Ok, so although I'm starting this blog today you'll notice a backtrack ALOT! The reason being that my twins are currently 5 months old and this all started long before now. I'm hoping in writing this that not only will it work as some kind of therapy for myself to help vent and express my emotions concerning this but that it might also help someone else out there have hope that some day this will end and lives will go back to normal.
I'll try to keep my blogs brief and blog daily but as we all know, it doesn't always work out that way lol.
In June of 2013 I was packing up my 5 year old son and getting ready to go camping with my parents and sister. My husband and I had just gotten back from an anniversary trip two weeks prior and I was feeling excited for summer. Now, backtracking a little farther, at the age of 20 I found out I was pregnant for the first time and with twins no less. Four months later I miscarried. Two years and Four miscarriages later I found out I had an abnormality that was exterminating my pregnancies prematurely. My doctor put me on medication and my son was born! Due to the severity of the abnormality I had to be put on the medication ASAP. Because of all this, I kept a handful of pregnancy tests on hand and would take them if I was even a day late.
Ok fast forward to 2013 and camping. I had an appointment with my OB the day before we were due to head for the mountains for birth control so I packed my son off to my parents and headed to the clinic. 30 minutes later I receive a call from the nurse informing me that (drum roll) I was pregnant! I'd taken a pregnancy test the day before and thought I'd seen a faint line so this wasn't a complete surprise but in a way it was...if that makes sense at all.
So we go to our appointment a few weeks later and find out BAM! it's twins. After the shock wore off, the panic set in. How was I going to care for two babies at once? How was I going to shop? Bathe them? Feed them? My son was born with a cleft lip and palate so I was terrified that the twins would also have the birth defect. How was I going to deal with that? I wasn't able to breast feed my son and I was really looking forward to trying with the new addition but with two? How could I even begin to try? All these thoughts were a constant reel running in my head through my whole pregnancy combined with 9 month long morning sickness and all the other problems associated with carrying twins (I'll blog about that later).
I'll blog about my delivery at a later date also, but I ended up having a C-section and got my tubes tied at the same time. Easy right? They sewed me up and rolled me back to my room. My girls were brought to me a little while later and things started clicking into place. I was learning how to hold both at once, how to change little diapers all over again and how to co-sleep two babies. Baby A ended up being 5 lbs 12 oz and Baby B was 5 lbs 10 oz. so pretty good weights for doubles. My son was 6 lbs 7 oz tho so handling these tiny little bundles was a bit of a stress.
Three days later I was released to go home and we introduced the girls to their new environment. Things were extremely weird for the first month or so. I don't handle change well and all of a sudden my home was filled with diapers and baby clothes and PINK! The girls also refused to breast feed so add on the expense of formula to our stress. My husband took two weeks off work to help with my son and the babies so I was doing pretty good...or so I thought. Two months in and I was still doing ok. I mean I was tired and strung out trying to juggle babies, a son in kindergarten that had to be picked up daily and housework but I was managing pretty well.
My breaking point came not long after that. The girls were becoming more demanding and my son seemed to be sick constantly. Both babies caught a head cold and the days were a blur of humidifiers and nose suckers. I found myself breaking into tears at odd moments...just out of the blue. I figured it was fatigue and "baby blues". I gave it a few more weeks of non-stop tears and figured I was starting to get a hold of myself. The tears were still there but I was functioning again and crying a little less. I wouldn't break down and sob as if my heart was broken for no reason. I thought about calling my doctor but figured it wasn't anything major. I'd been suffering the crying jags since about week two but nothing like this. I'd mentioned it at my check up but shrugged it off again as hormonal changes and ignored my doctor to keep an eye on it....DON'T DO THAT! Please don't brush anything off as inconsequential. Every little change is a warning sign of bigger things to come and I'd wished I'd listened to my body more. Maybe if I'd caught it sooner I wouldn't have gone through what happened in the coming months.
Month three...still crying but ignoring it and feeling down. My sister-in-law and I decided to have her cousin dye our hair and do some pampering. Her cousin lives about 45 minutes away and does hair out of her house so we packed up my three kids and headed out. Between the three of us I figured we had enough hands to pass them around and keep them happy. On the way I stopped and bought a huge soda to load up on caffeine so I wouldn't crash in the middle of the day. We got to the house, unloaded all the baby paraphernalia and settled in for what was supposed to be a fun day. My sister-in-law went first so I changed diapers, made bottles and tried to keep my 6 year old from bouncing off the walls and driving me nuts. It was hectic! I began to notice I was getting more and more twitchy but figured it was the caffeine. I couldn't sit still and the whole time I just wanted to get done so I could head home. My parents were supposed to be heading into town for groceries so I tried constantly to call them to see if they could either pick me up or take my son and/or girls to relieve some of my anxiety. No such luck.
Again I'm going to back track for a minute to some time prior to this little escapade. In the middle of the night the girls had both woke up for their feeding at the exact same time (not unusual) and I'd stumbled out of bed and picked up one baby, got her settled for her bottle and headed back for the second. I had noticed my head felt a bit fuzzy and I was a bit overheated. Bottles ready, I sat down and was almost done when the heat became unbearable and the whole world started to spin. Immediately I thought I was going to die and panicked over what was wrong with me. I stumbled into the kitchen and doused the back of my neck with ice and water while panting my breaths. My arms and legs were shacking uncontrollably and I couldn't walk straight. Luckily both girls were asleep and safe on the couch so I slowly made my way into my bedroom and collapsed on the bed, dropping my head between my knees to keep from passing out. After a few minutes I felt slightly better and managed to walk around the bed to my husbands side. I shook him awake and told him I needed his help to burp the girls and get them to bed, that I wasn't feeling well. We each took a baby and put them to bed. He fell back asleep pretty quickly (it was about 3 am) and I figured I'd crash pretty hard after that little episode combined with the four hours sleep I was getting...but no such luck. I found myself staring at the ceiling terrified I was going to have another episode and it took a good 1-2 hours before I drifted off to sleep. The next morning I was a bit weak but feeling ok so again, I brushed it off and continued on.
Back to the cousins house. I couldn't find anyone to come take me or my kids so I weathered the storm and stayed the day, doing my hair and taking care of the kids. My hair was in foils and covered in chemicals waiting to process and both girls were fed so I sat down and decided to rest for a minute, maybe try and sleep for a few. Again, my insides felt like I was having seizures and my brain was spinning so fast I couldn't close my eyes. "Must be the caffeine" I thought and AGAIN brushed it off. After a few minutes I made my way into the bathroom to rinse and kneeled by the tub with a washcloth over my face while the cousin washed my hair. Not two minutes into it and I felt like I was dying. I couldn't catch my breath, my head was spinning horribly and I started to physically shake again. I bit my cheek and waited for her to finish, telling her that I was feeling super light headed so to give me a minute before standing me up. Slowly I made it to the living room and sat down with a thick piece of paper to fan my overheated face. I seriously felt like a baby horse all weak and shaky. My sister-in-law took one look at me and told me to drop my head between my knees, that I was going to pass out and that I was white as a sheet. I didn't even brush out my hair or anything, as soon as I was able to stand I had them take the girls to the car and had my sister-in-law drive to get me home. Ten minutes out of town I started feeling 100% and you'd never guess anything was wrong.
I still hadn't made the connection yet so when I got home I found sitters and went to the clinic, thinking maybe it was my blood sugar or something else. They ran a huge array of tests; taking blood, EKGs, chest x-rays...ruling out everything major they could think of. Everything came back just fine so that left one possibility left...panic attacks. Yep, plain old anxiety. I'd suffered from it before but never to this extreme. After my son I was put on a low dose anxiety medication and things seemed to be just fine. I'd been off of them for over a year before the twins were born AND I no longer needed my depression meds. I figured I was on the mend and had finally gotten my life back. Apparently not. I was prescribed 10mg of Celexa with the lowest dose of Ativan they make. The Celexa was a daily pill that would hopefully take care of the panic and depression over time while the Ativan was to be taken if or when I had attacks for fast relief. So what caused this sudden onslaught of anxiety? Why after so long was I back in the pit of despair?
That's when I started searching for answers. Every change I got I was searching the internet and reading blogs and stories of other mothers who were suffering the same thing I seemed to be. The answer that kept popping up everywhere was PPA/PPD...post partum anxiety and post partum depression. The PPD is easier to physically see and watch for, you're warned of it when you leave the hospital after having a baby. But the PPA? I'd never heard of it in my life until I started my search. All of a sudden here was something that answered every question I had...who's checklist of symptoms I was marking off one by one. I wasn't losing my mind or dying from some strange disease. And I'd already taken the first step to help...talking to my doctor and getting medication.
Now, here's the bad news....my PPA is still here and rampant. The medication helps but it's not gone and some days are better then others. Will it ever go away completely? No idea. Did my tubal have anything to do with it? I'm beginning to think so due to some of my symptoms. So I'm going to blog as often as I can to share my experiences and stories in the hopes that others fallow suit...maybe in keeping a public record we can share tips on what we've learned in our journey and support for those of us still going through it. I know this entry was long and thanks for hanging in there with me.
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