Around this time I met the love of my life. We met at the gym and fell in love. He is amazing. We found out awhile later that I was pregnant. Yay! Life was even more exciting then ever. The love of my life and I were making plans to have our first baby together.
I had a relatively normal pregnancy. Little bit of morning sickness, couldn't handle certain smells and so on but nothing crazy.
Because I did such intense workouts my coaches stopped me from doing a lot of my normal training. At the time I worked out in a very hot warehouse of a gym and so I was only allowed to be on the row machine for small amounts of time.
I hated it. It wasn't what I wanted to do so I slowly stopped going. The morning sickness was making workouts almost impossible anyway so by the time my morning sickness had subsided I was past the "you can go back to working out" stage in my pregnancy.
By this time my prenatal depression had totally sunk in. Oh, I didn't mention that lovely part of my pregnancy? Well, at that time I thought it was normal. Normal to be up at night shaking in fear that someone was going to take my baby away from me. And for no valid reason did I have this fear. I had an amazing supportive boyfriend that did everything he could to help. My parents were shocked I was pregnant at first but were also very supportive.
I guess between history of having depression and the abrupt stop to my exercising made a perfect storm and I was living in horrible fear. The worst part is that no one knew anything about it.
I hid it super well. I didn't want to be labeled as the "crazy pregnant girl" so I didn't talk about it much. If I did talk about anything it was super vague and I brushed it off like it was nothing.
When I had my little girl I cried tears of joy. I remember having tears just pour down my face because I loved this little girl so much.
I was so super excited to be a mom. And about a minute after I saw her for the first time my prenatal depression turned into horrible postpartum depression. It was horrible. Again I hid it. I didn't understand what was going on in my head. Where the thoughts were coming from. I remember walking around about my third night in the hospital (I had a planned C-section, she was Breech) thinking I can't take her home. I have to tell a nurse that I'm going crazy and then they will take her and keep her safe.
It was the best and worst part of my entire life. Here I have this amazing little girl who is perfect in every way, an amazing supportive boyfriend a wonderful family all around me, and all I could think is take me to a mental hospital because I am loosing it. I couldn't not be around her but I also didn't want be around her alone. I was scared. Not because of what may happen but why these intruding thoughts were happening. And it was all day and all night. I tried to make them stop. I did everything. Sing a song. Think about fun days my love and I had gone on. Tell my baby girl I loved her for every time I had a crazy thought. It was horrible.
It took about 10 months for my doctor to figure out what was wrong with me. I blamed my hypothyroidism. It was really the only health problem besides depression that I had ever really dealt with.
My doctor said I was depressed. I told her no. I was happier then I even was. I had my new baby, an amazing man who I was now married to, and I had lost all my baby weight and was back into all My favorite clothes. There was NO reason for me to be depressed. Except that I was.
I was diagnosed with OCD postpartum depression. It's not like normal baby blues a lot of women go through. Its a lot worse. And it took my Doctor going to a Seminar the weekend before my appointment ON postpartum depression to figure me out. I never once led on to it because I was scared she would think I was a horrible mom. And all you even see about it in any paperwork is "if you think you're going to hurt your baby, you may have postpartum depression" which is of no help!
Well, I wasn't going to hurt my baby I knew that for sure. But the thoughts I had made it seem like I was going too. I felt absolutely crazy. I actually looked into checking myself into a hospital a couple of times.
The minute my doctor told me it was ok that these thoughts were "normal" a huge weight lifted off of me. I knew then that I wasn't the only one like this. That many many women go through it. She in fact was one of them as well.
After that appointment I was put onto an antidepressant and I got a lot better. Mentally I was thinking clearly and could function again. But with this new mental clarity came an enormous weight gain being on new medication.
Over the next 2 years I gained 75 pounds. I watched the scale go up and up. Some weeks I tried to stop it. Some weeks I didn't care at all.
And that is where I am at today. I am still on my antidepressants and still take thyriod medication to help it function. It doesn't seem to want to function properly because every time I go in to get my blood work done it is always off the wall crazy numbers. Sometimes super high (which is really bad) and sometimes really low (which is also really bad).
Lately I have been doing much better about my eating and working out. Since getting out of school in Feburary I started working out a little more regularly. And by that I mean like 6 or 8 times a month. I know. Going from 3 or 4 hours a day, 4 days a week to being proud of a few times a month. Ugh.
Now My hubby and I signed up at a new gym and I am loving it. I go do some cardio and we play some racquet ball a few times a week. I have been out in the garden cleaning it for summer and also watching what I'm eating again. Some days are better then others. Some days I do wonderful while others I eat everything in sight.
I just started a Dietbet online so that is the reason I decided to start a blog.
I need the accountability. I need to know that people are rooting for me along with my husband. He tries so hard to help me and I love him for that. Now I need to know other gals who have gone through what I've gone through and come out fine on the other side.
