had thought she had gotten through the darkness but can’t seem to find the end.  I am a mother who carries on in spite of this.  But, I am also a woman who was scared to admit this, to herself, to her loved ones and to medical professionals.  I am a person who thought that it was too far after the baby was born for it to be postpartum anything.  I am a mother and a woman who is here to give women like me a voice.  I am here to, if nothing else, let those women know that they are not alone and, maybe, help some women get the help they need.

Here is my story:

At about 6 months postpartum, I was driving my three beautiful children around.  The spinning of becoming a mom of three was just beginning to slow.  Then something bizarre occurred to me.  This was something I had likely thought of before but it never bothered me, not like it did in this moment.  I came to the realization that every person is born to suffer.  We all go through our pregnancies thinking how wonderful it is that we are creating this life inside us, but why?  Once that life is no longer inside of us, it is dying.  We are all dying.  What kind of a monster brings an infant into a world where it will spend its life dying and watching those around it die?  Now, you may think that I came to this realization after someone close to me had passed or after a “near-death experience” – I put this in quotes because for each individual this could look very different.  However, this is not the case.  This thought simply hit me, in the way that many thoughts hit all of us throughout the day.  I used to get these thoughts often and while sometimes it would unsettle me a bit, it was never quite like this.  In the past, before all of this, I would think: ‘I wonder what would happen if I just turned off this bridge…”; or ‘what if this plane doesn’t make it to our destination…’; or ‘how would I escape from my car if I ended up in that lake…’  But these were simple, fleeting thoughts.  While these thoughts were dark, sure, they never lasted more than a moment and were all more hypothetical thoughts.  So, I have this thought, that I am a terrible human being for creating small human beings with the knowledge that they will inevitably die.  I understand that animals continue to procreate because they don’t understand the inevitability of their demise, but humans, we all know that in the end, we are going to die, so why do we keep doing this?  Obviously, this thought still haunts me a bit, but not like it did that day.  For the rest of that day, I walked around in a bit of a haze.  Sort of unsure how I should continue.  As if there were any question in the matter, do I carry on with life or do I find a way to fix this terrible thing that I have done?  But, how would one attempt to correct this?  It is not as if I could go back in time and stop myself from creating these beautiful tiny humans.  And, even if I could, knowing how much love I have for them, and how adorable they are, would I succeed in stopping myself if I were able to return to a time when I was clear headed?

So, I spent some time in this fog.  I carried on with the things that needed to be done, but a lot of things just fell to the back.  I got up in the morning because I had an infant that needed to be fed and I had a preschooler who had to get to dance or gymnastics or to the pool and I had a toddler who would likely kill himself if someone wasn’t there to at least say, ‘Hey! Don’t do that!’  Life was quite scheduled for me, and for that I am grateful, had it not been for all the places we needed to be, I likely would have fallen much deeper into the darkness, and I might still be drowning in it.  I spent as much time out of the house as possible because outside of the house I could strap my three children into car seats without being called a bad mother.  I could strap my two boys into a stroller and not be considered a bad mother.  I could breathe.  I could go for hours without feeling like I wanted to yell at my children.  But, as soon as we set foot in our house it was a much different story.  I turned into a completely different person like Jekyll and Hyde.  My stress level would shoot through the roof the second I opened the door and remembered the extent of housework that needed to be done.  Each child I let out of the car was a child I had to wrangle in the disaster area that I now called a home.  I no longer had a way to keep my children contained – strapping your children into car seats in your home is frowned upon.  I kept pushing through.  But, I kept getting these terrible thoughts, that in my right mind, my usual happy state, I would simply shrug off, but I couldn’t, not in this haze.

Let me tell you about these thoughts:

I was putting away the dishes.  We have these beautiful Jamie Oliver knives, a lot of people have them, they were giving them away at Sobey’s for the holidays last year.  They make this lovely swishing sound when you take them out of the block.  They have a really nice weight to them as well.  And, they are definitely the sharpest knives I have ever owned.  So, this being said, I was putting away the dishes.  I was putting away one of the larger Jamie Oliver knives.  I looked at the blade.  It was very sharp, smooth.  So, I thought this would be a good way to go.  It would get me out of the way.  Everyone else would certainly be better off without me.  In all seriousness, I serve no purpose.  However, there would be a lot of blood.  That would likely be an image that would traumatize my three young children for the rest of their lives.  While my  not being there would certainly improve their existence, this would not be the right way as it would be too traumatizing for them.  I put the knife in the block.

I was driving my three children to the doctor’s office.  Our doctor’s office is quite a drive for us as I now live very far from where I grew up but I still go to the same doctor because I don’t like change.  I have to bring all three children with me to the doctor’s office because I am a stay at home mom, which essentially means they are stay at home kids.  So, the baby was due for his 6 month needles, I suppose, so we were headed to the doctor’s office for that.  Between our home and the doctor’s office there is a bridge.  We were on the bridge.  There was quite a lot of traffic on the bridge that day.  It was not as heavy as rush hour, but there was a steady stream of cars and trucks in both directions.  There were about three or four 18-wheelers on the other side of the road.  As the first one approached, it dawned on me that the knives were a bad idea because of all the blood, and because I would actually have to inflict that upon myself.  But these trucks, they would be much better choice.  If I could just veer slightly to the left, at just the right moment, just get my seat over the line as the got to me.  It would be an accident.  The force would surely be enough to kill me on impact, but my children behind me, they should be okay.  We are on a busy road so there would be lots of people who could get them out of the car and make sure they are okay, make sure they get to the hospital.  This terrified me.  Every time before this that I had ever thought about harming myself my children were the reason that I didn’t.  I couldn’t leave my children alone.  But here, here I had rationalized it to the point that I was certain they would be fine.  Knowing that I was able to do that, to take away the one thing that holds me back, that terrified me.  So, I decided on that bridge that while I was there I needed to talk to my doctor.

This is the first time I have said all of that.  I have started to tell people about those thoughts, the ones that made me realize I had a problem, but I have never been able to tell the whole story.  As a mom, I need to worry about my health and well-being so I can be the best mom I can be for my children.  But, as a mom, the worst possible thing I can think of would be losing my children.  And, those thoughts, these things that I couldn’t shake in this foggy state that I was in, I was sure would be enough to have my children taken away.  I was terrified to talk to my doctor.  I didn’t even want to admit to myself that I may have postpartum depression.  I mean, really, the only time anyone ever hears about postpartum depression is when you hear about the mothers who drowned their newborn babies in the bathtub or other equally horrific stories.  I wasn’t one of those, but I knew this had to be postpartum depression.

So, I made myself say it out loud to people.  At first, it was hard, I mostly looked at people and said, I’m not doing well – I did not actually say, hey, I have postpartum depression and it sucks!  I was so vague in fact that when I tried to hint to my own husband that I was struggling he didn’t even understand what I was trying to tell him.  I slowly went from vague to minimalist – oh, you noticed that I was looking a little sad there, did you?  Well, I guess that because I might be, maybe, dealing with just a little bit of postpartum, you know.  And, while each time I mentioned it was a little easier than the time before I still had a hard time saying it.  I never wanted to bring it up to anyone, but I so needed to just be able to tell someone how I was feeling.  Just to say, you know, I’m just in this really dark place right now, I’m having a hard time finding my way through it, and I’m just sad, for no good reason.  But, even now, coming up with the words to even explain how I was, and even am, feeling is near impossible.  I would spend an entire day trying to come up with the right words to tell my husband that I felt that we were drifting apart because of this, and then not say anything to him at all because the thought of saying it out loud was almost enough to bring me to tears.  The fact is, that when I was deep in this darkness, I was so sure he was on the verge of leaving me, because I serve no purpose.  Whether or not he believed that didn’t matter because from where I was standing everyone believed that, and anyone that tried to tell me otherwise was simply trying to make me feel better.  I was in the impossible place where I wanted to feel better but for some reason I just wouldn’t let myself.

At that first doctor’s appointment, I told the doctor that I was struggling a bit.  I told her that I was getting a little worried because of the thoughts I had been having.  She told me to try to exercise more and she sent a request in to the Women’s and Children’s hospital for reproductive mental health.  I smiled and nodded and pretended like I would try to leave my house after putting my children to bed to go for a walk when I knew that would never happen.  I knew that every night after 8pm whenever the kids were finally all in bed I would sit my butt down on the couch and watch tv with my husband in silence until I fell asleep.  The idea of leaving the house after the rigmarole of getting those kids to bed I would have no energy or desire to do anything else.  But, I figured I would get over it, that eventually I would just start to feel like myself again.

Maybe a month later I started having trouble breathing.  I still don’t know why.  I think it was likely related to the postpartum depression, it may have been postpartum anxiety, I don’t really know.  But, at that time I went back to the doctor.  This time, though, I went to see a different doctor because my doctor was not in.  This other doctor, the minute I said I felt I was struggling with postpartum she asked me to come back another day without my children, and she asked if I would be willing to go on some medication.  I left that appointment feeling a little torn: I felt a little worse because it was all becoming so real; but I felt a little better because someone was finally hearing me.  The day of my next appointment came and I got a phone call from the doctor’s office telling me I would need to reschedule as that doctor was out sick.  This threw me.  I had no idea how much stock I had put into this appointment.  I had so much riding on this, I finally felt like someone was listening to me, but I was so scared to talk about it.  There were so many mixed emotions and being told it had to wait one more day, I just couldn’t handle that news.

Enter most terrifying thought:

After discovering that I would need to reschedule, I take my three beautiful children to the grocery store.  Even in my memory I can feel the fog I was in that day.  It was a very dark day.  I take the children out of the car and put them into the stroller, or the shopping cart, I don’t even remember which at this point.  We start toward the grocery store.  We are in the parking lot, it is not very busy, but there are people coming and going.  I just remember moving very slowly and thinking that it would be nice to just stop in the middle of the road and let someone hit us all, take us all out.  Prior to that day, all I cared about was making sure my children were safe and cared for.  I didn’t want to be there, because I was useless, I was worthless and I was a burden on everyone.  But my children were everything, I never wanted anything to happen to them, until this day when I just wanted it all to be over for all of us.

So, when they called me the next day to reschedule again, they simply scheduled me in with another doctor because I could not handle waiting another day.  So, now I am going in to see a third doctor, one I have never met before, to tell them that I am struggling with postpartum and need help, again.  She prescribes me sertraline.  I make another appointment for a follow up.  And, at some point through all of this I get a call from reproductive mental health.  I love that I live in a country where I have access to free health care.  But, there are some serious flaws in our system, and mental health is a big one.  It seems that unless you know that you will try to harm yourself or someone else, you can wait.  The problem with that is, if you know you will try to harm yourself or someone else, chances are you are doing that, not looking for help.  So, I talk to this woman from reproductive mental health.  It is great, I am on my way to finding the path out of the darkness.  Until the end of our conversation when she asks how old my children are.  The baby, by this point was about 8 months old, by the time they would have been able to see me, he would have been 9 months old.  When the patients they see are at about 9 months postpartum they start figuring out where they will go to continue treatment.  So, my son was too old for me to be able to go to reproductive mental health.  I could call community mental health, but the wait for them will be just as long if not longer.  Seems pointless.  I weigh my options and eventually call, but I never get a call back.  All these appointments all get mixed up, but I ended up seeing a fourth doctor for a follow up, just to check in on how I am doing.  Then, I get hives, and my nursing infant gets a rash, too.  So, I stop taking the meds after only two weeks.  I make another appointment, with my family doctor again, so back to doctor number one.  She tells me that the mood stabilizing drugs are all related so it would be hard to find one that I would not react to, and I would have to wait until the allergic reaction subsides before starting a new drug, so that is the end of that.  She does put in a request to community mental health for me to try to get that going again.  I get a call from the doctor’s office shortly after that appointment that I need to call community mental health again so I can put myself on the wait list.  I call the number I was given from reproductive mental health.  After a couple of days of no response I assume that I will not hear from them, the same as before.  I find this all very discouraging which makes me wish I had never started talking about it in the first place.  I finally get the call from community mental health only to find out that they had given me the wrong number.  I get an intake appointment, not an appointment, just an intake, an appointment where they will decide whether or not I actually need their help, for September 26, 2016 – my son’s first birthday.  It took more than six months for me to go from realizing that I needed help to actually having an appointment for the professionals to determine whether or not I actually need help.  Now, that day came, and I was on a high, three days prior to that I was on a low.  Three days prior to my intake I held one of our Jamie Oliver knives and had an urge to stab my infant son, not because he was crying or because I felt that I couldn’t deal with him, just because it seemed like the thing I should do.  I did not, I put the knife away.  My heart broke a little.  I felt scared to hold him that evening, I felt like I shouldn’t hold him because I didn’t deserve to hold him.  I hugged him a little extra that evening, he didn’t really like it, but I needed it, I needed to apologize to him for the thought I had.  But, this didn’t matter, I was on a string of good days and was told I would not need the help as I was already doing what I needed to do to get through this on my own.  Inside I wanted to cry, I wanted to tell her that I was scared those dark days would come back and be worse, but on the outside I just blindly agreed with her because I wanted to believe it to be true.  And, maybe it was true, maybe I am getting better.  I certainly don’t have those terrifying thoughts anymore.  But, there is so much more to this than those thoughts, the thoughts were just what opened my eyes to what was happening.

Over those six months, I felt like the worst mother ever.  I would lose my temper with my children over the smallest things.  I would rarely sit with my children as they played.  I would leave them to entertain themselves, usually sitting the older two in front of the television, while I laid on the couch or sat in front of my computer trying to feel like a human being.  I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of what I was feeling, but I missed out a lot on time with my children.  The chores around the house seemed overly daunting, as if any chore would take more time than I have in a day to complete.  I would look around my home and feel the stress build up inside as I thought about all the things I needed to do and tried to calculate a way to get them done.

I am a mother who struggles.  I don’t struggle for any obvious reason.  I am a stay at home mom of three beautiful children.  I am a mother who just can’t get it together.  I can’t find the motivation to do what I need to do.  I will spend all day trying to figure out the best plan of action to accomplish the most I can in that day only to find that the day has passed me by with nothing getting done.  I am a mom who wants to spend time with her children, who wants to be present in the moment with her children, but can’t seem to find the motivation to get to their level and work with them.  I am a mother who adores her children to the point that I almost cry just from looking at them but lose my patience with them so easily.  Maybe these things are just normal, maybe I am simply drowning in a sea of everyday chaos; or maybe the postpartum is still poisoning me slowly, just enough so no one else will notice.

I have probably left out some details of my story, and there will likely be more to my story.  But, I believe that I am walking away from that darkness.  Even though I still have not figured out how to keep up with my three children, I do feel like there is less darkness in my life everyday.

I would also like to add, to anyone living in Nova Scotia, Canada dealing with mental health issues.  Call the mental health crisis line if you don’t feel like you are being heard.  After I already had my intake appointment set, it was pointed out to me that although I did not feel that I was in a crisis, maybe the fact that I had such a difficult time finding help was the crisis.

I will warn anyone preparing to read this that there is quite a few descriptions of my induction, labour and delivery that you may not want to read.

We recently welcomed another new baby to our family.  After the very different birth stories for my first two children, I felt like I knew what was coming.  I had had a c-section as well as a vaginal delivery, how could this birth be hugely different from both the other two?  It would certainly have to be similar to one of them.  As the days went by I started losing hope of having another vaginal birth.  The further past my due the more likely a c-section seemed, especially since I had gestational diabetes and was doomed to have a gigantic baby anyway.  At five days past due we had an appointment at the induction clinic.  We had no idea what would happen, if we would simply talk about our options and then have an appointment made for the induction or if they would just start the induction while we were there.  I was done with this pregnancy well before this appointment, so I knew, if I were given the choice I would opt to be induced as soon as possible.  Well, I was given that choice.  The process was started while we were there.  This was where this child’s story became very different from both my other children.  Because my first child was delivered via c-section, the usual beginning point of induction was not an option.  For anyone who has been through an induction, this would be Cervidil, which used to be a cream that was used to try to get dilation started, now it is an insert.  For previous c-section mothers this is not an option because the medication can cause excessive irritation around the incision site, or something along those lines.  So, instead, I was given a foley balloon catheter.  It is exactly what it sounds like, and just as uncomfortable as it sounds.  The put a tube with a deflated balloon up into the opening of my cervix, then they inflated the balloon with water.  It put some extra pressure on the opening of my cervix in the hopes of getting my labour started.  Contractions started almost immediately after they inserted the catheter, less than five minutes apart, fairly intense, but not unbearable.  The nurse gave me the instructions of; if I cannot talk through the contractions to come back, as the instructions I was given prior to receiving the catheter was if the contractions are consistently five minutes apart to come back.  Otherwise, if labour did not begin on its own, I was to return to the hospital 12 hours later – midnight.  The contractions lasted for several hours, they even became more intense, then they stopped for a few hours before we were to head back into the hospital.  When we returned to the hospital at midnight, we were taken straight to the birth units to be induced.  The next step was Oxytocin.  They began with small doses of Oxytocin and increased the dosage every 30 minutes.  This began at one in the morning, and we spent the evening waiting for the balloon to fall out.  At seven, when the shift changed, my day time nurse suggested tugging on the balloon a bit to see if it would fall out with a bit of help, and it did.  Now, it was time for my water to be broken.  The nurse went off in search of a doctor to break my water.  Shortly after there was a doctor in the room ready to break my water.  But, no such luck.  She checked my cervix to see if she would be able to break my water, and she tells us that she can feel a little hand.  The doctor explained that breaking my water was not an option at this point because of the hand, if she had broken my water I would have needed a c-section.  I was not interested in another c-section, so I was sent out to walk the hallways some more.  After walking the hallways for a bit, my doctor arrived to break my water.  No little hand this time, so my water was broken.  Now, with my first, my doctor broke my water as well, so I knew what to expect, but it did not go the same.  It seemed to only partially break.  Then, a little while later, when I got up to go to the bathroom, the rest gushed all over the floor, much like in the movies.  Gross!  Things picked up after this, the contractions became much more intense, and with little space between for a breath.  It took a long time for my cervix to dilate past the three to four centimetres that it was at when the balloon fell out.  I was asked to change how I was laying because the baby’s heart rate was dropping during contractions.  Then, I was asked to change positions because the baby was not facing the right direction.  Well, after the last change, which I was not keen on because it was painful and tiring, it did not take long to dilate.  Then came the pushing.  With my first I never made it to this point, while with my second I got to this point but was so terrified to push that I told them for two or three contractions that I didn’t feel like I needed to push even though I did.  Well, with this one when the feeling came there was no stopping it.  My body couldn’t seem to remember how to push properly, but I was pushing.  Not even fifteen minutes later, Thomas was born.  My gigantic gestational diabetes baby weighed only 7 lbs 14 oz and the nurse told us that he was was an early baby, not a post-dates baby, in spite of knowing the exact date of my last period and the conception date.

Okay, so here I am 35 plus weeks into my third pregnancy.  Mostly I don’t really have the time to think about the fact that I am pregnant, with a three year old and a one year old to be worried about all the time.  I mean, I always know that I am simply exhausted and sore all the time, but I don’t really have time to think about the amazing thing that is happening inside my body.  But, what I have found is that with each pregnancy I have had some crazy, irrational fear.  I’m sure this is just another pregnancy symptom that all mothers get but no one talks about.  But, I was laying in bed the other night suddenly struck by my irrational fear for this pregnancy and I decided I should just put these fears out there.  Maybe someone will laugh at it.  Or, maybe someone else who is pregnant and having irrational fears will accidentally stumble upon this and find some relief in the fact that they are not alone.  So, here they are:

Pregnancy #1:  I was convinced, from the time I took my pregnancy test until the moment I held my daughter in my hand that the doctors were just playing some cruel trick on me.  Every time I had an appointment I went in with the expectation that the doctor would look at me and say, “oh, sorry, you are not actually pregnant, you are just getting fat.”  Even though I could feel the baby moving inside, even though I could hear the baby’s heartbeat, even though I could feel the contractions, I never really believed that it was real.

Pregnancy #2: Second time around I knew it was the real deal, but that didn’t stop my fears.  During my second pregnancy I was convinced that something was going to happen to my baby.  Every time I had an appointment I had a sinking feeling that there would simply no longer be a heart beat, or that the heart beat would be irregular, or something.  I was convinced that I would either lose my baby or that something terrible would happen and the doctors wouldn’t be able to sustain my baby’s life for very long after birth.  In spite of being able to feel the baby moving inside, in spite of hearing a strong heart beat at every appointment, I just felt like something bad would happen.

Pregnancy #3: This time, I know my baby is really there, and I know my baby is healthy.  My fear this time is about me.  I had myself almost to tears the other night as this fear hit me.  My fear this time is that I will not make it through the delivery.  I know that it is not as common any more, but I also know that it still happens sometimes.  I know my children would be fine if anything were to happen to me, but I don’t want to miss my children growing up, I want to be a part of their lives.  This fear is the worst yet, I do not want this to happen to my children.  And, even though I know that this is an irrational fear, just like the fears I had during my first and second pregnancies, I just can’t shake it, and I can’t stop thinking about how terrible it would be for my children to have to go through that, and for my husband to have to look after three very young children on his own knowing that the youngest is the reason that I am not there to help.  Knowing that there is no life insurance on me to help my husband through it if something did happen.  But, it is just an irrational fear, the baby and I are both healthy and will make it through this.  Then, one day, maybe, I will look back at these terrible things that I was so worried about and have a little chuckle about how ridiculous it is.

So, every year we take a road trip in the summer.  Sometimes we take two, a short one just to New Brunswick for a couple of nights and a longer one to Ontario to visit my mother-in-law.  This year we did one two week road trip, we went to Quebec for a week instead of New Brunswick and then on to Ontario.  I spent months online trying to find ways to entertain my three year old daughter.  I spent time on Pinterest for the first time ever.  I do not like Pinterest.  I am not sure who these people are on Pinterest, but it is near impossible to make anything half as nice as what they put up for anywhere near the price they say they paid to make it.  However, I decided I wanted lots of distractions for my daughter so we wouldn’t have to rely entirely on the DVD player.  So, what did I find?

I found a Lego kit, amazing, a small metal lunch box, some Lego and some felt, seems easy enough, and should be able to be made fairly cheaply.  Not cheap.  I bought a small metal lunch box at the dollar store for $3, peel and stick felt from Walmart for maybe $6 (I don’t really remember), a bag of random Lego at Value Village for $4, but then I had to find a Lego baseboard.  New these are $10 which I was not willing to spend on this, they did not have any at Value Village, so I hit up Kijiji, this is not something you can find easily on Kijiji either, maybe because they are so expensive, I don’t know.  I did end up finding one on Kijiji that came with a small amount of Lego bricks for $7, I didn’t dare say what I was going to use it for because they may not have sold it to me if I had said I was going to cut it up.  I decided to use hot glue to hold it together, seemed like a good idea at the time, however, day 1 of our trip we had to pick up a double sided foam mounting tape for $2 at the gas station to fix it.  So, for roughly $22 I managed to make a little Lego kit.  It was worth it!  She loves it and still plays with it now.

I also found an activity binder.  Filled with wonderful, quiet activities perfect for in the car.  They used three ring pencil cases to put activities in the binder, everything was nicely organized.  How could this be bad, and how hard could it be to find some fun activities to put in there?  Well, turns out it could be very difficult.  I wanted to have a magnet board so she could have some magnetic activities, maybe some letter and number activities, maybe put some magnets on the bottom of some animals so she could do some pretend play in the car without risk of losing the pieces.  I could not find anything that would work for a magnet board, and by the time I realized I already had a magnet board in my house it was too late to make up any fun activities so she just had some random magnets to play with.  I had a hard time finding three ring pencil cases, too.  I ended up finding some at the dollar store but they were quite narrow so once I got the activities in the binder it was hard to close.

But, I put in some small toys and finger puppets for pretend play; some craft sticks with velcro for building; some foam beads and pipe cleaners for threading with a foam bunny with holes punched in it and some string for lacing; some felt pieces to go with the peel and stick felt I attached to the back of the binder; a tic tac toe board that came from a valentine’s card that I laminated and used velcro to attach the X’s and O’s; a number page, also laminated with velcro for the pieces; and an I Spy bag that I made with glitter pebbles from the dollar store and some small toys from Value Village.

Then, the binder I used also had a file folder part where I put some other activities. I put in a few books; a reusable sticker book; a sorting box with foam beads; a tin of wooden blocks that she got in her stocking at Christmas; a puzzle from the dollar store with velcro so she wouldn’t lose the pieces; and a notebook with paper for drawing and some markers.

So many things for her to play with, this should make the trip easy, right?  Wrong, this was a bad idea.  It was too difficult for her to get into and too big for her to keep on her lap.  She used it when we were at our destination, but didn’t use much of it while we were driving.

The sorting box was definitely a favourite.  So, some of my work paid off, but not as much as what I had put into it.  Next time I will just pick up some of those magic marker books and other little activities designed for in the car that take no effort on my part.

She also had her DVD player with lots of DVDs to choose from.  I set it up so that I could put the DVDs in and start and stop the movies when needed.  This was great because it meant that I could decide when she had had enough movies and I could also turn it off if she fell asleep.  She brought along her LeapPad as well.  Which was great until the batteries died and I realized I didn’t bring the actual charger for the LeapPad with us.  We also had a great little Lego mp3 player.  It was an amazing find.  Remember that bag of Lego bricks I said I purchased at Value Village for $4?  Well, inside that bag was this mp3 player.  I erased all the music on it and put on songs that she likes.  We spent some time on YouTube listening to songs to decide what she wanted on there.  I think this accidental find was by far the best one for keeping her entertained on the drive!

But what about the baby?  How will I keep him entertained?  I looked all over the internet for ideas.  There are no Moms posting fabulous ideas for entertaining an infant on a road trip.  So, he was left with just a bag full of toys, mostly toys he had his whole life, but with one new toy, an O-Ball rattle.  He loved this new toy, I am very glad that I bought it for him.  But, being an infant strapped into an infant car seat, he was not able to dig through his wonderful bag of goodies to keep himself entertained.  I had to sit back there with him and pull out new toys every so often, or mix him a bottle of formula.  But, he did very well in the car for all that time, I can’t really complain.

In Quebec we stayed in a vacation condo so that we could be together with my parents, my sister, her husband and their four children.  It was great, it is so much more relaxing to rent a place that is like a home rather than a hotel room.  We were able to cook our own meals for supper and we could put the kids to bed without having to worry about keeping them awake as we lay in the bed next to them watching “grown-up” TV.  There was no air conditioning and it was HOT, but it was adequate for our needs.

We did a lot of touristy things while we were there as well.  We went to the Montmorency Falls, the cyclorama (waste of time), the church that was next to the cyclorama, the Aquarium du Québec, the Méga Parc which is an indoor amusement park in the middle of a Mall, Old Québec City and Valcartier Village for the water park.  Aside from the cyclorama, these were all worth the trip.  I was a little disappointed with the water park, being pregnant there wasn’t much that I was able to do there.  But, in comparison to where we normally go the water park and the amusement park were amazing.  The aquarium was impressive as well, it was much bigger than we had anticipated and we didn’t really allow ourselves the time to see the whole thing, but we still had a lot of fun.

Ontario was amazing as always as well.  We took the children to visit their Grammie and Grob.  For Lily, anything with Grammie is exciting since she only gets to see her every couple of months.  We did a lot of fun things while we were there as well.  We went to the Ripley’s Aquarium and Canada’s Wonderland.  We also took the kids to a river to play in the water with Grammie’s dog.  We went up to Grammie and Grob’s camp and camped there for a night.  We did a bit of shopping and went to a swimming pool.  Both of the kids had a great time.

So, a baby’s first birthday is, for a lot of Moms, a time to hit up Pinterest for ideas on cakes, decorations, favours, snack trays and I’m sure so much more that all follow some specific theme.  Because we all want our child’s first birthday to be extra memorable, right?  Because they are going to remember it, right?  Well, I am not one of those Moms.  With our daughter, I went to the dollar store and bought some generic birthday decorations, plastic table cloths and a number 1 candle.  I also ordered a Minnie Mouse cake using a gift certificate my mother bought at an auction (read: it didn’t cost me anything).  I did pick up some party favours since I knew there would be some kids who are used to going to parties and getting favours, but nothing themed and nothing that took me any time.  I threw the little plastic toys and stickers into very generic bags and set them out on the table.  There was no theme, just a bunch of people getting together for cake.  I also did a cake smash photo shoot for her because they look like fun and a great way to preserve that first taste of cake.  I should also mention that we ended up postponing her first birthday party for six months because of snow storms, but we still had it because every child deserves a first birthday party, no matter how simple it is.

For our second child, I decided that I was going to go even simpler!  We still did the cake smash photos, but we did them outside because who cares if cake gets smeared all over the grass, it will just wash away or the birds and bugs will eat it.  And for the party, we will meet people somewhere in public where we will have to clean up, but there wont be as much to clean up, and we can just leave when it’s done.  A picnic party, perfect for a summer birthday.  This also means, no decorations, no party favours, just snack trays and cake.  So simple, how could this go wrong?  Well, it could rain, then we could need to come up with an alternate location, and that alternate location could end up being our house.  This is what happened, we had this birthday party in our house.  It was a rather small gathering in comparison to our first child’s, but there was cake and there were snacks.  No decorations, although I do still have the dollar store birthday banner from Lily’s first birthday, just people and food.  And do you know what?  It was just as nice as Lily’s first birthday party.  And, much less stressful, I can’t imagine if I had been up all night for weeks on Pinterest trying to make his birthday perfect.  What does it matter anyway?  He won’t remember the details, all he will remember are the photos and the stories.