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30Oct

Prepartum Depression

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 1 Comment

Is it possible to contract postpartum depression before one’s baby is born?

I feel like I was handed a “Get Out of Jail Free” card when Natalie was born. The depression I was expecting, due to both my mother’s lifelong misery and my own pessimistic streak, never materialized. I never felt trapped in an impossible life, resentful of my baby, overwhelmed by the minute hand. I never had to measure the success of a day by how few irrational crying sessions I managed. I never battled fatigue that pinned me down with almost-physical force. I never felt unthinkable thoughts like I don’t want to be a mother anymore.

Until now. Yesterday was our due date according to my first ultrasound, and I can’t fathom why I’m still pregnant… not when the baby is big enough to be a two-month-old, not when her sister was born four weeks early, not when I’ve spent every day of the last month analyzing contractions. It feels like punishment, especially since my mind and body no longer cooperate with the simple task of surviving. And no, realizing that she will be here soon no longer makes me excited.

I already want to delete this post because I don’t want to admit that this October has sucked, tremendously, and because I don’t want to give people the impression that I’m imperfect (Pastor’s Kid Syndrome) or–heaven forbid–neurotic. That’s why I haven’t written much lately and why I haven’t posted most of what I’ve written.

This morning, however, I was reading some of Dooce’s archives about depression as well as journal entries from a friend whose newborn daughter was born crippled, and their honesty loosened the straightjacket I’ve shoved over my struggling brain. I have plenty of relatives who cope with problems by stuffing them into a sealed vault that eventually corrodes and leaks acid over everyone around, and I don’t want to do that to myself or my family. Ever.

So this post has no point except to say I’m having a hard October, which feels a lot like admitting I’m an alcoholic or a serial killer or possibly a combination of the two. But I’m glad to open the vault. It’s my grown-up way of rebelling against my parents and also a pretty good way to actively unregret myself. Call it therapy.

22Oct

Apologius Gestationus

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 2 Comments

I’ve been drifting somewhere off the coast of Reality for the last… week? decade? I have little sense of time anymore. I often find myself clinging to delirious excitement until my emotive muscles shake from the effort, then falling perilously low into hatred of life, love, and all things cute. Only 38 weeks, yet I feel like I will be pregnant forevermore.

I do apologize for the gestational theme of the few blog entries I’ve managed to eke out lately. This site is not a mommyblog, and if it ever becomes such, you have permission to hate-mail me into obscurity. My only excuse for solely pregnancy-related entries is that my brain has been replaced by Britney Spears’s voice whining “Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby.” (Even worse than you’re imagining right now.)

I will be human again eventually. Promise.

17Oct

Not.enough.sleep.

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized Comments Off on Not.enough.sleep.

When Natalie comes padding, bright-eyed, into my room, I am still curled in a fetal position, my breaths overlapping like a newborn’s. My body, my mind, and my motherly instincts are cemented to the bed. Not. enough. sleep.

I find the energy to put her back in her room simply because I have to. I hug her wearily and stumble back to bed with the image of her crumpling face superimposed on my mind. Pressed back against my pillow, I remember the dirty dishes sprawling across the kitchen, the editing work my brain just can’t focus on, the pastry crust in the fridge waiting for a pie I’m too exhausted to make. I realize that waking up is the most tiring chore on my growing daily list. I think about the years of therapy I’m carving out for Natalie by this third-trimester abandonment. She’s still sobbing in her room, and I simultaneously want to shake her until she stops and to cradle her in the kind of hug that absorbs every tear. But I’m too tired for either. It’s the lowest point of my week.

(I need this baby to come soon.)

16Oct

Marshmalliracles

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized Comments Off on Marshmalliracles

I feel like I’m holding miracles–this thin sheet of paper with smudgy blue stamps that says I’m a legal resident, this printed green postcard that says I have health coverage. I can’t help feeling like somebody else’s name should be written across the top or that some saw-toothed disclaimer is waiting to jump out and bite me. My ability to relax is wobbly from months of disuse.

But, as reluctant as I am to believe, everything is OK now. I can breathe deeply without fear of triggering uninsured contractions. I can stop plugging each moment of my daughter’s upcoming birth into a mental cash register. I can read Baby, Come Out! to Natalie with the kind of giddy excitement our littlest girl should be greeted with.

::Relaxation (which sounds exactly like the marshmallowy steam swirling up from a mug of hot chocolate)::

13Oct

No Week’s Too Hard For Chocolate

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 1 Comment

This has been a hard week, though I don’t exactly know why. Alien mind probes in the middle of the night? Psychotic ninth-month hormones sabotaging my sense of happy? Mental leprosy™? Of course, hard weeks wouldn’t be doing their evil duty unless they hit me over the head each time I tried to write or smile or do anything more enjoyable than laundry, so I started the weekend with a house full of clean clothes, no blog entries to show for it, and a headache. Woe.

But then this morning dawned with the perfect mix of blue-sky radiance and glittering breeze that makes me lust for October. And though we couldn’t go downtown to elbow our way through the huddled masses at EuroChocolate*, we spent a relaxing morning with a lovely friend at one of Tuscany’s rare outlet malls. Which included a Lindt store. Which served Varesino. Which is what coffee would be if it died of too much happiness, went to chocolate heaven, and resurrected in a tiny glass with frothy milk. ::Dying of happiness at the memory::

Chocolate spoon lovin'

Plus, we finally got a set of glass espresso cups so we can trick our guests into thinking we are 1) grown-up and 2) cool. Plus, Natalie got to expend weeks’ worth of energy and giggles on the playground. Plus, the Italian hills along our drive were the kind of beautiful I can sink into like a Jacuzzi.

So, this week in summary? Not so very hard at all.

*Due to Operation No-More-Contractions-Until-I-Get-Health-Insurance-On-Tuesday-That’s-Right-I’m-Talking-To-YOU-Uterus!

8Oct

Bipolar Calendar

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 2 Comments

Some days, dusty floors and dirty dishes loom like precipices between me and my hopes, squarely blocking the path to fulfillment. Other days, they seem as familiar and unassuming as old friends, offering the quiet satisfaction of caring for my family.

Some days, being a mother is just another chore on a too-long list, and when the chore regenerates itself for the fifth–and then the fifteenth–and then the fiftieth time, I can feel my bones wearing through. Other days, it is a dizzying gift, and each moment I get to spend with my little girl warms my heart to life like sunshine.

And food, of course… Some days, our hereditary need to eat feels like a curse, pinning me to the stove with the weighty expectation that I will produce something edible, and then pinning us to the table to fill our demanding stomachs yet again. Other days, mealtime presents a delightful creative challenge–think “Ratatouille” without the rats or the France–and gives us a lovely way to relax.

I wish I could pry open the secrets of each day, to find out what magic makes some float and what snags others down into the silt. What makes sunshine glaring vs. cheerful? What makes an unscheduled 24-hour block daunting vs. freeing? What makes work wearisome vs. satisfying? How do I vacillate so easily between days when breath itself is pure happiness and days when even my precious family is not enough?

I’m afraid that the only secret is that my life has chronic bipolar disorder… and they don’t make medication for calendars yet.

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